Isn’t biophilic design just good design?

I was at the first Biophilic Design Conference, hosted by the Journal of Biophilic Design, last week, an excellent conference and a question frequently raised by both the speakers and the delegates was “isn’t biophilic design just good design?”. I would say yes in general but, as I discussed with Chris Moriarty and Ian Ellison of Audiem, for biophilic design to stand alone there must be examples of biophilic design that is poor design and cases of good design that is not biophilic design. I believe such scenarios exist.

Back to Research

I recently completed a workplace strategy for a major investment bank and I’m now conducting some independent research, which I will share later this year. 

I genuinely enjoy carrying out research, it was my first career, but more importantly research informs my core services of workplace strategy and design briefing. My academic colleagues may disagree, but research must be applied rather than blue sky or theoretical. It should also be conducted in a reasonable time scale, at an affordable price, with a practical approach so that the results can be quickly adopted rather than wait years for complicated research to be completed, and out of date when eventually published. 

Beyond the Workplace Zoo

I can’t believe my last blog post was around Xmas time last year, where has the time gone? But it doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing, just through a different media. My own lockdown baby came in the form of a new book: Beyond the Workplace Zoo: Humanising the Office. It was published two weeks ago with a cosy book launch last week and its official airing at Workplace Trends yesterday.

It has been over 20 years since my last “proper” book, Improving Office Productivity. A book I co-authored with Paul Bartlett, who sadly passed away last year. Paul’s views on office economics and productivity paved the way for much of my thinking in the new book – his humour and candour are deeply missed.

Psychologist fest at Workplace Trends

It was a privilege to chair the morning of yesterday’s Workplace Trends (WT) conference. This WT conference was different to previous ones as the focus was on new research that will ultimately influence workplace design, management and use. The researchers submitted abstracts which were scored, blindly, by myself and Mark Eltringham of Workplace Insight. Some nine papers out of thirty or so were selected for presentation. 

The researchers were joined by an initial keynote address from Rob Briner. Rob is a psychologist that advises organisations on how to use evidence to influence decision making. 

Merry Biophilic Christmas

Last month I sat on a panel discussing the business case for workplace wellbeing, of which one is slowly emerging. That along with Christmas and my Viking* heritage got me pondering on the true origins of biophilic design.  

Biophilia, a term coined by Edward O Wilson, is basically our innate affinity to nature. Biophilic design tends to focus on introducing plants into the workplace but, as explained in a previous blog, it is so much more and taps into our base (evolutionary psychology) needs. Biophilia includes daylight, views, fluctuating temperature, sound-scaping, natural ventilation, natural materials, social spaces, refuge etc – see Bill Browning’s excellent work for a full explanation of biophilic design principles. But bringing nature indoors has been going on for some time, especially around this time of year …

The Transdisciplinary Workplace

I was fortunate to present a keynote address at the first Transdisciplinary Workplace Research conference (#TWR18) last week in Tampere. Around fifty researchers, mostly academic with a few practitioners, gathered to discuss their latest workplace research on topics such as wellbeing, productivity, change management, agile working, co-working etc. 

True ABW Environments

I was fortunate to speak at the CUREM conference at the University of Zurich a couple of weeks ago – I love mixing travel with work, perhaps the topic of a future blog. One of my co-presenters, Itai Palti of UCL and Hume, made a point that struck a chord.

Itai basically said that workplace design is not just about providing the right spaces to facilitate the required work activities, but also about providing the right environmental conditions. I immediately thought of Activity Based Working (ABW) environments and realised I had not quite appreciated their design is much broader than the look of the different types of work settings in the space. And that is despite my research on psychoacoustics, highlighting how different tasks (and people) require different levels/types of sound.

