Welcome to the next installment of our work+place history. Today we feature a recent bit of history – our own Jim Rice was featured last week in the Atlanta Business Chronicle…and not about his work…this time Jim was featured for his work+commuting.  Check out some information on Jim’s passion: read the ABC Article.
If you have some time to read some more HOK workplace history, check our previous posts:

Work+Place History (2): The Leader 
Work+Place History (3): Facilitating Change
Work+Place History (4): True Collaboration
Work+Place History (5): Working Abroad
Work+Place History (6): Going Green

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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 [...]

[Friday humor time...at least for me...]  So, I’m sitting here at the island in my kitchen working on day 5 of remote work due to the snow/ice mix that has put the smackdown on the metro-Atlanta region (yes, we shut down for cold weather, too).  Fortunately for me, several years of working with a distributed team has made this second nature:  wireless access, a near-light-speed cable modem, cell phone and a corner office (in my bedroom) have enabled continued communication with my team spread across the globe quick and easy!! 
But it is not without frustrations…
So this morning I got an e-mail from a colleague using his brand new iPad.  It’s got this cute little sign-off:  “sent from my iPad.”  Do I really need to know that?  It’s a little jab in my side saying, “hey, I’m cool, I’m connected, I’m ON-DEMAND BABY!” I groan to my wife about it and then she reads me the closing from one of her client’s recent e-mails:  “sent from my magic iPhone.”  oh, yes, she read it from HER iPhone, too, complete with catchy phrase “sent from my iPhone.”  Another favorite: “sent while moving warp speed on my Verizon wireless smart phone.”  sigh…
Me?  I’m still banging out notes on the microscopic, worn out, push-button eraser heads on my Dash with my fat little thumbs and forefingers!  Even my kids (8 and 5) try to touch the screen to make it work, all the while complaining that I need to get a new phone.  Really?
So, I thought that the least I could [...]

Does a noisy office energize you, make you feel like part of something real and exciting, in the thick of things?  Or does it fracture your attention, make it hard to concentrate, raise your stress levels?  A recent post on Your Health at Work suggests ways to cope with disruptive noise at the office (saw it here).   

I’m sitting in an open office right now.  On one side of me are the library stacks and beyond that is our community kitchen (in the second photo you can see my desk, the stacks and the kitchen’s blue tile walls at the very back).  On my other side is an open studio area (third photo, my desk is to the right with the struggling plant).  Sounds are all around me.  I can hear refrigerator doors opening in the kitchen, microwaves dinging, silverware rattling, someone dropped a dish in the sink, cupboards are popping shut as someone searches for a bowl or a spoon (it’s a mystery where they all disappear to), someone is breaking up clumps of ice cubes in the ice machine, people are laughing and talking while they prepare lunch.  I hear high heels clicking by on the concrete floor in front of me and in back of me, heavy doors to the elevator lobby clank shut about every minute or so as people go in and out.  The air handling is a constant hum above me.  People in the work areas near me are discussing a project, walking by, talking on the phone, teasing each other amidst laugher.  You [...]

Welcome to the next installment of our work+place history. Today we feature Pete Winters and Isilay Civan.  Pete and Isilay hail from HOK’s Dallas office and contributed a fabulous article to Building Operating Management Magazine back in August 2008. 
In many ways it seems as if there is a single, global business environment – except when it comes to international facilities projects. A host of rules, regulations, legal and cultural requirements that are very location specific can wreak havoc with project schedules and budgets. Pete and Isilay share advice on working in the international marketplace. They co-authored the article, “Building Abroad,” and share their collective research, experience and other helpful tips for navigating projects in Asia/Pacific and Europe. A checklist to keep track of special requirements is included.
Read the article: Learning the Ropes When Building Abroad
If you have some time to read some more HOK workplace history, check our previous posts:

Work+Place History (2): The Leader 
Work+Place History (3): Facilitating Change
Work+Place History (4): True Collaboration

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I recently met some representatives from SERVCORP, a company that rents office space to individuals and organizations that are looking for an office presence but do not want to commit to their own costly lease. Having a strong personal interest in workplace trends, I decided to check them out. SERVCORP is an Australian company that recently broke into the U.S. market by setting up shop in a few cities, including two suites in high profile, class A buildings in downtown Chicago. Recently I had the chance to tour one of their suites and I have to say their operation is very well put together. They offer rentals of both Executive Office and Virtual Office space. Their tagline “Everything But The Office” seems to sum up a growing trend in where the future of physical office space is headed. I found this succinct promo video for the company which highlights the idea of having a “big business infrastructure, without the associated costs”.
Two of the more prominent workplace trends these days are the continued growth of a mobile workforce (less people in offices) as well as companies reducing their overall real estate portfolios (less space being rented). This recent Wall Street Journal article is just one of dozens of recent articles reporting the reduction in office footprints in this country.

