Woodform News | The Workplace Issue

WOODFORM ARCHITECTURAL INVESTIGATIVE CASE STUDIES

APRIL - JUNE 2016 | WOODFORM ARCH.COM

W O O D F O R M N E W S

07INTERVIEW | PAUL REIDYCutting-edge head office of Novartis

37GEREMIA DESIGN | SAN FRANCISCOAn abstract approach to inspiration

27SPOTLIGHT | AUSTRALIAThe global force in workplace design

freedom of expression

N O V A R T I S S Y D N E Y : D R I V I N G D E S I G N W I T H T R A N S P A R E N C Y A N D H U M A N I S M

T h e W O R K P L A C E I s s u e

32WEWORK | THE DISRUPTORThe data-driven workplace

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F R O M T H E C E OAs a CEO who’s recently implemented a radical new work culture of outright democracy that involved removing hierarchy and introducing total transparency, this issue has been of particular interest.

The stories in this issue have highlighted to me the monumental role the workplace has in empowering a team to be healthy, happy, and highly effective.

It once puzzled me: How do we literally implement ENRICH (Execution, Nimble, Respect, Integrity, Continuous Improvement, Happiness), which are the core values of Woodform, into our new office design?

What Paul Reidy at Novartis Macquarie Park achieved has inspired me to see the importance of light, materiality, texture, form, and configurations that foster collaboration — elements that combine to create a workspace that visibly institutes the aspirations of a company.

Innovative workplace design may not necessarily result in an automatic change of culture, but it provides a vibrant and coherent daily reminder for the team to embrace what is collectively important to the company.

Jeremy Napier CEO | Woodform Architectural

freedom of expression

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What were some of the key challenges presented to you by the client? Did the client come to you, or did you win it through a competition?

PAUL REIDYWe were commissioned for the project through a relationship we had with Marprop, who were the development managers.

The challenges were unique because Novartis is the owner and the occupier of the space, so we were working directly for the final client. Their focus was bringing together their three divisions into the same building. We understood that Novartis works in an industry that changes fast—so the design needed to be flexible enough to accommodate. The overarching purpose was to harmonise and build a unique cultural identity across the divisions starting with a common set of values.

Within the building, their primary focus was collaboration—within and across divisions. This is obviously very common across all industries; work has changed to encompass a lot more informal collaboration. Across a lot of industries, we are seeing companies focus on how they can optimise performance through teamwork.

They also wanted to be recognised as the best place to work. Many healthcare and pharmaceutical companies are located in the area, and many people working in the industry drive or walk past the site in Macquarie Park every day. They wanted their building to be a place to inspire creativity. Attracting talent in the industry is key, and they set out from the start to make the building a flagship of their working culture.

We did a working session at the start of the project with about 30 people from the various Novartis divisions, and got them to talk about the business and who they were—and what kind of personality represented their business. Two key themes came out. The first was that they were a high-end scientific business with lofty goals. The second theme was around caring and curing. They are a people business, and the ideas that came out were very humanist in our view. We were quite intrigued by two concepts interacting together and trying to describe that as a building and also as a workplace. }

A N I N N O V A T I V E W O R K I N G C U L T U R E

Interview with Paul Reidy | Director of Design at HDR Rice Daubney Photography | Tyrone Branigan

The healthcare company’s new, smart, and efficient Australian headquarters sets new architectural design in Macquarie Park. Paul Reidy, Director of Design at HDR Rice Daubney, tells Woodform Architectural about how the building’s timber and glass elements reflect the company’s core values—and how the design principles of activity-based working promote collaboration where spaces encourage employees to connect and work how they want every day.

7WOODFORM NEWS | THE WORKPL ACE ISSUE

Transparency was also a big theme for them. They wanted to be open and engaged with the community. They wanted a state-of-the-art place for their people to work without being ostentatious.

