Innovators of design are creating the fusion workplace

Now communication is instant, with a myriad of small flexible communication devices, and clients and colleagues expect instant answers and quick results.

Technology has liberated us, allowing us to work anywhere blurring the divisions between the office, work and home. How has the architecture and landscape of our offices responded to these seismic shifts in technology and attitudes to work? In my opinion, ‘not much’. Many people still occupy private offices and rows of desks, it’s just that now they are empty for more of the time.

After staff, offices represent the second greatest cost, and yet with desks often empty there is enormous opportunity to reduce operating costs. If office landscapes do not respond to new realities, we are not providing the environments that allow people to work more effectively and creatively.

We recently sponsored a survey of four creative organisations: Microsoft, the BBC, Herman Miller and tp bennett. An alarming 72 percent felt that their workplace did not offer opportunities for creative thought. The key findings were:

-Everyone is creative, but in different ways. By not recognising this, companies are missing an enormous opportunity to benefit from the creative potential of all their employees.

-Offices aren’t creative (yet).

-The majority of creative thinking happens outside the office – on journeys to work, in the shower, and at home – but should it?

-Culture is critical – a key role in enhancing the creative potential of employees.

In an increasingly competitive global economy, many routine tasks are being transferred to emerging economies, with labour costs a fraction of those in the developed world. Consequently, our offices need to be centres of creativity, new ideas and intellectual thought. Many enlightened companies are looking at these challenges and moving to a more flexible results-based management structure to accommodate the needs of their diverse workforces.

So how should office design respond to these new realities?

If we can work anytime anywhere, then our office has a new significance as a centre for the exchange of ideas, a place where itinerant workers can feel at home and gather with colleagues. A firm’s headquarters will no longer just need to welcome clients and visitors, but also its staff visitors. They need to provide good quality reception, HR, IT and concierge services to support mobile workers and welcome them into the firm during their visit.

Terms such as ‘new ways of working’ ‘flexible working’ and ‘hotelling’ were coined to try and explain new concepts in workplace design, but I prefer the term a ‘fusion workplace’.

This involves creation of a variety of workplace settings, using the best design influence from other building types and environments. In addition to spaces for traditional task-based work and quiet thinking, a variety of spaces to encourage interaction and collaboration are needed. The space-saving generated in reducing the number of desks to suit our mobile workforce can be utilised for these more collaborative workspaces, whilst still generating a significant saving in space for the organisation, and reduction in cost.

We’ve learned lessons from a variety of different forms of architecture in some of our most recent headquarters office projects. We’ve learned from school design, domestic architecture, and the design of hotels – even bars and restaurants – to create new, inspiring and collaborative workplaces. This produces a range of first-class work settings to facilitate the variety of working activities that most of us undertake during a typical day.

However, too much flexibility in an uncontrolled manner can create chaos, so the new office design needs to be underpinned by a company’s values, culture and brand, and use of the office needs to be reinforced through enlightened and supportive HR policies and management structures. A strong visual identity reflecting the brand of the organisation is of critical importance for subliminal messages to visiting clients and visiting staff. The office should be welcoming, open and collaborative, with no barriers to the free flow of ideas.

So how do these new offices look and feel? In 2006 we completed a small fit-out for NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), run by Jonathan Kestenbaum. His enlightened views resulted in an open, flexible office environment that allowed individuals to personalise space. Bookshelves were introduced within the office environment with personal objects to create a more domestic feel. As in every office, the coffee areas become important places for collaboration, and a simple curved wall and a round table provided collaborative areas. Identical black picture frames adorn the walls, and staff were encouraged to create a theme for their particular area.

One group chose holiday photos, another chose pictures of their families. The space reflects individualism and personality, with a homely feel, whilst encouraging collaboration. In the reception area, the brand is truly visible. NESTA encourages start-up businesses and ideas to flourish, so we created a laboratory–like feel, with friendly receptionists and concierge staff standing at individual concierge stations to welcome visitors. A series of circular, non-hierarchical meeting rooms sits within the space.

Around this gallery is a space created for visitors, to enable them to understand the workings of the organisation. It’s sometimes hard to believe this is a Government-sponsored organisation. Its role and methodology are highly enlightened, reflected in their new workspace.

Another example is the recently-completed new quarters for Guardian News & Media (GNM) in King’s Cross, London. It was decided to align the headquarters with a new editorial structure with more sharing of specialist editorial across titles. A truly flexible environment is created, with an 80 percent desk provision allowing for agile working within team areas and a reduction in desk space.

At the heart of the organisation is a new communications staircase, around which are grouped the more collaborative areas – meeting rooms, morning briefing room, coffee areas, IT help desk, break-out areas and, at the very heart, the central production area for the paper. You can walk up the stairs and see the vibrant workforce communicating in informal areas. Soft sofas, ottomans and floor-standing lamps create a much more comfortable, domestic and inspiring environment, and a less corporate feel.

As a leading media organisation, GNM’s brand and its strong values permeate the fit-out: fabrics inspired by media print, colours selected from print colour, and use of GNM’s fantastic archive of photography, historic memorabilia and back copy are integrated into the fit-out scheme.

The values of Scott, the founder, are used to adorn glass-fronted quiet spaces. Within the fusion workplace, connectivity is key to its success. As human beings we enjoy being connected to our family, friends and colleagues: by socialising text, Facebook, email, blogs and, of course, the latest medium – ‘Twitter’. The fusion workplace is the product of changing social habits and the fast pace of technology – which can provide an exciting, dynamic 21st century model for our future workplaces.

Is this the way of the future for our workspaces? We hope so.

Richard Beastall, Principal Director, tp bennett
One America Street, London, SE1 0NE UK
Tel: +44 (0)207 208 2000