How The Bauhaus Style Helps To Design Our AI Workflow

Form Follows Function

One main principle of the Bauhaus design philosophy says that the form must follow the function. So, a form is driven by its actual use and not as a short-term trend. An office, in the AI era, and its tools, used in this office, have to be designed for human use, for human judgment, for working, and for discussing topics. AI will support this daily work, with AI tools being visible but not disrupting the human workflow.

Every AI interface or tool should clearly define what it can do for humans and should be judged by humans, if it is really helpful and needed. No AI automation should overwhelm humans. The first question must always be: What role do humans play in the overall work process? Once this role has been clearly defined, an AI application can be integrated into the workflow.

According to the Bauhaus design principle of minimalism, no space and no design object should overwhelm the human experience. This means that you need quiet spaces, a clear information hierarchy, reduced notification sounds, and no AI overload as fundamental components of your working environment. Humans must not be reduced to small, insignificant cogs in a large machine, as in the age of industrialization, where AI dominates every second of human life.

The Design of The Future Office

In the office of the future, AI can be treated like a design material, such as glass or steel, rather than a separate element with a separate meaning. Interdisciplinary teams, including designers, engineers, operations managers, ethics and human resources managers, should work together to create an AI ecosystem with a framework that is consistent with the company's code of conduct. Decisions about the design of the AI workplace are developed jointly in workshops, in keeping with the Bauhaus philosophy.

When working with AI tools or apps, the Bauhaus minimalism principle helps that we need applications with fewer features, fewer dashboards, and simpler controls, that pretends the AI's tendency to generate endless options and hallucination.

Most important is to decide what not to automate, preserving meaningful friction, and to include human check-ins where errors and AI ethics can be checked on a daily basis.

Bauhaus always saw its approach as a total environment design or a total work of art (Gesamtkunstwerk). For us today, this means that we should view the design of our future AI-integrated workplace as an entire ecosystem. The physical architecture of offices, digital tools, prompts, ethical guidelines, and the entire daily rhythm must be considered as a whole. Now that AI has been integrated as a new tool, it should not be viewed as a separate application isolated from the rest of our daily work structure.

We design “work” as a network of spaces based on the Bauhaus principles of clarity and simplicity. Generative AI tools can be used to explore many options and to support, optimize, and accelerate the organization of our work and our lives.

In this new era of work, human judgment remains at a meta-level to select and refine workflows.

How Do You Structure Your Work in The Bauhaus style?

Let's apply these Bauhaus AI principles to a design sketch in a specific context for your everyday work.

Design Your Day at The Office

Define a concrete outcome from a concrete task, based on a human decision. Identify and use AI tools that can help you achieve this outcome. No add-ons disturb your work, just a minimalist, clearly defined workflow, where form follows function.

The Bauhaus Style Work Setting

Use minimalist ergonomic furniture with hidden storage features that keep your workspace clean and not overloaded. No ornaments on your screen, adapt your digital desk to the clear structure of your physical environment. A limited, calm palette of wood and metal, with only a small number of calming colors is used for the design of your office.

Morning, Midday and Afternoon at The Office

Start with AI as your assistant, not as the dominant driver of the whole scene. Use paper and pen to take notes, talk to colleagues, and avoid only AI-written messages. Use earplugs for deep work sessions, where you can concentrate without distractions from an AI chatbot.

Stand, walk, and talk between meetings or phone calls. Do not let the AI ”always-on”, 24/7 working rhythm define your day. Go for a light lunch outside of the offices; do not eat at your desk. Listen to music, which you choose in your breaks and which is not chosen by an AI.

Use the Bauhaus modular system to reduce cognitive workload. Define your afternoon modules, e.g. a research block, an email communication block, an admin block, a creation block, and integrate AI patterns as your supportive assistant for preparing and summarizing. Design a system, not single hours, which is simple and functional to your human needs for an everyday use.

To finish your day, take the Bauhaus design school's "Gesamtkunstwerk" approach. Your day should show a coherent pattern; any AI chatbot or Agent should not be a disruptor or distractor of what your meaning as a CEO or coworker is.

Finish your work and "close" all AI apps.

Lean into physical and analog habits like cooking, walking or reading a printed book. AI should not have a constant presence; human privacy is one of the most vulnerable and intimate sectors we must save for ourselves as humans. No machine should be allowed to disturb your private moments with your family and friends or your moments of peace and reflection when you review the day.

The Future of Work And Life in The Age of AI

The true Bauhaus style would not celebrate endless AI-generated variations of chairs, rooms, or interfaces. It would limit them to a few archetypes that best serve function, durability, and communal living. In our time, this means that we should refrain from using AI-based systems that are solely focused on personalization and engagement metrics.

Bauhaus, as a  philosophy, would reject much of today’s “smart” offices and digital tooling as ornamental complexity dressed in a fake suit that is called "innovation". One of the most important questions is whether AI-driven environments expand human freedom or simply create more technically sophisticated ways to overload their inhabitants.

AI will change what we do, and it is already changing how we work, how we create, and how we think about value. But it cannot change what we are, as finite, embodied, meaning-seeking human beings.

If AI can now shape, coordinate, and optimize almost all areas of our working and living environment, what few distinctly human capacities are you prepared to anchor as non-automatable boundaries in the architecture of your organization?