Workplaces for Everyone

I recently chaired the Workplace Trends (WT) conference in Copenhagen - after 15 years of running WT, it was the first outside of the UK, so quite a milestone. One of the recurring themes was around designing for individuals, or specific groups or types of individuals. The speakers referred to personal factors such as age, personality and parental status. There was some discussion around whether we should design for the individual or the organisation. The general consensus appeared to be that we should design for a majority (perhaps the average ± 1sd) as we can’t design for everyone. But to achieve this we must offer choice, of a range of spatial and environmental settings, rather than a one-size-fits-all solution based on the assumed (or sometimes dictated) average.

When We Work

In recent posts I have focussed on how we can make ourselves more productive by selecting the work we do and choosing who we work with. I think the next logical subject, before moving on to where we work, is deciding on when we work.

Only the other day I was on route to yoga (I’m of that age now) and planned to be there at 6.30pm. However, I arrived late because I hit the “rush hour” (or more appropriately “slow three hour”) traffic. Isn’t it bizarre that in an age when most large businesses have offices across all regions of the world, and many of us liaise with offices in different time zones, that we still have the 9 ‘til 5 office hours? One consequence of which is the morning and evening “rush hours”. I wondered what any aliens observing us would think when seeing us all queuing, in our cars or at stations, to get to and from work at exactly the same time as everyone else.

Beware the Workplace Parasites

In my first blog of the year I shared how we can prioritise our workload to be more productive. I continue that theme this month, but with a focus on who we should work with (and who we should avoid) in order to deliver our work objectives.

As a scientist (yes psychology is a science albeit a “social” one) I love it when other disciplines can shed light and offer alternative points of view on my own field of expertise. Cross-discipline input is not blinkered by groupthink and occasionally it offers a paradigm shift in how to comprehend and resolve a problem. In the past I have referred to the Workplace Zoo, recognising we are different “animals” with different needs. If we continue the analogy of the workplace as a living system, after-all biomimicry is on-trend, and if we focus on our relationships and interactions then logically we should also consider the relevance of symbiosis. 

Designing Workplaces that Promote Health, Wellbeing & Performance: An Environmental Psychologist’s Perspective

I recently had the pleasure of travelling to Cape Town to present a keynote address at the Dare to Lead conference organised by Green Building Council South Africa (GBCSA). I had just 20 minutes to speak on a psychologist’s view of health, wellbeing and performance; that’s a huge subject area and pretty much my whole career condensed down to the typical time it takes to boil a pan of potatoes. So, I focussed on just three psychological theories: motivation, personality and evolutionary psychology.

Can Workplace Design Enhance Creativity?

This blog is based on the presentation I gave at the Workplace Trends conference last week, which in turn was based on a presentation I gave at an Innovation Exchange in Lisbon. The room was full of scientists presenting their latest inventions and chemical formulas, and they asked me to present on how the workplace design could assist them. Well I’m always up for a challenge and an all-expenses paid trip to Portugal.

Till desk do us part

This blog first appeared on the WCO website on 21st September.

“Desk: A piece of furniture with a flat or sloping surface and typically with drawers, at which one can read, write, or do other work”.

Is the traditional office desk obsolete? The desk, the workstation, that slab of “wood” that the majority of office workers sit at is getting smaller. Gone are the days of the 1800 x 1800 mm corner core, and my 2 m wide and 1 m deep bench desk at an architect’s practice; the 1600 mm wide homogenous bench has become a 1400 mm and recently I worked with an NHS Trust where the standard workstation was a mere 1200 mm but the facilities team were actually rolling out 1 m “back to school” style desks. So by logic and statistical extrapolation alone the traditional office desk is disappearing. Add to the mix the increasing use of tablets, laser keyboards, dictation software like Dragon and virtual reality goggles and it’s not too difficult to imagine a world without people gathering to sit in rows at a flat surface.

Two days in Delhi

My sixth and final conference speaking engagement was The Smart Green Summit in Delhi. I have to say I was more than a tad apprehensive about speaking on acoustics in India. What could I possibly tell Indians about overcoming noise (pollution)? Delhi was reported by India Today (2012) to have a noise level some 16 times higher than the prescribed limit set by the WHO. So I made few comparisons to outdoor noise levels in London and then moved swiftly on to indoor acoustics.

