Current economic conditions are causing many firms to cut back on real estate costs. Other companies are simply looking to rearrange things to eliminate the morale-sapping empty offices resulting from firm layoffs. This article looks at three design trends that have emerged to address this situation and create engaging environments for creativity and productivity. (more…)
Goodbye Filing Cabinets, Fluorescent Lighting And Water Coolers. Hello Chickens, Vegetable Plots, Helter Skelters And Slides. Office Design Is Changing Fast. Stephen Bayley Looks At The Radical Ideas – Fun But Functional – That Are Reshaping Our Workplaces And How We Work.
This article from the London Observer takes a look at some of the more radical – “fun but functional” – office design ideas that are helping to reshape the workplace. Readers tour Pixar’s animation headquarters with its organic vegetable patch and 600-seat viewing cinema and are then introduced to Copenhagen’s MindLab with its egg-shaped conference room and mood lighting that changes to stimulate unusual thought patterns. (more…)
Creativity and innovation are the cornerstones of competitiveness in business. Richard Florida, author of “The Rise of the Creative Class,” believes that we’re in the early stages of a movement from an industrial economy to a “creative economy,” with creative people in a wide variety of fields providing a growing stimulus for economic growth.
This article explores the ways in which companies can tap the creativity within their workforce and actively encourage the innovations that result in competitive advantage. There seems little doubt that employees are ready to participate – recent surveys have found that 30% of respondents would take less salary from a company that valued their creative input, with 1 in five saying they would move to a different city to work for such a company. (more…)
With office design so closely linked to business outcome, this author is concerned that designers “understand the importance of creating workspaces that get people’s juices flowing.” It’s not about a functional desk or a creative conference room, but rather “the whole experience of being in this workplace and thinking through every step of a daily routine.”
The author interviewed several leading architects about offices that they designed to support and influence creativity, with a focus on the principles they followed to achieve their stellar results. The article ends with a list of six tips for designing offices that inspire creativity.
Source: Jay W. Schneider, Building Design & Construction (Chicago); Mar, 2007
