As companies rethink how offices should function in a hybrid work era, workplace design is increasingly moving beyond aesthetics and square footage. Productivity, wellness, collaboration and operational efficiency are becoming central to how enterprises evaluate office spaces.
It is this shift that Arnav Gusain believes created the opportunity for Rivet, the design and build arm launched by WeWork India.
“The whole purpose of Rivet was an extension of our business and our leadership’s vision of the workplace as a platform,” says Gusain. “What we are trying to do is become a one stop shop for all real estate requirements that a client or a corporate might have.”
Rivet enters the market with the advantage of operational experience gathered through WeWork India’s aggressive expansion over the last several years. The company says it has already delivered nearly 8.5 million square feet of workspace across the country through the same teams that now support Rivet’s offerings.
That scale has also shaped how the company approaches execution. According to Gusain, WeWork India’s growth trajectory required evaluating multiple properties for every single workspace launched. “We are practically opening one centre every month. To open one centre, we evaluate around 10 to 15 properties in depth. A lot of work happens behind the scenes before a workspace is operational,” he says.
For Rivet, that operational insight is now being converted into a service business aimed at enterprises looking for more integrated workspace solutions.
India’s design and build segment has traditionally been fragmented, with companies often dealing separately with consultants, designers, contractors and project managers. Gusain believes that gap has affected transparency and consistency in delivery.
“In the managed office segment, we realised there was a huge gap in terms of transparency and client satisfaction,” he says. “It is not just about translating a client’s requirement onto paper and executing it on site. We operate these spaces ourselves, so we understand how workplaces should function efficiently from both a design and operational perspective.”
That understanding, he argues, is becoming increasingly important as enterprises compete to improve employee experience at a time when hybrid work continues to influence workplace decisions.
For Gusain, workplace design today is closely linked to human behaviour. “The office has to become a place employees look forward to coming to,” he says. “It cannot feel like an effort.”
He points out that long commutes and infrastructure challenges across Indian cities have changed how employees perceive office life. As a result, organizations are under pressure to make the time spent at work more meaningful and productive.
“Wellness has become a big factor. It is about how productive somebody’s day is after travelling to work,” he says. “That translates into collaboration spaces, comfort, planning and how efficiently the workspace functions.”
The conversation around design, he says, is also evolving from pure space planning to a broader understanding of the building ecosystem itself. Factors such as movement flow, operational efficiency and the overall user experience inside a workspace are becoming equally important.
“What does the building offer? What does it not offer? How do you compensate for those gaps through design? Those are the questions that matter now,” he says.
Gusain’s own experience across real estate sourcing, design and execution has shaped Rivet’s integrated approach. Having worked in the sector for nearly three decades, he says workplace projects cannot succeed in silos.
“It is not just about real estate, procurement or execution independently,” he says. “It is about bringing all these aspects together and delivering a complete package to the end user.”
That strategy could become particularly relevant as India continues to attract Global Capability Centres (GCCs), many of which are looking for scalable and experience-led office environments across multiple cities.
Rivet is positioning itself to tap into that opportunity by leveraging WeWork India’s existing operational network and execution capability.
“We already have the expertise of designing and executing spaces in the cities we operate in,” says Gusain. “The idea is to understand a client’s needs, consult them with our operational experience, and then execute the project to their expectations.”
The company’s growth ambitions also reflect the broader momentum within India’s commercial real estate and managed office sectors.
According to Gusain, WeWork India currently has nearly two million square feet of projects under active development, including managed office spaces that are expected to roll out in phases over the coming months.
From Rivet’s perspective, the company is now focused on scaling its independent business pipeline. “We did close to around ₹50 crore worth of business last year, and the intention is to grow that further,” he says.
For Rivet, the larger opportunity lies in a workplace market that is no longer looking at offices as static infrastructure, but as environments that directly influence productivity, culture and retention.
“Design is subjective because every person experiences a workspace differently,” says Gusain. “The challenge is how to create a sense of comfort, efficiency and personal connection within that space.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
