In the workplace design biz, we’re exposed to the latest and greatest office design trends.  The height-adjustable workstation has been coming on strong over the last few years, and we’re seeing more and more companies making them.  
Steelcase has researched the topic extensively and gives us 9 reasons why height-adjustability is good.  On the health side they note that “Since static posture can result in strain/discomfort, possible injury, and increased workers’ comp claims, ergonomists now recommend movement throughout the day (…) standards include a recommendation to regularly change posture from a seated to a standing position.”  
Despite the health and other benefits of adjustable height desks though, some clients seem to be hesitant to make the switch—possibly because of the higher upfront costs, or the aesthetics of having surfaces at different heights.  
On the flip-side, some companies have embraced the trend, and employees are standing up all over the place!  I came across a post by a friend who works at Google’s HQ in Mountain View—she linked to a Fast Company article and was excited because her team’s cube was featured in the photo.  I was equally excited to see this because: a) waitta go Brie! and b) they use standing-height workstations!  (Wondering if she likes her desk?  She reports: “I love love love my standing desk!”)  
In a recent article about Facebook’s new HQ in Menlo Park, CA, employees also have the choice of sitting or standing—and many are choosing to take a stand.  
It seems this trend is taking off—but is it mainly in the [...]

The cube is dead!  Long live the cube! 

Just read an interesting article in Interiors & Sources: The Cubicle, Deconstructed, quoting one of HOK’s own, Pam Light, Director of Interiors in Los Angeles.  The article quickly moves through the history of the open plan office, highlighting some of the successes (better space efficiency!) and failures (can’t find anyone in a maze of high-paneled cubicles!), and then addresses some of the major concerns users typically have:

Visual privacy
Noise or acoustical privacy
Hierarchy
Flexibility

Designers and furniture manufacturers are amply aware of these concerns and have been addressing them through thoughtful space planning and design and manufacture of products that offset the issues.  Check out the article for some tips and product ideas.

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Please welcome a guest post from Susan Grossinger, Senior Vice President, Director of Product Design at HOK.

Please take a few minutes to watch this Gather video and listen to the design team — including HOK’s Steve Hargis, Tom Polucci, Louis Schump and Annie Bergeron — speak about the inspiration and research around the ideas.HOK Product Design’s team members came from all over North America and we joined with our industrial design Partner – id-a Design based in Zeeland, Michigan, to create an award winning collection of collaborative furniture that is a new market niche for Allsteel.
The 11-piece collection created the most buzz at Neocon 2011 and stood out in the crowd because of the focus on helping companies effectively collaborate by providing new products that until this time didn’t exist.
Fast Company Design wrote: “With its latest collection of contract furniture, Allsteel wants to be among the first to cater to this new office paradigm, offering pieces expressly designed for idea sharing.”
The Gather collection, which officially launched in December, has already won six industry awards including Interiors & Sources Readers’ Choice, Buildings Magazine’s Product Innovation Award and four Best of Neocon awards including People’s Choice, Editor’s Choice and Silver awards in the Education and Sofas and Lounge categories.

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Lately I can’t seem to escape discussions about wellness in the workplace. In the past few weeks I’ve received several wellness related articles  from colleagues, witnessed real life issues onsite with clients and helped kick off a firm wide wellness initiative in my own firm. There are definitely enough issues surrounding this topic to turn this into a series of posts, but for now I will focus on sitting and walking in the workplace.
A colleague recently sent me these great infographics: Sitting is Killing You, highlighting some interesting statistics on the detriments of sitting for prolonged periods of time, fueling the argument to get up and walk around throughout the day. Personally, I hate the idea of sitting at a desk all day. I jump at any chance to walk across the office to talk with a colleauge. Not only does it add a few extra steps to my day, but often I can be more productive by engaging with a coworker face-to-face as opposed to long email chains which I’ll eventually have to go back and delete when cleaning out my inbox.

Adding to this discussion, HOK recently launced on Facebook what we are hoping to be The World’s Largest Workplace Survey. This is a great open forum to provide input on how well or not-so-well your workplace is performing. Join the dicussion by taking the survey here. The chart below shows some recent realtime survey results, indicating that an overwhelming amount of people complain about some physical discomfort in the workplace.

And in [...]

