The paradigm upon which the typical executive office suite is based no longer fits real circumstances. This is in part because of the general inadequacy of workspace environments and because of hidden and inadequate design assumptions regarding what constitutes executive work in the 21st. Century.

Few like the place they work in, however, few challenge the basic premises on which these largely dysfunctional environments are based. Most accept what is as a given - as something that can only be marginally improved at best. A different color, or desk, arrangement or material - yet all these are a variant of the same thing. In every real solution, there are general principles, components and individual requirements that must be met to have a healthy and effective workspace. There are universal and more-or-less permanent physical elements and work flow aspects that must be present and adapted as circumstances and work changes. My own workplace reflects this evolution. The modern workplace, now, is always changing, and doing so at an ever faster pace. However, at any moment, workplaces must provide universal and always-present architectural values and the specific solutions required by real work demands as they are at that moment for individuals and their team (s) or group(s). So called solutions that deal with change merely by providing generic, everything to everybody and nothing to nobody, innocuous, non-distinct spaces and tools are to be rejected for the fraud they are. Both individual expression and team performance suffer in these circumstances.

21st Century executives and knowledge workers perform many tasks each requiring a specific work process, set of support tools and environment. The standard office space supports some of these well, most poorly, and an unacceptable number of them not at all. The concept of the executive office has changed little in over a century. Any architecture that is to be successful, as a workplace, must be based on the work-processes of the users as a utility and their proper expression as art. Accomplishing this focus - the two together, combined with the care to build a healthy environment, makes a functional place to work. The EXECUTIVE and the executive function is under great pressure in the modern organization. Executive augmentation is required if the executive routine is to stay requisite with the complexity that is emerging at ever increasing rates.

The Executive NavCenter is a tool to provide augmentation of the “executive routine” - both the new and traditional functions of the executive process.