That being said, what will eventually become of all the corporate real estate out there? Will the soaring skyscrapers, the greatest of corporate status symbols, be reduced to nothing but ghost towns? In ten years will my corporate headquarters simply be [...]

It is a nearly-indisputable fact that technology is one of the most prevalent and important trends in the workplace these days, and we have it to thank for so many incredible advances in our lives.  But some people may describe this trend as more of a rampant one, that is spiraling out of control and virtually taking over peoples’ lives, both at work and at home…which begs the question, is there such thing as “too much technology”?  And are we over-extending ourselves by indulging in all of the latest tech trends?
This article ran in the NY Times a few months ago as part of a series called “Your Brain on Computers.” It was sent to me by my mother—by way of her siblings—who mused that they don’t believe themselves to be victims of this technological stronghold, but that they believe their children surely are.  The article is rather long (I skimmed it while at lunch outside, on my blackberry—go figure), but is full of juicy technology tidbits and some surprising facts that shocked even me, a solid “Gen Y-er.”  Some fun facts:

“In 2008, people consumed three times as much information each day as they did in 1960”
“Computer users at work change windows or check e-mail or other programs nearly 37 times an hour”
“At home, people consume 12 hours of media a day on average, when an hour spent with, say, the Internet and TV simultaneously counts as two hours. That compares with 5 hours in 1960.”

None of these struck me [...]

In my Organizational Behavior class, we are currently studying personality which is defined as the total ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others. This got me thinking of how personality relates to the built environment. Perhaps we as designers and scientists of sorts should get to know our client’s personalities when we design their workspaces.
One of the most popular personality tests is the “Big Five Model.” This model says that there are five dimensions to the human personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. So, this brings up the question: Would your personality type dictate the type of work space you prefer? Perhaps if someone is slightly neurotic they would prefer a more minimalist, structured office while someone who is more extraverted would like a more free-spirited, unstructured work environment.
Do you know which personality type you are? To find out, see the link below.
http://www.personal.psu.edu/~j5j/IPIP/ipipneo120.htm
Images taken from Google images.

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Recently, two of my colleagues pulled off a surprise baby shower for me, all while sitting in an open office environment. Needless to say, I was completely surprised! As you can probably imagine, a lot of work goes into planning a surprise party. Granted, some of it can be done through good ole’ e-mail communication, but at some point, all that scheming has to occur somewhere beyond that.  

So, how did two people that sit immediately to my left and right, without any walls or workstation panels separating us, pull this off?  This can’t be easy in any work environment, but somehow they were able to keep it a secret. So, does this mean it’s possible to have private conversations and work on top secret information in an open office environment without your surrounding colleagues hearing or seeing your work? Well, it definitely seemed to work in this situation.  
As my colleague Jodi Williams and I continue to embark on a journey to debunk open office myths, here we present you with busted myth #1: You can’t have private conversations or work on confidential information while sitting in an open office work environment.
 
Now, I know some of you out there may still find this to be a challenging issue, especially if you are sitting in an open office and shouldn’t be because of the nature of your work OR because you don’t have access to private spaces, etc. We heard you…we’ve been reading all of your comments and blogs on the internet [...]

As we’ve been working on this blog, we keep seeing the same few search terms come up: workplace trends, workplace 2010, innovations in workplace, etc.  To help answer some of these questions, we thought we would reach out to some of our colleagues, clients and friends and ask them about some of their workplace experiences.  Today is the first post in that series, and features HOK Washington, DC’s own Amy Fabry. 
What is your current role?  I am a Senior Interior Designer in the Washington, DC studio.
What would you say are current “trends” when it comes to the workplace?  Cram as many people in as possible. 
Seriously, many of our corporate clients recognize that there is a large portion of their employees that do not need a dedicated desk or private office, so they are moving towards a shared open office environment where workstations are not assigned to any person in particular.  While this “trend” has been around for a while, we are seeing our clients getting more daring with their sharing ratios and providing more “private” areas in return.  These private areas are generally small, unreserved rooms for one to two people to have a private conversation, take a phone call or conduct a conference call without disrupting others seating in open office areas. 
Another trend I see is the return of the lunchroom.  This isn’t your elementary school lunchroom, it’s a destination space with finishes and details that rival some of your favorite restaurants.  The key is to create a space [...]