What Video Calls Say About Us… Really!

On October 29, 2026, Le Cherche Midi will publish *The Power Broker: The Life of Robert Moses, the Man Who Made New York*, the French translation of Robert Caro’s monumental 1,200-page work *Robert Moses and the Fall of New York*, which was released in 1974 in the United States and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1975. The subject matter is, apparently, fascinating and rich in topical questions… but that’s not why we’re mentioning it.

In the midst of the pandemic, on May 28, 2020, The New York Times noted in an article that it had apparently become fashionable for public figures being interviewed by the media via videoconference from their homes to display the thick volume of *The Power Broker* in the background, casually placed on their bookshelves. This, in fact, is where we wanted to get to—even if the path has been a bit roundabout, as we admit.

The way American viewers looked at that time—from a distance—at the interior glimpsed on screen and its every detail—including the big book—is exactly the same as the way clients or partners look at your company during a videoconference. Whether consciously or not, they take in—around and behind the people they’re speaking with—the surroundings of the offices or meeting rooms, which are broadcast unfiltered. They step into your work environment as if they were physically there as visitors. What do they perceive? What, then, is the first impression they take away? Knowing that this impression can quickly prove to be just as significant as the conversation itself—or even as the people participating in it—to the point of distracting them, either positively or negatively!

Chambers Architects has made spaces for remote collaboration one of the major focuses of its current thinking about premium work environments. Why? Because there is no point in carefully considering every aspect of comfort, usability, and brand image in interior spaces dedicated to videoconferencing—or occasionally set aside for this purpose—if the result is a thoughtless representation of those spaces. Consequently, it becomes essential to understand the sensory experience of a remote participant. This requires a different approach than the usual one used in designing spaces that are physically occupied and experienced as such. Here, the experience is constructed through technical means—the camera’s eye and the microphone’s ear. There is no choice but to fundamentally rethink these spaces—their layout, colors, lighting, materials, soundscapes, and technical integration—in light of this new use… without ever compromising the spaces’ original, physical purpose.