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    Is the office cubicle actually designed to crush your soul?

    Over the past several decades, the cubicle has become universal shorthand for an oppressive, soul-crushing work environment where dreams go to die. But why has the cubicle become both so hated and so ubiquitous? With equal doses of deadpan humour and historical insight, the Canadian filmmaker Zaheed Mawani tackles the rise of the cubicle and the matter of why its inventor, the US designer Robert Propst, came to hate its implementation.

    Director: Zaheed Mawani

    26 January 2015
    Abstract digital art with blue, beige and black geometric shapes forming a whimsical face on a white background.

    videoHome

    How our rooms shape our world, and vice versa

    3 minutes

    Cartoon of a person at a desk with laptops, surrounded by robots holding binary signs. Colourful abstract background.

    videoWork

    ‘Brand consultant’? ‘PR researcher’? Why the ‘bullshit jobs’ era needs to end

    4 minutes

    An elderly man working with wood outside. He is wearing a beanie and jacket. Garden and building are in the background.

    videoHome

    Once a geodesic dome advocate, Lloyd Kahn now favours hand-built, simple homes

    7 minutes

    Illustration of a stylised person standing with a chain and ball against a red and white radial background.

    videoPolitics and government

    Aldous Huxley on the dangers of being ‘caught by surprise by our own advancing technology’

    6 minutes

    Photo of cartoon sketches pinned to an office wall, with people working in the background under fluorescent lights.

    videoArt

    What happens when an artist doesn’t give up the day job?

    6 minutes

    Photo of an older man with white hair and beard in a cityscape with tall modern buildings in the background.

    videoEconomics

    A tour of New York’s gaudiest neighbourhood with the Marxist geographer David Harvey

    13 minutes

    A man in a small booth reading a magazine with a computer screen in front of him and a poster on the door.

    videoFairness and equality

    For some in Japan, cramped internet cafés double as cheap living spaces

    10 minutes

    A vintage mechanical machine with gears, switches and an abstract schematic on the left side.

    videoComputing and artificial intelligence

    A jazzy 1972 history of the computer, from the designers Charles and Ray Eames

    10 minutes

    A humanoid robot with a screen displaying cartoon eyes, set in a room with a yellow wall and dark brick wall.

    videoWork

    The robots are coming… for our jobs! Why the human workforce is at risk

    15 minutes