There is much more to smart office design and workplace harmony that funky ‘break-out’ zones, ping pong tables and expensive DIY espresso machines. We have seen workplace trends and jargon such as hot-desking, hotelling and harbouring come and go, however their currency is gaining favour again. Major corporates from finance, insurance, management consulting and ICT, are being bold and brave with office design, as they mix and match emerging technologies with new work practices.
For many of us, the office is a home away from home. We spend an inordinate amount of time and energy in open plan spaces, cubicles and offices seeking to be productive, creative, innovative and entrepreneurial. While for others, the office environment can be a bleak and bland environment where inter-personal dynamics and professional relationships can be onerous, stifling and immensely stressful. Clearly there are workplaces, which can stimulate and satisfy, as well as offices that can crush and control.
The role of design is now widely acknowledged as being critical in helping to transform the conventional office environment into a hive of activity where productivity, well-being and creativity can work in harmony. The interior designer and architect have now well and truly been elevated to hero status when it comes to creating interiors that bring corporate kudos, efficiency and worker satisfaction.
As part of Victoria’s State of Design Festival 2010, Alan Saunders from ABC Radio National’s ‘By Design’ program, hosted a panel discussion on ‘the office’ and workplace design. With a line-up of four specialists covering interior design, spatial planning, architecture, human resources and sustainable interiors, Alan Saunders explored cutting edge office design projects in Sydney and Melbourne, as well the growing priority of creating sustainable and healthy workplaces.
WSP Digital’s Senior Sustainability Associate, John Gertsakis, was fortunate to be part of the panel and shared his views on office sustainabiulity issues from indoor plants and air quality through to e-waste from computers, and the need for a staff-room well provisioned with chocolate biscuits (Fair Trade) and fresh fruit (organically certified). Other panellists included: Ninotschka Titchkosky from BVN Architecture, Peter Geyer from Geyer Design and Kim Haywood-Matty from Macquarie Group
The panels discussion explored how workers are being liberated from permanent workstations with the proliferation of wireless technologies. The era of marking one’s territory with family photos, and other objects of workplace ritual is changing in some organisations. It’s now not uncommon to have the CEO and other senior executives joining the troops in the open plan. Is the floor to ceiling office with over-sized leather-bound chairs a space of the past?
Listen to ABC’s Alan Saunders, and the panel of specialists
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