Workplace design has never been so important. If you need proof, look at retention, recruitment, and productivity at companies that did their offices right.

Today, interior designers approach office projects almost like functional art, unique to each client. Architects consider design trends as you do the stars in the sky—they’re reference points, something to analyze and consider. But they’re probably dead by the time they’re seeing them. The interior designer must be a mirror. If not, the company risks this, as described by Gustavo Hinojosa, the director of commercial interiors for Dallas design firm HKS: “You’re in a suit that doesn’t fit.”

Via dmagazine.com 

Over the past decade, the average size of offices has shrunk by 30%, to 175 sf per employee. That trend coincides with the growing popularity of interior glass for offices construction and renovation.

“Glass is being used to reduce space but still give the appearance of openness,” says Brett Shwery, IIDA, CID, LEED AP BD+C, Senior Vice President–Corporate Workplace and Design and Delivery Director at AECOM’s Los Angeles office.

In 2016, Gensler completed an 800,000-sf government project with thousands of offices, all with glass fronts, says Maurice Reid, an Associate and Project Architect in the firm’s Washington, D.C., office. That project is also distinguished by stacked conference rooms on floors six through 13 that look onto the building’s 13-story atrium.

Via bdcnetwork.com

Near the top of the wish list in almost every office design project these days is space for small-group collaboration. Business leaders know that creativity flourishes and ideas spark when people have access to the right environments for conversation and teamwork.

The traditional office—each person at a desk, meetings confined to conference rooms—is giving way to new styles that reflect contemporary ways of working. Today’s spaces are more inviting and flexible, less constrained and prescribed. 

Via coalesse.com

For years we’ve seen the technology industry and coworking entities shape the design of the workplace. Today, professional services firms — law, finance, tax, and accounting — are also transforming their workplaces and organizational cultures to operate more like their progressive counterparts. These traditional companies are finding value in adopting a transformative approach to office design. Law firms, in particular, are adapting the design of their spaces to adjust to new trends in the profession.

Via workdesign.com 

A global study confirms that progressive organizations and their design partners are planning space to a new, wildly different set of benchmarks.

With all the changes to how, where, and why we work today, is it any wonder that organizations are exploring a variety of new design solutions to address the shifts?

To ascertain the substance and scale of these changes, we studied 120 progressive work environments from a variety of industries throughout the world. Although each of these offices was unique, they all shared traits that signaled significant movement in the way organizations and their design partners were planning space. In the course of our study, we found that the benchmarks that were once used to help guide workplace design have been turned on their heads.

View the study on hermanmiller.com