Biophilia and Nature Near, The Sounds and Sight of a Stream

     I share this video made recently while walking the hills around Montpelier with our new puppy and family members.  This is for those of you near and far who appreciate the sounds of nature and especially this one of spring time in Vermont.  I believe in the importance of embracing nature in design, especially well defined by the word biophilia. 

     Championed by noted biologist E.O. Wilson, it means "an innate and genetically determined affinity of human beings with the natural world." Oxford Online Dictionary.  Too often natural elements such as the sounds of water, the oxygenated aroma's of plant and the texture of river stones, other natural materials are absent from our daily experience inside our homes, workplaces, where we shop and worship.  

     Much of my work as an architect and workplace designer involves bringing the natural back into the everyday experience inside.  What better antidote to the cacophony of cell phones, sirens, sounds of everyday cosmopolitan life than soothing sounds of water, smells of plants and textures of materials. Where possible I believe it intrinsically valuable to creating a sense of well being to include water features and ample  plantings into interior environments.  So many of us spend the majority of our lives inside these days working long weeks whether at the office or as mobile untethered workers at home, coworking spaces, libraries, coffee houses etc.  

     Smart business people who want to create welcoming environments for work, play, shopping, learning, worship would do well to bring nature near. 

      

Notable Workplace Trends

   The high performing workplace, like the complicated world we live, work and play in is isn’t necessarily simple to achieve.  Such a workplace reflects the need to soundly integrate work processes, physical settings and furniture along with technology in service to the overall business needs of the organization and its larger mission.  It’s also hard work and demands constant organizational engagement over time.
     Rather than talk about the workplace of the future, a term routinely used over the last forty years, we believe it’s important to focus on creating and cultivating workplaces which promote collaboration, innovation and a sense of entrepreneurship aligning with an organization’s mission, brand and values.
     The following trends are vital to consider in the coming years in the design of the enduring high performing workplace.   They are adapted from a number of sources as well as our own experience.

1. Integrated workplace solutions:  Integration of architecture, interiors, operational processes, branding, information technology, furniture and office systems.  Bring a comprehensive and collaborative approach to the design challenge.
2. Sustainability Action: More direct integration of sustainability concerns in workplace design, ongoing operations reinforces employee engagement and brand strength.  Also supports lower operational costs through energy efficiency, resource conservation.
3. Branding & Storytelling: Tell the bigger story! Work to reflect organization wide core values, history and brand promise in physical design of your building, your work space, furniture, finish and color selection along with media and wall graphics.  Create a seamless experience from bricks and mortar to online.
4. Motivation, Opportunity, Inclusiveness: It’s not about carrots and sticks, but motivating employee’s sense of purpose, desire for advancement and organizational engagement, all helping in attracting and retaining quality staff. Workplace design echoes and amplifies the strengths of a diverse workforce in reinforcing employee engagement.

One Haworth Center, a Transcendent Experience

In late March I toured One Haworth Center located in Holland, Michigan, the global headquarters of the Haworth Inc. one of the big five workplace solutions / systems furniture companies here in the U.S. Office Environments, the local Haworth Dealer, located in Williston, Vermont organized the day long tour for local facilities personnel, architects and interior designers.

I joined in because, while very familiar with other Michigan furniture heavies such as Herman Miller and Steelcase, I knew next to nothing about Haworth.  As an architect engaged in the design of high performance workplaces and buildings among other kinds of work I do, it's critical for my clients I have a working knowledge of these companies, their key personnel, cutting edge research, product lines and corporate social and environmental actions organization wide and in their facilities.

I do this so I may best advocate on their behalf on project work collaborating with local dealerships so the companies I work with can best optimize investments in their workplaces, workers and the work they do together there.

What I found at Haworth really surprised me! Dick Haworth, Chairman Emeritus greeted us in the beginning of the day.  Having Dick speak with us emphasized that while this company was a global brand it was family run with a deep green conscience and pragmatic yet creative design heritage.  Matt Haworth, current Haworth CEO closed the day for us.  However, the LEED Gold Certified One Haworth Center was a star unto itself with its compellingly beautiful yet environmentally motivated heart just like the company perhaps.  And with the vibrant vision of its leaders and other team members we met with that day Haworth is poised for continued success in the marketplace.

