Don’t just work from home. Creep out your employees from a distance!
I saw this article recently about the robot that visits your cubicle. Advertised as a “telepresence robot”, Anybots aim to connect workers more seamlessly through the use of video cameras, still camera and a microphone. The basic concept is that, working anywhere from a laptop, you can log into one of these robots which reside in your office and the robot essentially becomes your “avatar”. Your Anybot can zip around the workplace interacting with coworkers; stopping by your desk, sitting in on meetings or impromptu collaboration sessions, heading over to the factory to see what’s coming off the production line, etc. The video demonstration on their website gives you the idea.
While I do see some of the fundamental advantages of “Robot Boss”, I still can’t help but think of all the hilarious and awkward scenarios that could play out in our workplace culture:

It looks like a Segway had a one night stand with a vacuum cleaner. I hope the cleaning staff doesn’t try to use Robot Boss to buff the floors.
People will definitely dress up Robot Boss in embarrassing clothing. Mine would have a handlebar mustache and dress accordingly for the seasons and holidays. 
If you put a piece of paper over the sensors, can you laugh as Robot Boss crashes into walls because it can’t see straight?
Will people eventually prefer Robot Ross to in-person boss? If in-person boss wears cheap cologne, then yes.
I’d like to see Robot Boss take a client out to lunch. Good luck catching a cab, Robot Boss!
I’d be freaked out if [...]

 
Interesting conceptual project from textile designer Celine Marcq: reactive wallcovering that abstractly visualizes energy use. The idea is that your wall can help indicate how much electricity you are using, ideally making us all more conscious in general. This would be especially helpful for those people who have bad habits of leaving everything plugged in. The ambient light is a reminder that even though something isn’t turned on, if it’s plugged in it’s still pulling in electricity. Gets rid of the whole “out of sight, out of mind” mentaility that gets us in trouble in oh so many instances.

Monitoring and displaying energy isn’t necessarily a brand new concept. Several quality companies are leading the effort to track energy usage. My colleague David Ivey recently posted on HOK Life about measures we’re taking in our Chicago office, implementing  Lutron Quantum and EcoSystem to monitor and display energy usage. These measures have helped our Chicago office be recognized as one of the top ten LEED projects in 2009 according to Interiors and Sources Magazine
The reactive wallcovering is definitley a step in a more aesthetic direction to keep us informed of energy usage. I’m sure pretty soon our offices will be these Matrix-esque environments displaying all types of information. Hopefully the visual overload won’t be too seizure-inducing. I would like to hear of any other examples of aesthetic ways to monitor energy or raise awareness that any of you readers have come across.

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One of the great things about our Atlanta office location is accessibility:  10 minute walk from my house to the train, 15 minute ride, and 5 more minutes to the office.  From there, when hunger strikes (and I didn’t’ bring my lunch) it’s only a 10 minute walk to…Paris? 
A few weeks back my good friend and fellow architect, Luca, invited me to lunch.  “I know this great little French bistro – you’ll enjoy it!”  “Oui!” I accepted and we met on Peachtree Street – the main thoroughfare in downtown Atlanta.  It was a hot, humid, Wednesday afternoon and the typical crowd of business people, tourists and conventioneers were crowding the steamy sidewalks looking for shelter and a cold glass of sweet tea.  “Which way?” I asked.  With a nod and an outstretched hand gesturing north in a way that only a true Roman can do, we started our journey.
Now, I’ve lived in Atlanta for a long, long time, I studied architecture and planning at Georgia Tech and I’ve worked downtown for many years so I’m very familiar with the city and the unique Atlanta-Southern culture.  Downtown Atlanta is not known for its vibrant and diverse street scene.  It has a few lively pockets here and there, but not much continuity between them.  And you have to know where they are or you will wind up wandering aimlessly and never find anything of interest (but something may certainly find you…).  
Thus, I know what to expect when I encounter a downtown side [...]

Today Angie Earlywine, HOK Senior Workplace Strategist, was featured on KMOX Radio Total Information Program to share key findings from IFMA’s Distributed Work Research Report.  Talk show hosts Debbie Monterrey and Dan Gray talk with Angie about how businesses are decreasing their need for office space.
Click here to listen to the podcast – Too Much Office Space

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To be honest, I used to hate hearing about companies that offer cool perks to their employees. I always wished I worked for those other companies. But lately I’ve been hearing about more and more companies offering interesting benefits. Hopefully innovative perks become more of the norm. Regardless of a companies motives behind the perks, I think it’s a great way to attract new employees (young talent with high expectations of a “cool” workplace) as well retaining some of the more seasoned employees (those who like their job just fine but maybe things are getting stale).
Here’s an article I found highlighting some companies who are offering interesting perks:
10 Perks We Love
While some perks are just plain cool (massages, dry cleaning service) other benefits are a great way for a company to express their gratitude and commitment to a work/life balance (travel perks, flex hours, work at home options, gym memberships). The challenge for employers is to balance these perks for their diverse workforce. A kid fresh out of school might not see the benefit of daycare reimbursement but would jump at the chance to work at home or have travel incentives. The key is to celebrate the diversity of your staff and provide appropriate perks, which may change over time. With an emerging younger, more socially conscious workforce, as well as more people working later in life, there is opportunity for some very innovative and fun incentives.
And this got me daydreaming of some other potentially cool perks (some of [...]

