Contract furnishings provider, Hightower received multiple awards at NeoCon 2021, including IIDA's 'Best Small Showroom' (under 4,000 sf) and 'Best of Competition' for its newly designed Chicago showroom.
Humanscale welcomes Elizabeth Margles to its Marketing Division in the role of Chief Marketing Officer. Margles comes to Humanscale with twenty years of experience in design, fashion and retail and a background in public relations and advertising.
The exclusive relationship with Kontrol's BioCloud® Technology will provide real-time detection of airborne pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 to help make workplaces safer as organizations return to the office.
In recent years, the physical design of the typical workplace has undergone significant change. Many organizations have shifted from individual cubicles and private offices to open-plan designs, and have implemented features like standing desks and whiteboard walls to emphasize increased focus, teamwork and flexibility.
While the perfect workspace must be unique when it comes to any particular business, there are common steps that every organization can take to realize its ideal environment.
The library of the future barely resembles the library of the past. Today’s libraries cease to be the hallowed temples of book-bound knowledge protected by an army of (albeit welcoming and helpful) guards. No longer are libraries the gatekeepers of access to information. This centuries-old tradition was usurped by the smart phone and our Internet-everywhere culture. This transition led to predictions of the slow demise of the library.
While we’re a long way off hologram-only meetings or humanoid robot supervisors patrolling office space, automation and AI are already transforming aspects of business. It’s hardly hot news that the office space era of nine-to-five, fixed desks, and water cooler moments’ is drawing unceremoniously to a close, replaced by a mixture of flexible, remote and distributed working.
A picture is worth 1,000 words, but what does that mean really? In the end, can one truly be certain about an end product with a single picture? Through virtual reality (VR), architecture and design firms are now able to make sure that clients are aware of all the nooks and crannies of a single building through immersive experiences rather than flat renderings.
Perkins+Will, an American architecture and design firm established in 1935, is one of these firms determined to help their clients explore the spaces they create through virtual reality.
At the end of the 18th Century it was becoming apparent that overpopulation was something the human race would need to address for perhaps the first time. Advances in technology and the urbanization that followed the Industrial Revolution had created a new set of challenges. These were most famously laid out in a 1798 book called An Essay on the Principle of Population, written by an English cleric called Thomas Malthus. The book helped to influence the nascent discipline of economics and informed the thinking of Charles Darwin when he wrote On The Origin of Species some sixty years later. The term Malthusian remains in use to this day when describing the central paradox laid out in the book. This paradox suggests that because population increases geometrically (doubling every 25 years by multiplication), while food production only grows arithmetically (by addition), the end result can only be depressed wages and ultimately starvation.
While all the meteorologists are focusing on the winter storm this week, we’re still setting our sights on spring with a look at the exciting new and recent products for enjoying outdoor environments. In today’s spotlight: GO from Landscape Forms.
A couple years ago, you may recall, the Kalamazoo, Michigan–based manufacturer of site furniture and lighting brought power to the people quite literally in the form of outdoor-rated all-weather charging stations created in collaboration with power receptacle brand Legrand. Now, for GO, Landscape Forms has integrated similar tech into a sleek piece of site furniture that’s geared toward public and commercial spaces.
Last week Mountain View's city council unanimously approved a scaled-back design for Google's new campus. The 595,000-square-foot building, by Bjarke Ingels Group and Thomas Heatherwick, is expected to be completed in late 2019.
The project, known as Charleston East, has gone through many iterations since it was first revealed in 2015. Most notably, the project—essentially a campus of buildings set beneath transparent canopies—had to be reconfigured for a smaller site. Gone is the network of Frei-Otto-meets-Buckminster-Fuller domes. In their stead is an opaque, solar panel–clad roof. In renderings, the design looks decidedly more grim. (But at least it's no longer a physical representation of the metaphorical Silicon Valley bubble.)
Workplace design has vastly evolved over the last 10 to 15 years. Office spaces, which were once designed to deter co-mingling, are now centered around bringing people together. Open floor plans are the norm, and panels to divide desk space keep shrinking, or don’t exist at all. While we could attribute this dramatic evolution to a generational transition (a.k.a., millennials), or to the rise of “startup culture”, this shift is rooted in something broader: the need for meaningful collaboration.
People crave authenticity and comfort, and increasingly, they’re expecting the workplace to match the warm vibe they experience at home. Fortunately, there are easy ways to achieve this — and more importantly, solid reasons why it matters.