Dick Haworth sharing welcoming remarks with visiting Vermonters 

Our Goals for the Day!

Whether visiting Haworth, Herman Miller or Steelcase in Michigan I am gratified by all of these companies efforts to walk their talk in design, innovation and sustainability in their facilities and the visitor experience.  It is a common thread in my experience with these companies.  It is the back story for another time though.

During our day long trip we met with workplace strategists sharing with us cutting edge human factor and environmental design trends, facilities leaders who were intimately involved in the renovation and transformation of One Haworth Center and then product area experts sharing with us the latest in seating, workstation design and architectural systems.  All in all, it was a fabulous experience helping me better understand Haworth, their areas of strength and how they fit into the workplace design universe I work in.

Looking back at my filled up sketch book pages here are a few highlights.

Workplace Strategies & Trends:
We met with Chris Neuheus from Haworth and Brian Scott, of Haworth's Ideation Group, a workplace and communications strategist.  Brian shared a framework for thinking about Organizational Culture Types, how to best assess them with a variety of tools and then create self-evolving collaborative environments which suit them best.  We also learned about a Change Framework to apply within fast moving dynamic organizations.  Brian shared with us the importance of fostering adaptive physical and technological environments which help such organizations continue to transform and innovate.

Chris  reiterated some trends many of us have been experiencing over the last ten or so years with our aging workforce with multiple generations at work together, competing expectations and workstyles of younger millennials, gen-Yers and gen-Xers and aging baby-boomers.  The workplace plainly isn't a one size fits all world where entitlement based space design hierarchies and strategies will continue to apply. To attract younger workers, retain and groom more experienced performers and leaders a multi-faceted organizational design approach is critical with a more open attitude towards collaborative spaces, lower bench style desking with ever lower smaller workstation footprints.  Also, today and especially into the future, there's a greater need for a greater diversity of common spaces accommodating vastly different work patterns such as teaming, head down work, training and workforce development, long-distance collaboration and the like as well as providing an intrinsic adaptability to future work style changes.  This openness leads us to the next helpful takeaway from the visit, the "Chassis" design at One Haworth Center which was used by Perkins +Will and their design team to breath life into the iconic original factory updating it with some serious sustainability and innovative workplace design chops.

Diagram adapted from Haworth with added circulation arrows.

  

New atrium showing circulation with outcroppings

Interior work areas looking out into the atrium and shared daylight

The Chassis Design:

Conceived to bring new life to existing work areas with the addition of a new airy atrium bar and common circulation it's a clever way to update older space with a clear diagram and cohesive vision.  Divided into three zones of dynamic, temporal and place elements it offers an organizing mindset useful for an ever changing organization.  The shared common areas and circulation spine were extremely inviting and dynamic places served by the varying degrees of fluid and fixed workspace behind.  More interior linear circulation flow parallel to the exterior circulation balcony reinforce this open structure for change.   The executive leadership area was located well inside the shared daylit balcony spine in keeping with the more democratic nature of the atria common space.  It was great to see architects and space planners put common lounge spaces immediately adjacent to the this fabulous unifying spine.  The photos and diagrams above and below give a sense for this powerful idea and its execution at various levels of detail.

a conferencing collaboration area with white board wall surfaces
located deep within the floor plate in deference to workstations
accessing natural light directly.

Updated lounge/ cafe seating in cafeteria

panelized workstations of varying heights with dropped floating
ceiling and linear pendant up/down lighting - very comfortable!

workstations with view windows to atrium

furniture groups set up in the atrium to showcase

various collaboration concepts whether a womb like 

seating with felt covering or open table like settings with

overhead space defining rail system.

a delightful mobile ottoman

We also took a tour of the manufacturing floor and saw great implementation in best practices in green manufacturing principles, lean thinking and automation.  Here's a picture of the automated robot delivery vehicles which were really interesting to watch move around the floor spaces.

mobile robots at work hauling product in stages of production.

For a more indepth and informative tour direct from Haworth of the One Haworth Center about Take the tour here.  For specific info about its LEED Certification and Sustainability highlights click this Link.