I first read about this a few months ago and was fascinated with the idea. The Mars 500 project is a research endeavor that aims to simulate obstacles that a manned mission to Mars would experience, including stress, claustrophobia, fatigue.
Video: Locked & Sealed: 520 days, 6 men, 1 bunker
Six participants will spend a total of 520 days in a series of modules, part of an isolation facility in Moscow.
During the isolation period the candidates will be simulating all elements of the Mars mission, travelling to Mars, orbiting the planet, landing and return to Earth.
The crew will have to be self-reliant, and organise a great deal of their daily tasks. They will be responsible for monitoring and maintaining the health and psychological states of themselves and each other, monitoring and controlling and maintaining systems, including life support, control resource consumption, carry out standard and non-standard cleaning and maintenance, as well as fulfilling scientific investigations.
The other interesting catch…all communication will be on a 20 minute delay to simulate the delays that would be anticipated travelling so far away. Makes my spotty cell phone service not seem so bad, I suppose.
I’m curious to see the research findings on the psychological and physical effects of this experiment and if there are any takeaways in terms of how the “human factors” will ultimately help shape the design and experience of the physical living/working conditions.
Looking at the photos of the facility my first thought was “wow…wood paneling!”. My second thought [...]

A new furniture line from Knoll, Antenna Workspaces, was designed by Antenna Design duo Sigi Moeslinger and Masamichi Udagawa. Best known for hardcore industrial engineering and interactive design (they also designed New York’s subway cars), they are an unlikely pick to be designing a furniture line for a prestigious company such as Knoll.
Conventional wisdom would tell me this is a risky move. Why not hire workplace experts who have years of experience on the front lines researching furniture, designing offices and hearing firsthand what clients want? We’re the people who know all the minute details and differences among all the furniture lines out there in the market. Well, according to Benjamin Pardo, Knoll’s senior vice president of design, “I didn’t want to work with someone was more entrenched [in the industry], because they come with a set in criteria that I’m not interested in, or quite frankly someone who had done an office system before. It’s almost like asking a child to figure something out because they always come at it with a fresh understanding.”
Hmmm…interesting point, Mr. Pardo.
Regardless of any success or failure for this line of furniture, I do have to say I like the idea of Knoll and Antenna coming at this from a different creative perspective. “Antenna’s idea was to create a table system that can grow organically with the users’ needs. The system works kind of like New York’s subways: At the heart are rails, up to eight feet long, held together by [...]

I recently wrote this article for the St. Louis Business Journal.  It focuses on the post recession office, employee mobility and the impact on real estate. 
 http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/24/editorial4.html
In post-recession America, an intersection is taking shape between relentless cost cutting and retaining talented employees. It is a “less is more” crossroad where oversized real estate is pushing distributed work into mainstream. The International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and the Corporate Real Estate Network (CoreNet Global) define distributed work as work spread among distributed teams, in variable locations and occurring at varying times. In 2009, IFMA surveyed a thousand different distributed workspace strategies while HOK contributed four in-depth case studies. It demonstrated a need to rethink work environments. For example:
Sprint Nextel shed 3.5 million square feet of space between 2005 and 2008, saving $80 million.
BP increased collaborative space in one office to 25 percent without increasing real estate for 1,000 employees.
Telecom maker Nortel has reduced office space demand by 25 percent since 2004. In one regional office, it cut electricity costs by about $350,000 and CO2 emissions by 2,735 metric tons annually.
These aren’t workers crammed into space like sardines, but space efficiencies gained through the essential three C’s: collaboration, connectivity and comfort. In the evolution of work, companies adopted open office concepts to facilitate the exchange of ideas. But it also gave rise to countless “Dilbertvilles.” Today, technology has been miniaturized and with it the office. Work force connectivity makes flexible work schedules more viable for employers and more valued by young, talented workers in [...]

A few years ago when things were hopping and there was intense competition for talent a lot of recommendations were made to improve the workplace that bordered on silly.  For example, how many of you remember the push to incorporate table games, soft seating and BEAN BAGS?  Well, thanks to BT Business we can remind ourselves how well some of these ideas worked…

What crazy ideas do you remember?

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Hong Kong Architect, Gary Chang, has a very creative way to work around the space constraints in his tiny apartment. Using a system of sliding walls and fold away furniture he utilizes literally every inch of his space.

A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms
In slightly over 300 sq. ft. he has created a space that is able to reconfigure itself into twenty four different forms. Besides being just plain cool, this space is simple, efficient and very eco-friendly. Amazing to see solutions such as this that don’t come across as strictly utilitarian, but also with a sense of whimsy. This is a perfect example of the type of creative thinking we all need to keep in mind when working with clients who continue to have greater demand for consolidating their office spaces, saving money and implementing more sustainable practices into their organizations.

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