We really wanted the diagram of the building to reflect the Novartis brand. We had this concept model that described the ‘scientific’ as a crisp rectangle of glass, and it was supported by these humanist notions, which formed a timber core. One warm timber element and the other precise, highly transparent glass element. It’s quite a clean rectangular footprint and quite narrow, meaning you get a lot of daylight internally; you can effectively see through the building.

As the plan evolved, we tried to bring these curved forms through not only the core elements at the back of the building, but also through to the floor plate.

In designing the workplace in particular, we took Novartis on a journey. Some of the existing departments had enclosed office spaces or rigid, normal open plans. Nobody was talking about Activity-Based Working (ABW) spaces. We talked to them about ABW as a starting point idea not just to squeeze a few square metres out of their space but to allow them a lot more flexibility with the way that they work, to allow employees to use the fit-out to optimise the way that they work. The keyword in all of this was choice because they’re such a people-centric organisation.

The floorplan then evolved to include a central atrium space, which is quite buzzy and active. When you get out of the lift at each level, you step almost straight into the kitchen; we deliberately designed all of the collaboration zones at the centre of the footprint. As you move to the extremities of the floor, the screens get higher between desks, and there are more breakouts and meeting rooms. The mix between a series of quiet high-focus areas in the central atrium space and a central collaboration zone caters for all personalities and functions.

From one floor to the next, the staircases actually go from left to right in the atrium, so you increase bump. You arrive in the kitchen on one level, walk past a casual meeting environment on the opposite level, pass by the employee lockers. This means the opportunity for people to have casual interactions while moving through the space is quite high.

This whole idea of creating a focal point, a heart to the building is important. It’s a single space even if it’s across six-storeys. But, importantly, it’s not just a big hole; it’s a series of two-storey spaces. The staircases land in these spaces and alternate from one side to another. There are spaces there for people to look for others, or you could be sitting in a hot desk workspace looking down into a meeting space, or just looking out at the view.

The curved forms almost became the signature of the building. The interaction between the curve and the rectangle, it’s quite legible. When new employees are told why the building is the way it is, they are actually being told about the story of Novartis.

Interesting, so there was a story and a theme, and it was very obvious what the programme became. And that the occupants could read it, and that it could be described and understood.

PAUL REIDYAlso, there was a lot of which division should be located on which floor. Going to an ABW environment encouraged employees to change their mindset around what are the collaboration opportunities across the broader business. It also allowed for opening up employees to work with individuals — the CEOs can be sitting on the ground floor in an informal meeting, or the café, or they could be sitting on level 5 in a meeting room. You can find them on your phone or via the FindMe app that’s on a screen on every floor. It encourages an even more flat hierarchy.

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That’s a big change. How have the employees actually reacted to that?

PAUL REIDYThere’s always a bit of adjustment. The spaces are consistent from floor to floor in terms of the central zone always being collaborative, and the extremities are always high focus. It’s not like you’re trying to learn an entire building that’s constantly moving. You really only have to orientate yourself on one floor.

Everyone has a personal locker on the typical floors, and the lockers are assigned by postcode. If you have lockers next to each other, you must live near each other. Your kids might go to the same school; you might start sharing a car to work. It starts to build community, not just within one business unit but across floors.

The unique aspect of working directly for the end user allows for a design process very different from the usual way of doing a speculative office building and then a fit-out: here, the base build and the fit-out are entirely integrated. It’s like a tailored suit. It also had to be a relatively loose fit in terms of people, as the number of people using it changes a lot over time—non-assigned seating really helps in that regard. Whether there’s a population of 400 or 700 people in the building, you’ll only notice it by how busy or buzzing the building is. }

9WOODFORM NEWS | APRIL - JUNE 2016

What was it like as an architect to work for Novartis?

PAUL REIDYAs a company, they invest a lot in their architecture. Their campus in Basel, Switzerland is state-of-the-art, so it was a privilege to work for them. Also, they take sustainability very seriously. It’s a 5-star Green Star and 5-star Nabers design. It is a narrow floor plate design with user controller blinds and a highly transparent glass that has approximately 70% of the floor within 8 metres of a window. Ganellen, who built the building, worked in with this and managed to have 98% of all construction waste recycled.

