The Experience Economy and the Sharing Economy are reshaping the way we live our lives and spend both our money and our time. It’s hard to understate the impact of both of these movements.
The Great Recession triggered us to think differently about how we spend our money. We’ve shifted from placing priority on ownership and material things to placing priority on experiences – and it turns out that rewarding, incredible experiences aren’t as readily available in a traditional economic model as one would think. People are also seeking out more than just “great” experiences though; they’re looking for more tailored experiences as well – experiences they can help create for themselves.
The sharing and experience economies are filling this demand by injecting more variety and trust into the exchange of goods, services and more. AirBnb, Uber and coworking giants such as WeWork are just the tip of the iceberg in the sharing economy – check out this deemly read to brush up on predictions for the sharing economy in 2017.
Furniture manufacturer Knoll has focused its efforts in workplace strategy around what it calls “immersive planning.” Immersive planning comes from this heightened awareness of and pattern of seeking out and creating memorable experiences, or “fully immersive experiences.”
Immersive planning progresses beyond “activity-based planning” – planning for what a person does once they get to a particular space – and in addition builds for fluidity and the journey between spaces. In a nutshell, the concept of immersive planning builds upon the view of the workplace as an experience, rather than the view of the office as a building.
“The office is not just a container, or a collection of containers, anymore,” says Kylie Roth, senior director of workplace research at Knoll. “Things are more fluid, they don’t start and stop as much as they did. Activity-based planning doesn’t talk about the journey between spaces.”
And for the sharing economy’s part, it’s showing its influence on workplace planning and research in the form of a surge in shared spaces; more collaboration and mobility are driving a shift to communally owned spaces, while tighter real estate management is more-so demanding it.
Workplace strategists and designers will continue to take notes from “predictably unpredictable” coworking settings, which in large part is responsible for the workplace becoming the third place.
Immersive planning relies on three fundamental elements:
>Improvisational. “Boundaries and transitions are sinuous and ever-changing. Environments respond to rather than prescribe individual movement. Architectural elements act to ground the environment, while transformable features offer a setting that allows people to seamlessly and purposefully transition from space to space – enabling their individual actions to shape the space and their experience. Immersive environments transition at a moment’s notice and evolve with use. Undefined circulation paths and ambiguous edges facilitate subtle transition from gathering areas to refuge spaces, inviting connection and enhancing interaction along the way. Formality and definition give way to a series of discrete personal and communal experiences, connected seamlessly in a singular setting. Immersive workplaces allow space to be easily reorganized around varied interactions throughout the course of a day.”
>Communal. “Communal expresses the sense of inclusion, culture and connections within an organization. Centered on the human element, an immersive, communal environment creates chances for cross-functional information sharing, interpersonal feedback and communication across the organization, regardless of position or title, leading to more informed and better decision-making. A welcoming atmosphere provides people a feeling of belonging – caring about their work, their colleagues and the organization at large. Connected spaces and workers promote a sense of sharing and inclusion in an environment where little formal ownership of specific elements exists.”
>Dimensional. “Inspired by innovations in hospitality, public space and entertainment design, immersive planning transforms work into a multisensory experience that engages multiple touch points. Relaxed furnishings create a welcoming hospitality-style setting that invites personal and communal engagement. Diverse visual and tactile elements in multiple textures, materials and scales enliven the senses to produce a compelling work environment where people want to be – even if they don’t have to be.”
The ideas behind immersive planning are admittedly not “new”: choice (making the workplace your own), amenity-rich, the office still being valued as a home-base regardless of working remote policies, environments that accommodate increasingly group-based work, a prevailing casual/informal atmosphere, networks of people replacing hierarchies of people, mobility as a norm, and workers creating their own privacy within a large floor plate, to name just a few.
And conjoined to the influences of the sharing and experience economies are the commercial office industry’s changing relationships with other industries.
“The workplace has to, and has been, looking to other industries for direction – the hospitality, residential and airline industries in particular,” says Ms. Roth.
But, furniture manufacturers and designers are continuing to evolve their understanding of the new, bigger picture contexts in which it’s taking shape – and the experience and sharing economies fall at the center of this.
“Immersive planning diverges from a proportional, activity-based planning model designed to support work tasks and functions,” reads Knoll’s Immersive Planning white paper published in conjunction with the introduction of Rockwell Unscripted last year. Instead, it draws from a holistic point of view, in which workplace architecture, furnishings and people are linked and the design of the total environment outshines any one particular work element. It favors a people-centered focus that embraces a range of social and creative work experiences.
“In contrast to discrete, well-defined spaces, Immersive planning delivers a more amorphous environment. Unprescribed paths, fluid boundaries and inviting furnishings empower users to shape their own experiences from their personal perspective.”
“A lot of this is driving the thinking in Rockwell Unscripted,” says Ms. Roth. “There are many open-ended boundaries within the collection that point to fluidity.”
Rockwell Unscripted elements, a collaboration between Knoll and Rockwell Group and introduced at NeoCon 2016, include over 30 products in six categories: borders, steps, tables, seating, storage and accessories.
“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.”
Unscripted is an all-inclusive collection that has a little bit of everything. But the pieces that really tap into Knoll’s immersive planning ideas are the creative walls, which give people options for getting their ideas out onto their space, and the steps, which do an excellent job of forming spaces people can use to work alone, work together, and work “alone together.”
Rockwell Unscripted can seem slightly chaotic, but the optimist in every designer can use the collection to unlock some of those unscripted, predictably unpredictable moments that make the workplace a true experience.