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us now at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice Arocordis Design. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture #climateaction

Values Driven Office Workplace Design...It's Not About The Furniture.

Recently, a client asked me how I recommend going about selecting workstation furniture and equipment for their office as part of a process to reorganize a couple of growing departments.  They had heard good things about a variety of the vendors and their service in our area and needed suggestions on how to start the process.  Until now, they had largely purchased equipment on an ad-hoc basis, going to office superstores and the occasional office furniture dealership for what they needed, piece by piece.

However, they weren't totally happy with the end result and the overall appearance and performance of their workplace.  Frankly it looked a little tired and there wasn't a cohesive plan in place going forward and set of standards to work with when changing or adding new staff.  In fact, pretty much all budgets for this had been on hold for the last two to three years just to weather out the recession and economic curve balls.

But now things were starting to look up with sales projected to rise, albeit modestly this year and a department needed to be reorganized in a part of the building with others to follow over the next few years etc.  What advice did I have?

First things first.  Let's celebrate the fact things were looking up for this company.  Maybe this is a harbinger of better times ahead.  And, it's also great the client is asking questions like this before starting this process.  Better sooner than later.  But let's not get the cart before the horse.

Here's why

Space matters.  Whether you know it or not, your workplace is a tangible business resource supporting and enhancing daily business operations while in the best of cases reinforcing your corporate brand and ethos for the positive, and the worst of cases, for the negative.    Your workplace is your company and what it's all about.  It supports your people and their work throughout the year.  It can be a special place creating a unique work community focused on a set of common goals and values.  And, it can rapidly grow out of date, reflecting in its design and equipment choices and layout ways of working relevant ten years ago but not today.  Like this blog's name, high performing organizations must cultivate organizational and physical design excellence to truly lead in their business space.

Thoughts for 2011_Vermont Business Leaders Networking Group and The Workplace

As December slips away many of us turn our thoughts to what 2011 will bring.  What a year we've lived through.  I won't elaborate but it's been a dynamic one, full of transition, transformation and definitely innovation.  Remember, be sure to look towards the end of this post for strategic business suggestions for 2011 relating to the high performing workplace.

This morning I participated at my first ever bricks and mortar LinkedIn networking event.  Vermont Business Leaders Networking Group, about a year old or so, routinely holds meetings hosted at member office locations. Renato Wakim of OM Workspace's Williston showroom hosted this month's gathering.  They're at new digs at 20 Wintersports lane.

CPA's,  Financial Services, Interior Designers, HR/ Organizational Design consultants, Architects, Online Retailers, Transition Planners all came together to meet and greet.  We discussed outlooks for 2011, and it was pretty positive.

Today we heard some positive economic signals with lower unemployment figures and rise in personal income among other factors.  Retailers are seeing higher levels of spending and activity this holiday season as compared to last.  Are we truly moving out of this miserable recession?  Leading economic indicators were up 1.1 %.  See Fox News article.  9 out of 10 indicators were moving in positive directions.  Mergers and acquisitions saw tremendous growth the most since 2007, 1.1 $Trillion. with signs this growth will continue into 2011.

The folks around the table seemed to think so from there position on the ground.   Although it's going fairly slowly right now, it seemed the consensus while muted now was pretty positive for 2011.

What does this mean for you and your business and industry for next year?  One area we discussed was how so many companies are sitting on piles of cash reserves built up over the last couple years and are beginning to make plans for spending, or at least considering it in 2011.

Idea Paint - Leads to Creativity and Collaboration

What if you could paint your office walls with dryerase paint to enhance your visualizing and brainstorming at work, school at home?  I just recently learned about an innovative formaldehyde free water based paint product which does just this.  My brother Jim, an Osram Sylvania Market Manager in Lighting Controls sent me this link.  Thanks Jim!

It's called IdeaPaint.   It's a single application rolled on paint product which costs $30 for a home kit which covers 6 square feet or $60 for one which covers 20 square feet.  You can go to the website to learn more about installation, costs and where to buy.

Whether you paint your office walls, your menu board overhead of checkout, worktable surface or your creative studio here's an interesting way to leverage individual and team creativity.  There are galleries on the website which show uses in offices, schools and the home with plenty of ideas on how and where to use it.  