What were some of the keys to the success of the Novartis project?

PAUL REIDYEncouraging the client to go with ABW was key because it’s a building that aims at driving collaboration and also an individual choice for their employees on how they want to work. That said, working with Veldhoen to tailor an ABW model to suit Novartis and integrating that user-centric thinking into the entire building from the ground floor to the roof was what sets the building apart, in our view.

Could you discuss your choice of materials?

PAUL REIDYWe believe strongly in expressing a truth in materials and try to select materials that speak to this in a clearly legible way. On this project, there’s a lot of exposed concrete with ceilings, columns, and beams left in their natural off-form state. The aluminium is all anodised, the glass has a very high transparency, and we’ve got internal venetian blinds that allow occupants to control the conditions inside. The humanist elements of the concept were described by the curved forms in timber. The material gives the building a warmth in the central space, and throughout the interior of the workplace, timber has become the signature material expressed most dramatically in the atrium space, which is a very warm six-storey timber focal point.

In translating this design to the outside, there was a lot of debate about whether to construct the external blades in timber or aluminium. Timber was obviously going to wear over time, and maintaining it would be difficult because of the large scale of the building. So we created a series of anodised aluminium blades on the outside, and echoed the patina and movement of timber by choosing four colours and dispersing them in a random way.

The beauty of timber is the natural variety that happens within it, so you see the truth of the material. You don’t see an applied layer of skin or homogenised singular. It is a warm material that contrasts with the rest of the palette, which is very austere. The furniture selection is very consistent the whole way through in colour and in texture. Even the layman can appreciate the level of detail in, say, the integrated doors.

PAUL REIDYThe team worked really hard on things like the integrated doors and removing doorframes where they aren’t needed, and making the timber dominant has given cohesion to the building. Those curved timber lines continue throughout the building, and that really helps define spaces. It contrasts really well against the simple palette of materials elsewhere. And if you look at the Novartis buildings over the last decade, it really doesn’t matter by whom they’ve been designed—there are Gehry buildings, Tadao Ando buildings, SANAA buildings, and buildings by other high-quality architects. While radically different from each other aesthetically, they all share a consistency, honesty, and warmth.

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What’s been the feedback from the client?

PAUL REIDYThey love it. One of the guys who sat on the steering committee for Novartis was very sceptical about the idea of ABW. He felt that his work necessitated an enclosed office. He was a reluctant component of the group on this issue—everyone else kind of just dragged him along. I bumped into him a few weeks after they moved in and asked him how he felt about the building, and he was very positive.

The nature of how Novartis works has been transformed. They have always had quite a flexible policy in terms of working from home, and he said people aren’t working nearly as much from home anymore, they are choosing to work in the office, which is a big compliment. At the end of the day, the workplace should facilitate working at an optimal level. If it’s designed right for the business, it should optimise performance rather than be in the way. Tailoring the workplace to a large group of people is a big challenge because we are all individuals at the end of the day. There are some common themes that come through, and there’s enough flexibility in work settings to provide the right working environment for everyone because it is far more than one generic environment.

Novartis headquarters is a very adaptable building in that regard, and there are different qualities of light, view, privacy, and collaboration the whole way through the workplace. You can tailor it for what you need to do this minute, what you need to do right now.


T I M B E R C O R E

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“We really wanted the diagram of the building to reflect the Novartis brand. We had this concept model that described the ‘scientific’ as a crisp rectangle of glass, and it was supported by these humanist notions, which formed a timber core. One warm timber element and the other precise, highly transparent glass element. It’s quite a clean rectangular footprint and quite narrow, meaning you get a lot of daylight internally; you can effectively see through the building.”

