E. Lam / DALL-E
As we head towards the winter, many offices are settling into new patterns of work?some maintaining hybrid work options established during the pandemic, some returning to in-person work in offices. Still others are pushing to move from the former to the latter.
Many smaller firms are back to in-person work?a number of them only left their offices during mandated pandemic lockdowns. In cities like Winnipeg, where many architects live near offices in the downtown core, a full return to in-person work is more common. But many larger firms, particularly in bigger cities where longer commutes are the norm, have been seeing less than half of their staff return to the office. In cities like Vancouver and Toronto, where housing prices have risen sharply in recent years, some staff permanently relocated outside of the city during the pandemic. Toronto-based dkstudio architects says that it?s been challenging to bring their 24 people consistently back into the office. ?The main struggle is with the younger group,? says co-founder Karen Mak, noting that ?they don?t have the experience to work independently, yet they don?t want to come to the office.? Her strategies for enticing staff to return range from prioritizing those who show up for design-forward projects and raises, to getting an office puppy and bringing in unexpected treats (the other day, mochi donuts). 
Maxime Frappier of ACDF, a 100-person firm in Montreal, says that in their case, many of those working f...