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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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 [...]

Every summer our office is the drop off location for a CSA, a Community Supported Agriculture program.  Participants, about a dozen of us here, pay the local farmer(s) ahead of time and come June or so we get a box of glowingly beautiful produce every week.  Sustainability is a guiding principle in our firm and this is one way we can support both area farmers and our own heath.  Plus it really brightens a person’s day to see those colors, almost as good as sunlight.  If you want to learn more about CSA’s the USDA has a good page of links and finding tools, like Bioodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, LocalHarvest, and many more.  The family farm that brings us our wonderful produce here in St. Louis is Lee Farms.  What do you think – would this work at your office?

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The Builders Association is a leading trade association serving the commercial construction industry in Chicago. They are a reliable source to keep up on relevant issues in the local construction community. I was recently asked to write an article for their June newsletter to discuss how the Architecture and Design community is viewing the current state of the market, what firms are doing to weather the economic storm and what market sectors look to have growth in 2010. Check out the article here: School’s In

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It’s a summer Friday and a lot of people are out of the office today…perfect time for workplace hijinks, don’t you think?  I hit the web for some inspiration (it’s been quite a while since my last prank, which involved rigging an enormous plastic spider through the exposed ductwork and dropping it on my unsuspecting colleague).  I also once had a friend switch everything between two workstations – not quite as visually appealing as some of the photos below, but pretty darn funny!
Some work+prank ideas for your Friday enjoyment:
 Source: Ergoware

Source: Blue Badge Mojo
Source: Information Nation
Source: Betty Finds
Source: Mac Talk
Source: TheseOfficePranks
Source: TheseOfficePranks
Source: I Need to Stop Soon
 Any brilliant ideas?  In my four pack, I’m currently the only one here….

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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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For those of you readers not familiar, one of our favorite Work+Place bloggers is also a famous (ok, maybe infamous) author: Leigh Stringer.  Leigh’s book, The Green Workplace, was published last August and really focuses on the opportunities to green the workplace…and we’re not talking about just getting your building/interiors LEED certified.  Leigh’s book is a business book with design thinking, rather than a design book with business thinking!

This week, she presented some findings from the book to the U.S. Green Building Council’s National Capital Region at their monthly chapter meeting.
Her presentation discussed the context for the book, AHA! moments she had while writing it, and an analysis of what is coming down the pipeline in workplace sustainability over the next 30 to 50 years.
Some of the astounding facts Leigh shared when talking about why she wrote this book were that there are 131 million workers in the US (US population is about 310 M) and that the total demand for buildings in the US is 127,000,000,000 square feet (courtesy of Brookings).  That’s a lot of people in a lot of buildings…that, for the most part, aren’t very green.  The good news is, conservation behavior can save just as much energy as physical change to design! 
As Leigh put it, not everyone can influence the design of a building…but everyone can make changes to their behavior to use less and tread more lightly on the environemnt.  Behavioral change is influenced by social influence (yes, peer pressure), commitment (think about if an item [...]

Reduce your printing ink bill by 30%!  All you have to do is switch your default font from Arial (the most popular font for Outlook) to Century Gothic.  That’s what the IT department at University of Wisconsin at Green Bay found.  Harvard Business School’s Daily Stat adds that “ink accounts for about 60% of the cost of a printed page.”  Read more here and here.  Century Gothic image source, Arial image source.

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