T R A N S P A R E N T

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NOVARTIS SECTION1:500 0 105

“The floorplan then evolved to include a central atrium space, which is quite buzzy and active. When you get out of the lift at each level, you step almost straight into the kitchen; we deliberately designed all of the collaboration zones at the centre of the footprint. As you move to the extremities of the floor, the screens get higher between desks, and there are more breakouts and meeting rooms.

The mix between a series of quiet high-focus areas in the central atrium space and a central collaboration zone caters for all personalities and functions.”

F O C U S

NOVARTIS SECTION

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KEY01 Reception02 Cafe03 Staff canteen04 Staff outdoor dining05 Lobby06 End-of-journey facilities07 Meeting rooms08 Novartis forum09 Lift lobby10 Kitchen11 Mail room12 Basement access13 Low-focus zone14 High-focus zone15 Home zone16 Void17 Bathrooms

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GROUND PLAN1:500

1. Reception 2. Cafe 3. Staff Canteen 4. Staff Outdoor Dining 5. Lobby 6. End-of-Journey Facilities 7. Meeting Rooms 8. Novartis Forum 9. Lift Lobby 10. Kitchen 11. Mail Room 12. Basement Access 0 105

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“From one floor to the next, the staircases actually go from left to right in the atrium, so you increase bump. You arrive in the kitchen on one level, walk past a casual meeting environment on the opposite level, pass by the employee lockers. This means the opportunity for people to have casual interactions while moving through the space is quite high.”

INTE

RACT

IONS

B U M P

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H E A R T

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“This whole idea of creating a focal point, a heart, to the building is important. It’s a single space even if it’s across six-storeys. But, importantly, it’s not just a big hole; it’s a series of two-storey spaces. The staircases land in these spaces and alternate from one side to another.

There are spaces there for people to look for others, or you could be sitting in a hot desk workspace looking down into a meeting space, or just looking out at the view.”

F O C A L P O I N T


“The curved forms almost became the signature of the building. The interaction between the curve and the rectangle, it’s quite legible. When new employees are told why the building is the way it is, they are actually being told about the story of Novartis.”

CURV

E

R E C T A N G L E

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S T O R Y


H U M A N I S T

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“The humanist elements of the concept were described by the curved forms in timber. The material gives the building a warmth in the central space, and throughout the interior of the workplace, timber has become the signature material expressed most dramatically in the atrium space, which is a very warm six-storey timber focal point.”

WAR

MTH


B E A U T Y

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“The beauty of timber is the natural variety that happens within it, so you see the truth of the material. You don’t see an applied layer of skin or homogenised singular. It is a warm material that contrasts with the rest of the palette, which is very austere.“


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Simon PoleUnispace

Bill Dowzer BVN

Distinctive cultural traits, progressive thinking about flat hierarchies, and an abundance of top talent have contributed to Australia becoming widely recognised as among the world leaders in workplace design. In separate interviews, three prominent Australian architects share their views on the catalysts for this rapid ascendancy.

Amanda StanawayWoods Bagot

Amanda Stanaway, Principal at Woods Bagot Sydney, sits at the forefront of workplace design. A regular public speaker on the Future of Workplace, she has been instrumental in creating some of the most cutting-edge workplaces in Australia.

Simon Pole, Global Design Director at Unispace, has over 20 years’ experience leading complex projects throughout Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia that have enhanced workplace performance and ultimately changed the way businesses do business. }

Bill Dowzer, Principal at BVN, is currently based in the Greater New York City Area. He has been involved in the design and direction of numerous award-winning projects ranging from public, educational, and cultural buildings to commercial work environments.

A U S T R A L I A : T H E G L O B A L F O R C E I N W O R K P L A C E D E S I G N


O N T H E C O N T E M P O R A R Y A U S T R A L I A N W O R K P L A C E

AM ANDA STAN AWAY In terms of the workplace, Australia is the least conservative market we work in, led primarily from our work in the financial and technology sectors. This rapidly evolved from the initial work with Macquarie Group, which first introduced Activity Based Working to Australia in 2009 and changed both the hierarchical and open-plan office, and impacted a large amount of our market. Australia is such a small and high-performance market that optimising and enabling physical space have become increasingly important for all businesses.