I can see applications for this for businesses which promote an innovative work culture and community valuing visual thinking, brainstorming and organizational transparency.  What a great way to cultivate a creative minded and acting work community.  And for kids, watch out! I can see elementary schools eating this paint product up applying on kids desk and tables, walls instead of blackboards etc. What fun!

Cre-8 is their product which costs $175 per kit and covers 50 square feet.  It comes in 8 standard colors.  It's not just white, but light green, an orange, beige, offwhite among others.  So it can be coordinated with interior color palettes a bit more flexibly.  

It's also environmentally friendly having achieved Greenguard certification.   It's PTPA tested as well.  It received a best of NEOCON award as well!

I haven't personally tested this yet but I will ask Santa for a test kit to try out.  I have a perfect place in mind in my home office!  Or better yet, my son's new desk we made.  I bet he may like to draw on his desk and illustrate it with his crazy pokemon characters.  Watch out Picasso!

  

A Vermont Perspective of the High Performance Workplace

Often times people ask what does designcultivation have to do with workplace design?  While it's the name of this blog I propose it's the also the act of cultivating awareness about unfamiliar aspects, information, best practices about designing and operating the high performance workplace. 

Many of us have experienced short-lived trends in workplace design buffeted more by the winds of fashion or onset of new products rather than focusing on what matters most, creating the high performing organization of which the physical workplace is merely a reflection.  It's not about the equipment and gadgets, how high or how low your panels are.  It's about leveraging the DNA of a company, its organizational mission, values and goals into its physical setting.  This helps to maximize the value and promise of its primary asset, its people and the workplace community they share together.

Because I live in Vermont with early adopters of corporate social responsibility like Ben & Jerry's, Chroma Technology, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Green Mountain Power, King Arthur Flour, Magic Hat Brewery, Main Street Landing, National Life of  Vermont,  NRG Systems and Seventh Generation to name a few, I've come to realize building great companies is more than just building a great bottom line.  It's about people, planet and profits together.

Some NEOCON 2010 Highlights

Experiencing NEOCON 2010 World Trade Fair is like no other. With its size you can only see a small portion of the showrooms, attend a smattering of educational seminars and industry events in any one year. It’s been a few weeks since I went and I am only now realizing its impact. The spirit of invention and purposeful design sprinkled with the infectious energy of innovators in design thinking and services struck me most strongly. There was an upbeat mood as well with many whom I met saying business was not as bad as last year, one of the worst of a generation. A quiet determined optimism pervaded NEOCON.

Fostering collaboration and creating high performance high value workspaces is a reoccurring theme today. This year really energized me with its emphasis on open shared informal workplace furnishings and equipment. Smart European themed compact, low, horizontal / linear workstations with open collegiality were the norm. 120 degree stations were noticeably absent as were panels of any kind. Hard, reflective surfaces with metals and woods combined with white melamine reigned in many showrooms. I was really jazzed by KI’s showroom for its creative installation of a wide variety of workspace strategies. There were open café like areas adjacent to workstations with great access to nearby fully enclosed conference and task specific rooms. It was an unexpected find but very creatively executed. It would be one of the showrooms I would take a client to help them visualize various workplace configurations.

The Steelcase, Herman Miller and Knoll Showrooms were compelling with gradations of workplace solutions on display in mocked up variations as well. I met there with Dan Chong who directs Steelcase's collaboration with the A&D community and others.  I also had the oppourtunity to see WorkSpring a collaboration / meeting space laboratory a few blocks away from the Mart.  I'll write about that in a later post.  I especially enjoyed Steelcase’s HD video conferencing solution with one installation in a more straight ahead office environment combined with it’s Mediascape solution linked with a nearby more informal lounge like meeting space also using the Mediascape product. Steelcase also rolled out a new school chair called Node which looked a cross between metal bar stool resting a on a round shelf on wheels. It reminded me of a cross-trainer shoe for the classroom and that’s a deep compliment. Evidently the chair was borne of a research driven effort examining how students actually interacted in classrooms and used their chairs. 