Emerging Trends - Biophilia & Performance

I’m off to Delhi to speak on psychoacoustics. It appears to be a subject of wide interest and appeal – it was well-received at EIAS and more recently Workplace Trends. Many of you will know that I co-founded the Workplace Trends series of conferences some 14 years ago with my wife, and Events Manager extraordinaire, Maggie Procopi.

 

Back then Workplace Trends was a small forum providing a platform for me and my peers to share subjects of interest to us and relevant to our day jobs. It has evolved to become the primary workplace conference for disseminating emerging trends that have an impact on office design and organisational management. The format allows the select group of speakers to present their subject matter in detail in a professional but non-commercial environment. Many delegates return year after year and the conference has become a networking hub for the increasing members of the workplace community. This year's theme was the increasingly topical Environments for Wellness and Health.

 

My Journey into the Mysterious World of Psychoacoustics

I recently had the pleasure of speaking at EIAS2015. My journey began with a flight to Copenhagen followed by a bus trip across the Øresund Bridge, the famed bridge where the bisected body of a politician was found in the Broen Swedish/Danish TV drama. The bus meandered along until we reached the remote Swedish countryside, and I was reminded of the fictional Hedestad, in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Where were they taking us? We finally arrived at the isolated but idyllic town of Båstad, nestled in the Hallandian Ridge on the shores of the Bay of Laholm. Fortunately it was not the setting for another Nordic Noir crime scene but home to the Swedish Open tennis tournament and EIAS.

Healthy Buildings .... oh and acoustics

Last week I presented at the Healthy Buildings 2015 Europe conference in Eindhoven. I was excited about this gig because, in a former life as a Government researcher, I used to attend this series of conferences. So I was particularly interested in learning how the science of healthy buildings had progressed since I last attended in the late 90s.

It’s an academic conference and most of the presenters are researchers from scientific institutions. I think it’s also fair to say that most attendees had an engineering or physics background but I did find a couple of fellow psychologists (who spoke my language) and I also spotted a token architect. As a consequence, we were bombarded with complex statistics and even more complicated graphs; and we were impressed by studies of 2,000, 4,000 and even 8,000 people observed over several years. I admired that the researchers presented some very detailed and rigorous scientific experiments which must have required many many hours of diligent dedication.

A Tale of Two Summits

I’m a conference groupie; I enjoy spending time out of the office meeting new people, learning new stuff and drinking new beers. This year I have been fortunate to be invited to either speak at or chair a number of international conferences. My plan is to impart the key points from each conference and so spread the workplace word. 

I have just returned from chairing the Workplace Trends Spring Summit in central London. The theme was the Healthy Workplace & Active design, which is indeed a trending workplace topic. The conference was clearly over-subscribed and placed considerable strain on the facilities. Acoustics, ventilation, seating arrangements, catering, access and egress all suffered due to the high number of participants. Which, of course, is ironic as the main takeaway of the day was to create workplaces that accommodate basic human needs thus enhancing wellbeing and performance. 

Social Capital and Psychological Inclusion

I was recently invited to “consultation” on Social Capital In the Workplace at St George’s House (Windsor Castle). The consultation took the form of a retreat, we stayed overnight at the castle and the awe-inspiring environment, fuelled by alcohol, lent itself to serious debate and relationship development. I was asked to present my views on social capital for a psychologist’s perspective, so here I go.

Planning for Productivity

The Holy Grail

For many years leading lights in the property and construction industry, such as Paul Morrell, have referred to the connection between office design and business performance (or productivity) as the Holy Grail. There is a view that the relationship is elusive and intangible, a myth even. That in itself is not a problem, but one consequence of believing that the impact of office design on productivity is not easily demonstrated, is that it is generally ignored. From a business perspective, ignoring the effect of your workplace facilities on your workforce’s performance is not just naïve but also irresponsible.