Workplace strategists, and enlightened architects, often explore the organisation and its needs in order to design the space required to support the business; this is often referred to as “designing from the inside out”. Such organisational analysis includes understanding factors such as: the vision for the business, headcount projections, departmental adjacencies, and the culture. However, quite often fundamentals such as the nature of work, core work activities, preferred work styles and how to improve work performance are overlooked. This got me thinking “what is work” - surely unless we understand this basic question we cannot design workplaces that support work and enhance business performance?
As philosopher Arthur Little[1] once said “false notions of the nature and purpose of work lead logically to unnatural working conditions and these to disaffection and discontent amongst workers”. If you believe that “a happy workforce is a productive workforce” or that the primary function of an office is to support the business that takes place within it, akin to “offices are machines for working in”, then understanding “what is work?” must be the starting point of the design process for a new working environment.
Yesterday I attended a tour of Macquarie Bank’s new offices in Ropemaker Place, organised by Unwired and hosted by Nigel Bunclark of the bank.
Nigel explained the brief for Macquarie’s new offices was “not just about sweating the asset but also about creating Community and Connectivity”. The vision was that enhanced Connectivity would lead to Collaboration and growth in business. The bank was also Consolidating from several offices into one and creating a new front door and much improved Client-experience.
Yesterday, I attended a tour of KPMG’s new Canary Wharf offices courtesy of The Office productivity Network (OPN). It was a full on day with presentations by the facilities, operation and branding teams of KPMG along with the design story presented by Angela Sasso of Swankey Architects (actually Swanke Hayden Connell Architects). The highlight of the day was the tour of the new facilities.
First impressions count at KPMG. The lobby is impressive but not exuberant, the welcome is slick and professional, the environment is fresh and light – all relevant to the subtle branding integrated into the building. As in many offices, the main workspaces where low key, 1600 mm bench desks, low partitions, and minimalist colour – perhaps a little too clinical not helped by the lack of planting and human touches a bit like a home that is being de-cluttered in order to sell. However, effort had been made to break up the serried ranks of desks by introducing quiet pods and cluster of 120° desk for the senior managers. The graphics in the main workspace are also minimalist compared to the wonderful manifestations used in the conference suite. But for me there are clearly two winning features of this space: the atrium and the informal meeting spaces.