Students moved around organically in their chair with their backpacks scattered on floors. This chair provides a place to store bags and backpacks below the seat and its wheels promote casual interactions and shifting collaborations. It is a little unusual looking though. I have to wonder whether this innovation will lead to further offspring in the coming years.

Herman Miller had markable screens surrounding their spirited “Ball Chairs” which reinforced the collaborative theme. Their Conivia energy and workplace management system also seems to have been more fully integrated into a desktop monitoring solution making it easy from a user’s perspective to control their workspace. Like Steelcase and KI, Herman Miller also had a full range of open to closed workspaces to tour. Their showroom ceiling was especially inspiring with it’s organic curving open ceiling system which created a really light and luminous visual effect. I was able to meet with Paul Murray their Director of Environmental Health and Safety. He shared with me Herman Miller’s recent action and commitment to get to zero over the next ten years. Zero hazardous waste generation. Zero VOC emissions in the air. Zero process water emission by 2020. They also had a very helpful visualizing tool, really a video which showed how the same furniture could be recombined and configured in multiple workspace configurations. This plainly helped make the case for the value of systems furniture as a long term investment with lots of future flexibility, all depending on the creativity of the users and their designers ability to react to changing workspace demands. I also met with a director of their affiliate Systems Furniture refurbishing program called ReVest as part of that conversation, giving second and third lives Herman Miller Systems, mainly to non-profits. It was a great story.

Any survey of NEOCON is inherently incomplete which is why it’s helpful to return another year for more.  In later posts I'll write about a few of the seminars I attended and speakers I met.  The quest for cultivating design continues!

Note: Node chair image courtesy of Steelcase Inc.

NEOCON 2010 - "Harder Working Spaces"

"Harder Working Spaces" to paraphrase from the 360 Magazine handed out at this year's annual NEOCON World Trade Fair, held at the Merchandise Mart in downtown Chicago, June 14-16, aptly sums up the vibe of this year's event.  People I meet here speak of last year as one of the worst in recent memory for the contract furnishings industry modeling much of what the greater A&D community experienced as well.  

  

With the belt tightening contractions of the last two years, therefinally seems to be a slight economic uptick, more like a steadily growing heart beat now.  The word on the trade show floor is one of cautious calculated optimism.  

At the front of Steelcase's introduction to its 2010 offerings in the 360 magazine it identifies what we already know organizations are working harder today doing more with less resources, employees working longer hours and wearing many different kinds of hats. "The agile organization must be both lean and creative."  (paraphrased) With a renewed emphasis on workplace flexibility and adaptability.  We must provide building and interior design solutions which work harder than ever for our clients and deliver value to them both in the short and long term.  Doing more with less.

Steelcase won one of two silver awards for the Best of NEOCON products 2010 with it's new FlexFrame™ workwall in the Files & Storage category which aligns with the harder working workspace theme.  

I saw FlexFrame in their showroom.  It has sleek lines and is really a wall hung tasking and storage solution for the downsized offices that is the norm today.  It has novel frame based wall system with integrated cantilvered work surfaces and very flexible, nearly invisible file and box storage below the task area.   It helps to maximize small office spaces by neatly organizing essential functions along one wall.  It has strong horizontal lines and a simple straightforward appearance.

It's just one example of many innovative task area officing solutions you can see here which align with the "Harder Working Spaces" more with less.  Ideas like this support the drive to high performing workplaces which help maximize all of the resources available to the energized learning organization.

Small steps with big impacts to improve your home and your wellbeing

I recently read an interesting article in the recent April issue of Money called "Get the Most Out of Your Home" written by Elizabeth Fenner, Assistant Managing Editor at Money Magazine.

Fenner writes about the rising importance of evidence based design on shaping how we think about remodeling our homes.  As she explains, it's research "backed by science that studies the effects of built spaces on our brains and our bodies- indicate that neither tons of space nor high-end furnishings are keys to home satisfaction."

For the article, Money Magazine and Lowes jointly funded an online survey in 2009 where 2,240 Americans aged 25 to 69 who own a single family free standing house which provides a good deal of the information shared in the article.  The article covers improvements which can be made in every room of the house which can improve homeowner satisfaction and a sense of wellness. (As well as help with possible resale value).  It doesn't cover much about the energy efficiency measures and using sustainable, environmentally friendly materials in any remodeling work.  Let's just say that's an untapped aspect of this article.

