Diversity, creativity and unpredictability are top priorities of the moment in the world of workplace design. Why?
As much as the A&D community feels the persistent gap between the value of good design and the public’s understanding of the value of good design, we are making progress. Good design is more and more making its way to people in all price points and all classes of society. And as that value becomes more established, designers are graced with more freedom – freedom to explore, to innovate and to be more creative.
That creativity and innovation and exploration has the potential to then leak into consumers; they get to be more creative too. Consumers’ exposure to good design turns into an expectation of good design – which leads to more creativity and innovation from the designer.
This shift has reached the workplace through a few channels, including:
The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and other new tech.
>The IoT is already providing loads of usable data about how people live and work and use their spaces. We’re just beginning to learn what this data looks like and how we can use it, but this helps product design and development immensely. It’s helping to shed light on previously overlooked and unaddressed pieces of any type of experience that a designer is designing for.
>The IoT is making the connection between the building and its users more important and more tangible. We’re beginning to create buildings and other things that use less resources and provide a superior human experience.
>The costs involved in using the IoT are coming down exponentially right now.
>The IoT will help us hold ourselves accountable in measuring whether what we created was successful. We can now literally measure if a space or furniture solution or any other object functions the way we designed it to.
The unlocking of borders between work, life and play; and between public and private.
>These blurred lines have led to a fascinating intersection of the urban planning and workplace design fields. People from many private and public entities are now finding they need to work together on my projects – because our public and private lives, functions and spaces are demanding it.
>Even nomenclature is beginning to sink in – example: designing “neighborhoods” into an office layout.
The potential of the sharing economy.
>The sharing economy is allowing us to view “collaboration” in new ways – with more trust, more togetherness, more mindfulness, and a holistic focus.
>The sharing economy seems to be able to facilitate successful relationships between people easily. This is a disruptive model – the idea that we can share goods from peer-to-peer is a big challenge to and for the many institutions that regulate the way we consume things. Licensing certain jobs for the purpose of protecting consumers is often necessary, but this traditional system also makes the sharing and trust difficult. We live in a radically different social world, where there’s tons of data about each of us, and that’s challenging the ways we do business. Trust is earned face-to-face; the shared economy is not a faceless economy. The sharing economy is a social space, a community space, and a relationship building space.
>To what extent do we see the sharing economy enhancing diversity? How can we design spaces that negate those biases? This is the future frontier – building to counteract our biases.
As we inch (sprint?) toward NeoCon in June, architects and designers are springing mind toward ideas and products that will push forward their workplace designs of the next year. In an effort to provide a big-picture view of how furniture manufacturers are developing products to achieve heightened innovation, creativity, diversity and unpredictability in the workplace, it’s helpful to look at what’s already been introduced in the very recent past.
Last month, officeinsight revisited Knoll’s introduction of Rockwell Unscripted at NeoCon 2016. The collection, developed in collaboration with The Rockwell Group, played to notes of…
“Time to think is room to breathe is find your focus is rearrange what was public into what is now private is profoundly productive…Workspace is play space is catch up is break it down to make it new is open it up is make a passageway is way find is wind down.”
Comprising over 30 products in borders, steps tables, seating storage and accessories, Unscripted is all-inclusive, and slightly chaotic at first glance. The intent is for designers to use the collection to unlock those unscripted, predictably unpredictable moments that will fuel our workplaces through the next decade and beyond.
Zones by Teknion, also introduced last year at NeoCon, is a comprehensive collection of furniture, lighting and accessory pieces comprising seating, tables, screens, easels and semi-private enclosures, that can be used to create either small collaborative settings or individual private spaces for R&R or heads-down work.
The point of Zones, similar to Rockwell Unscripted, is to be comprehensive, extraordinarily linked, and fluid – offering endless possibilities for achieving creativity and innovation through space configuration.
The most recent, and perhaps the most direct iteration of the designing for creativity,
etc., trend, comes from Steelcase. Just this spring, Steelcase and Microsoft announced a new partnership called Creative Spaces, a series of five technology-enabled work spaces designed to foster creative thinking at work.”
“Until now, space and technology in the workplace have often been planned separately by different teams with different objectives,” noted the partnership announcement. “This new set of Creative Spaces includes a range places and technologies to enable a creative rhythm. A balanced ecosystem includes technology that is both mobile and integrated into the physical environment as well as spaces designed for individual “me” work and “we” group work.”
The Creative Spaces collaboration aims to challenge designers and organizations to think more holistically about investments in technology and space.
“We’re seeing a movement from the corporate office towards the creative studio, as two markers of space and experience, that all of this work and thinking reflects,” said Mr. Ludwig. “And the notion of an ecosystem of spaces is really appropriate. There’s not one-size-fits-all moments during the day.”
Living
And for Herman Miller’s part, it’s putting forth Living Office’s Clubhouse, to compete in the race to achieve optimal innovation, creativity and improvisation.
In a recent whitepaper, the company cited an international study commissioned by Google, that found an 81% correlation between collaboration and innovation.
“The distinguishing characteristic of innovative teams is the fluid, improvisational way they move between activities,” notes the Herman Miller publication. “The Clubhouse was created specifically to support the fluid, improvisational work activities of highly collaborative teams. In a Clubhouse, team members never have to sacrifice connection to one another in order to work in a setting that’s optimized for the activity at hand. They can remain immersed in their work, achieving a state of flow.
“The Clubhouse is uniquely suited to highly collaborative teams because it contains five kinds of work areas arranged in proximity to each other to support the activities of the team. While the actual arrangement of the areas will vary based on the nature of the work and the team interactions, the proximity of those work areas is what’s critical.”
Who will continue this movement at NeoCon this year? Who will push further into the veins of creativity, unpredictability, innovation and diversity to produce something new and valuable?
Designing for creativity and unpredictability and innovation and diversity – these are exciting things to be aiming for! This space is where designers can stretch their imagination, in ways not possible even just five years ago.