The Steelcase Global Report: Engagement and the Global Workplace found the most engaged employees worldwide are also the most satisfied with their work environment. So while some view the workplace as strictly utilitarian, or worse, an afterthought, there are compelling reasons to sit up and pay attention to space. Happy, engaged workers are glad to be in the office because they like their environment.
A few years ago when the idea of cowork spaces first surfaced, no one could have foreseen how rapidly the ways in which we work would change, and the kind of impact this would have on how, when and where we work.
Organizations are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on employee engagement programs, yet their scores on engagement surveys remain abysmally low. How is that possible? Because most initiatives amount to an adrenaline shot. A perk is introduced to boost scores, but over time the effect wears off and scores go back down. Another perk is introduced, and scores go back up — and then they fall again. The more this cycle repeats itself, the more it feels like manipulation. People begin to recognize the short-term fixes for what they are.
Many businesses are getting wise and ditching the one-size-fits-all flannel suit approach to the workplace. But do they have any clue what to replace it with? For a while, everyone wanted to make their office look like a children's playground. Today, the trend is to try to look like a coworking space or a coffee shop. But are those ideas future-proof? And do they actually create the conditions that creativity needs to thrive?
For the first time, there can be as many as five generations working together in the office, and each age group comes with its own preferences and perspectives on how and where work should be done.
It’s important for employers to be in tune with what their workers want and need, as there is increasing competition among organizations to find people with the skills and abilities to succeed.
Younger workers are less and less loyal to employers, which is driving firms to place greater emphasis on benefits, empowerment and a better working environment, according to a study from ReportLinker. The small scale online study of 500 people found that Millennials are less likely than older generations to say they’re highly committed to their employer, with just 40 percent saying they somewhat agree with this statement compared to 66 percent of older workers say they’re highly committed to their organisation. The report concludes that this is encouraging employers to introduce new ways of winning the loyalty of employees. For example, 87 percent of employees who are more involved in decision-making are also more likely to say they are committed to their employers although, as always, we should be wary of the distinction between correlation and causation.
When you go see a movie, you’re going to get an all-consuming, immersive experience. The screen is generally five to eight stories high. The colors are vibrant. The story takes you places. Your brain gets to take a break from the real world and science tells us that’s a good thing. By giving our brains a break, we improve focus, sharpness and motivation. After all, if art in the theater is important enough to deserve a televised awards gala, why not put more emphasis on it to support creativity in the workplace? Creativity isn’t just for movie stars and screenwriters. We face global issues that require us all to unleash our creative potential to solve problems and generate ideas.
In just a short time, Apple will begin moving into its famed new “Spaceship” campus. Officially named Apple Park, the massive project is nearing completion after nearly six years of planning and building. $5 billion project, developed in collaboration with architects Foster + Partners, has been easy to follow for observers of the company with drones providing aerial footage of the construction on a regular basis. The dramatic shape of the building, a simple perfect circle, is a testament to Apple’s unique focus on design.
Susan S. Szenasy, publisher & editor in chief, Metropolis (SSS): We’re seeing a shift toward the suburban. In Los Angeles, for instance, there are pockets of developments that have the potential to urbanize the old suburb. AECOM, represented today by Brett Shwery, is based in Los Angeles and has its headquarters in a high-rise. They designed Box’s headquarters in Redwood City, near San Francisco. Let’s start with Sandra Ladao. Why Redwood City?
The workplace can have a lot of impact on your productivity. It can have an impact on your ability to focus, your creativity, efficiency, etc. This level of impact the working place has on the productivity makes the design of the site and workplace environment profoundly significant.
Most of the people do not necessarily think that it can impact your working efficiency. But if you make some changes in certain areas, you will see the difference in productivity levels.
What’s behind the buzz? Most of these workplace labels suggest some generalization about the workplace environment. The risk in generalizations is they can promote a one-size-fits-all mentality. The reality today is that people in most organizations vary widely in terms of socio-economic status, age, gender, sexual preference, religion, geography, language, and culture. Designing workplaces that meet the needs of a diverse workforce requires a holistic approach.
This white paper is the first in a three-part series of research studies which examines the evolution of office environments and considers how present day activity-based work environments (ABWs) support employee personalities and work modes. "The Effect of Individualized Work Settings on Productivity and Wellbeing" is the culmination of an extensive in-depth examination - in partnership with Three H - of workplace trends and the direct impact that design can have on employee performance, collaboration, wellbeing.