Some article highlights: ( I'll cover only the living room and kitchen to spark your curiosity....to learn about the recommendations for other rooms of the house go to your local library or order a back issue) 


Many of the suggestions ring true as good solid design strategies, while some are new to me and are worth further thought.

Living Room:

• Paint your walls soft yellow, this apparently helps make the living room more animated and comfortable to be in. (We have have soft yellow walls in our house.  My wife and I smiled when we heard this recommendation)
• Put your sofa in the right spot with a view to the door and through windows hopefully with scenes of nature of some sort.
• Build window seats to create social nooks.
• Add shelves to organize your chaos more neatly.
• Hide the TV within built-ins so you don't focus on it. Let the sun, drop the drapes or curtains.
• Open up your dropped ceiling.  It's more dynamic and creative.

Kitchen:

• Install a center island with built-in cook top.  We like having social connection to the rest of the room, not having our backs to people etc.
• Put your sink under a window or at least have a picture of nature and or a mirror if you can't over the sink.
• Use a variety of light fixtures to highlight counter work surfaces and the island.  Not just a single light fixture overhead for everything.
• Paint the walls a cool color.  Apparently this well help psychologically turn the down the room temperature a little bit by fooling the mind.

To help with gathering some of her insights, Fenner wrote about a the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture, a group which joins research scientists and design folks together to further efforts in evidenced based design and research.  So often design can seem extremely subjective.  It's hard to pin down and agree on what are indeed effective and sound design strategies when remodeling or designing homes or in other areas of architectural design. Thus identifying more objective ways to describe and study design sounds great to me. Peruse their resources pages for more insight on the ideas behind design driven research and research driven design. 

Meanwhile, dig deeper into this article and maybe stir yourself into action leading to some big impacts on your home without breaking the bank.  For more information on energy efficiency and conservation turn to my friends at Efficiency Vermont and it's residential home team.  They have some very helpful Q&A with tips on everything to do with your home and shifting towards more green behaviors.  Enjoy these resources.  

What I want for the New Year: "The Green Workplace", Leigh Stringer's new book

Two Greenbuild's ago in Boston in November 2008, I saw Leigh Stringer, the Author of "The Green Workplace: Sustainable Strategies that benefit employees, The Environment, and the Bottom Line." who participated in a social media oriented seminar with other green luminaries of the blogosphere. I blogged about it in November of 2008. It was a fascinating session.

Last August her book named after the blog she originated and oversees became available. It's what I want going into the New Year. Apparently The Green Workplace Blog provides much of the material she and others cultivated there into a transformative book about the ins and outs of greening your workplace. Reading reviews of it on Amazon indicates usefulness to workplace sustainability managers, human resource personnel, designers of all kinds among others.

I'm going to sample some of the review words and phrases I saw there to tantalize.

------------

"alternative work options"

"replacing destructive behaviors"

"a good compilation of the issues facing corporations today"

"help(s) businesses improve their ecological footprints"

"(the book) informs, educates and inspires..."

"illuminating, accessible, and comprehensive"

What I'd like to know is how others who have read the book used it in their workplace design and sustainability efforts in the last couple of months? What effects do resources like this have on workplace culture and facilities management, design process, materials selections and operational effects, user satisfaction etc.? What kinds of changes has this inspired for others? Do people who bought the book use the blog and vice versa? At Maclay Architects we're always on the look out for inspiring ideas to help us with our work with our environmentally and socially conscious clients and partners.

Of course, I've got to go read the book and I'll let you know how it folds into our work and design process as well.

In the meantime, tell me how this book has affected you. Or, if you have other books or articles you suggest I take a look at and perhaps share with others, please let me know. I'm happy to take a look. 

Interested in learning more? 

You can find us at www.arocordisdesign.com, the website of our Montpelier, Vermont-based residential architecture firm practice Arocordis Design. If you want to contact us there, click on this link. 

#netzero #homedesign #arocordisdesign #vermont #vermontarchitect #architecture #climateaction