I was reading the Washington Post Express this morning and happened upon the most fabulous photograph:

This urban cowboy is competing in the third annual German office chair race championship in Bad Koenig-Zell, Germany. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS FABULOUS EVENT?! 
Apparently this annual event brings Europeans together to celebrate work and speed (some racers get up to 35 km/hr..that’s about 22 mph for those of you Imperial unit users).  This year’s race was won by Luxembourger Pierre Feller.
Rules:

200 meter dash downhill
Propelled by hands and feet
No motorized chairs
Adaptations to chairs permitted

I wonder if HOK would like to sponsor one of us to race next year??  I have an Herman Miller Aeron that’s a bit too big – perhaps I could strip it down and make it into an aerodynamic racing machine. Or maybe the JDRF Real Estate Games could change up their events?
More great photos of the race here , here, here, and here, or watch on YouTube here.

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I recently had the opportunity to write a guest blog for Virtual Office. The blog focuses on personalization of the workplace, and how new workplace trends could potentially limit our sense of individuality. With more and more mobile work styles emerging, and less and less people “living” at their desks in a traditional 9-to-5, forty hour work week, I question whether the or not people will also start ditching all of their personal knick-knacks in favor of  more streamlined, flexible work environments. 
Check out the full blog post here: A Home Away From Home Away From Home. The blog even makes a brief Office Space reference. Enjoy.

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Last year the HOK Chicago Interiors Group completed an office relocation project for Millward Brown, a leading global research agency. One of the main goals of the project was to make sure the branding of the space worked with the overall brand values of the company but also maintained a local identity to the Chicago market and their specific location. Millward Brown is a very youthful, creative and highly collaborative organization, and the physical space, amenities and branding all needed to reflect that culture.
The final workplace soultion is a very open plan with a variety of collaboration spaces,  reduced amount of materials,  youthful, energizing graphics and several areas for employees to kick back and relax, including a fully loaded Wii Rock Band area. It’s a great mix of a laid back, jeans-wearing culture with some very slick, sophisticated amenities for clients and visitors of all varieties.
The project was recently featured in an article in Interiors & Sources Magazine. Check out the article here.

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With more than $290 billion in assets and approximately 55,000 employees, PNC is one of the largest financial services companies in the country. Based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PNC also has more LEED certified buildings than any other company on Earth. When it opened in 2001, PNC’s Firstside Center in downtown Pittsburgh was the nation’s largest corporate green building at 650,000 square feet. And with the recent opening of PNC Place in Washington, D.C., PNC currently has over 100 LEED certified projects in its real estate portfolio. Gary Saulson, Director of Corporate Real Estate for the PNC Financial Services Group, is responsible for the direction of PNC’s sustainable strategies. Overseeing approximately 30 million square feet of commercial real estate, Saulson has impressively helped transform PNC into an industry leader in corporate sustainability. I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Saulson about PNC’s sustainable and workplace strategies.  
“Our simple task is to build environments where employees can thrive and customers can do their business”, says Saulson, who explains that PNC has an internal Product Review Committee that tests and reviews all products that go into their offices. The Product Review Committee is represented by people from across the bank: including people involved in Operations, Energy, Sustainability and Finance. They also work with manufacturers to beta test products, including conference tables, chairs, light fixtures, restroom faucets and hand dryers.   
Saulson believes it makes good business sense to “do our homework” on the products they purchase and implement into their workplace standards. He explained to [...]

One of the reasons we started Work+Place was to share HOK’s workplace expertise – developed over the past 15-or-so years.  While our experts have been sharing their latest and greatest thinking – everything from the obesity epidemic and the impacts of Mexican drug cartels on the workplace to research, potty humor, and workplace pranks, we thought it might be fun to dig back into the annals of HOK’s workplace experience and see what we could find. 
As you can see from the graphic above, we’ve had lots of experience with single project and full accounts, giving our team a rich set of data to mine.  This post is the first in a series highlighting our thought leadership through publications.  Keep an eye out and see what we’ve said and how our thinking has evolved.

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I recently had the pleasure of being invited on a trip to the Haworth corporate headquarters in Holland, Michigan. The environment at One Haworth Center embodies the company’s commitment to good design and sustainability. We were able to meet with members of their “Ideation Group” who explained aspects of the research they perform finding ways to see how the built environment affects people. Scientific research has found that the arrangement of furniture and interior space affects human behavior. Haworth wants to change people positively. The company uses a variety of research tools including: psychology of existing workspace, organizational culture, social network analysis, and individual work style analysis. Haworth also looks at the different types of organizational cultures which are: collaborative, creative, controlling, and competitive. All together the visit was educational, enjoyable, and truly inspiring.

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