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 [...]

Competition.  We all know that word, whether in terms of projects we’re trying to win or our favorite basketball team.  And we can probably agree that a healthy amount of competition can be a good thing – drives us forward, causes us to focus, challenges us, and introduces us to new ideas.  Well, how about when one of your biggest competitors (ahem…SOM) wins a competition to design a new “Silicon Valley” in New York City?  How does THAT make you feel? 
In late 2011, Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology – with SOM and Field Operations (designed the High Line in NYC) – won a competition run by NYC’s administrative office under Michael Bloomberg to repurpose a portion of Roosevelt Island.  The winning proposal included 2.5 million square feet total, with technology focused on NYC-centric industries such as medicine, finance, and advertising, and endowments for start-up companies.  What is particularly attractive about the campus, however, is that the proposal centered the 2,500-student academic institution around central “hubs” (see Fast Company for the animations of the space) and expansive, open areas organized by interest, not by discipline, to foster the exchange of ideas.  Polish it off with interwoven public spaces to serve the academic and general population and a net-zero goal for each of the academic buildings, and you have a pretty great recipe.  Or, at least one good enough to garner the attention of Bloomberg anc Cornell alumni alike. 
Understanding how people work, how ideas are shared, and how environments affect the [...]

Just a quick video to make you smile today: Steve Hargis inspires corporate real estate folks as part CoreNet’s Corporate Real Estate 2020 initiative:

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This week marks the 5th birthday of the iphone! As I thought about this, I started to reflect on the impact that this one device has made…many people could not function well without it. I count myself in the group – I totally drink the Apple Kool Aid (full disclosure)! So why is it that I have become so completely dependent?
There has been a growing trend over the last 10 years called “convergence”, where many aspects of the world are coming together in ways that they never have before. For example, social media sites networking together so that you can pull a news story from one location and share on Face book – or vice versa. Grocery stores use cards to track what you purchase to give you specialized coupons intended to get you to try new products, as well as monitor your spending habits and sell that information back to the manufactures. All this data is tracked and stored for marketing purposes.
For me, convergence is epitomized on a personal level in the iphone – for example, when traveling I simply forward any email reservation confirmations to a website aligned with the Trip it application that organizes and creates a travel itinerary for me. When I arrive, the application interfaces with the GPS on Google Maps to give me direction for driving, walking, or public transportation to my destination. Also included are phone numbers that I can dial from the iphone for the destination if there are any problems along [...]

When you hear the word “Deltek” mentioned at HOK, the first thing that pops to mind isn’t always the accounting/time software we all know so well…it’s usually the great new project that’s about to open.  Deltek is moving their headquarters into a new facility, complete with HOK-designed interiors. Yes, some of your favorite Work+Place bloggers are behind this design (Catherine Haley and Daphne Kiplinger).
What is it about Deltek’s new space that’s so special?   One of the many features is Deltek’s commitment to an open office – even the CEO will be seated in open plan workstations. Check out an article in today’s Washington Post (Deltek Consolidates into New Herndon Office) , or view a few preview photos in our Flickr set below:

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Are you curious about what other offices throughout the world look like?  Do you sometimes wish you could sneak into another company’s workplace and see how they operate on a daily basis?   If so, I’ve got good news for you: Enter wovox, a new website devoted to just that…discovering workplaces!

I stumbled upon wovox recently, and have really enjoyed snooping around.  Anyone can post photos to the site—companies and individuals alike—which gives it a neat range of workplaces from all over the world, from tiny home offices to huge global corporations, and hundreds in between!  To give you an idea of the breadth of spaces, there are posts from McDonald’s Australian headquarters, the Smithsonian in DC, Cubion (a Danish consulting firm), Adobe’s office in San Francisco, Groupon’s Amsterdam office, and even one from the Quayside Fish Market in Doha, Qatar.
Here in the design industry, we get a fair amount of exposure to the latest design and workplace trends, but there are still infinite spaces that we’d never have been able to see before wovox came onto the scene.

So if you are looking for some fresh design inspiration (or want see if the carpet really is greener on the other side of the world), then check it out.  Happy workplace snooping!

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What happens when a company gets too big to be an exclusively virtual company?
I recently came across an article on inc.com: 4 Tips on Managing a Virtual Workforce, which featured Michael Sappington, CEO of gloStream, a company that provides software solutions for electronic medical records. In the piece, Michael notes some of the obstacles to maintaining a virtual environment as his compnay grows as well as the decision to move to physical office space.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Michael to dive deeper into the pros and cons his company is seeing as they transition from a virtual office to a physical office. Michael was gracious enough to answer my four questions below.
1. As your company grows and you shift your strategy related to flexible work hours and a virtual workforce, have you encountered any personnel issues with new ways of working and, if so, how are you managing this change to keep employees happy and engaged?
Overall, the shift from a virtual electronic medical records company to one operating out of a physical office has gone very, very well. Our team members have welcomed the change and they are much more productive since they can find each other and quickly meet face-to-face, instead of having to spend time tracking each other down before finding a time for a meeting. Our team members are happy to be in an office and really excited about our new work environment.
2. What workplace trends (i.e. technology, furniture, new ways of working) do you feel [...]

For several years our industry has pushed for the shift from ownership of space – as in your own office / workstation or your department’s conference room – to the sharing place.  In large part, this has been driven by the need to reduce the cost of real estate for organizations by trying to increase the utilization of  space used.  However, in my experience, there’s been significant reluctance due to our culture of ownership(especially here in the U.S.) . 
Last May at TEDx Sydney Rachel Botsman presented “The Case for Collaborative Consumption” and how several factors, including the proliferation of sharing websites, are having an impact on shifting our behaviors  from individual ownership to sharing.  She identifies 4 key drivers that are “fusing together and creating the big shift towards collaborative consumption”

A renewed belief in the importance of community
A torrent of peer-to-peer social networks and real-time technologies
Pressing unresolved environmental concerns
A global recession that has fundamentally shocked consumer behaviors

She also attributes the increase in this phenomenon to the “digital natives or Gen Y” and the ease of mobile collaboration – “they are growing up sharing…it’s second nature to them…moving us from a culture of me to a culture of we”. 

Her talk makes a strong case (using several internet examples like Zipcar, Swaptree and Landshare) that our consumer behaviors are changing due to the 4 points listed above that are being enabled by technology, mobility and a younger generation where sharing is second nature.
I believe Rachel’s presentation provides our industry with a few related examples, benefits and ideas for future opportunities around the idea sharing in an effort to reduce real estate, space and resource consumption faced by many [...]

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 [...]