BILL DOWZER Workplace in Australia is sophisticated. What’s interesting internationally is that there is growing interest in what’s been happening in Australia. It’s not a straightforward move — I don’t think everything we do in Australia is instantly translatable. It needs a lot of adaption to the local market, especially in North America.

SIMON POLE While Australia is not known as the world’s leader in creativity, cuisine, or innovation, it’s a hotbed for workplace design with great clients looking to leverage their space. It’s an inferiority complex that keeps Australia’s senses sharp and a belief that we can never be as good as Europe or America. Then when one of us says we are, we chop their head off right away—tall poppy syndrome. We end up believing that to be successful, we have to leave Australia and go to Europe or America. As a designer who had that mentality, I spent 15 years overseas designing workplaces in the Northern Hemisphere, and while the projects and budgets are bigger, I soon realised… it isn’t that good, and the clients aren’t imaginative when it comes to workstyles!

Photographer: Shannon McGrathThe award-winning 1 Shelley Street (Macquarie Group Sydney) project by Woods Bagot is the first major ABW project in Australia, and is considered a catalyst and milestone for Australia becoming recognised as a global workplace leader.

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“Australia is such a small and high-performance market that optimising and enabling physical space

have become increasingly important for all businesses.” - Amanda Stanaway

W O R K P L A C E P H I L O S O P H I E S I N T H E U S A N D U K

BILL DOWZERIn Australia, we’re used to being generalists. We’re used to having to adapt to many different sectors. What you find here in New York is that the big practices have specialists in each of those disciplines.

The tech sector has become the sexy, interesting one. People in other sectors will say that could happen in the tech sector but not in ours. It’s interesting when we show Americans a bank building like the ASB in Auckland, which fits into the technology not banking silo. Is their market ready to accept that yet?

SIMON POLEThe UK design market is more sophisticated and always looked down its nose at the Antipodeans. In the 90s and 00s, the establishment was like, “Why do we want an Aussie in the room?” Now the tables have turned, and it’s globally recognised that most of the progressive workplaces in the world are Down Under. They’re now calling us saying: “We can use your experience and guidance.”

While the UK has Europe pollinating ideas and drawing influences, the US has a huge population, and bigger is not better. The US seems to be paralysed to move forward in any significant leap. On a recent tour, I spoke to 35 different legal firms, and the West Coast was waiting for the East Coast to do something

different, and vice versa. I’d say we’re about two to five years ahead of London, 10 years ahead of Europe, and 10–15 years ahead of the US when it comes to legal workplace.

However, if it ain’t broke… right? The businesses that are most progressive are the global banks, especially from the UK like Barclays and HSBC. The traditional US banks are still relatively traditional.

AM ANDA STAN AWAYThe work that we do in the United States varies greatly from the East to the West coasts. The reality is, there is still a very hierarchical and traditional way of dealing with space, and they have yet to transfer to workspace space as a cultural differentiator. Some of the American workplace is homogenous, beige, and with “cubicles.” These spaces are designed to be the least offensive rather than the “most inspirational” or for the “people” or for performance outcome.

On the West Coast, our clients are primarily technology companies—Twitter, Dropbox, and Google, for example, and these users drive a particular type of workplace. This is juxtaposed by the high-level, primarily financial work that we are doing in New York. MetLife in New York and Google on the West Coast… they’re just poles apart in terms of the type of buildings, workplace amenity, and their metrics. }

1 Shelley Street | Photographer: Shannon McGrath

1 Shelley Street | Photographer: Shannon McGrath


T H E R E A S O N S B E H I N D A U S T R A L I A’ S W O R K P L A C E E M E R G E N C E

SIMON POLEThe fact that Australians are more accepting of the different ways of working is amazing. Maybe it’s our convict heritage or the wide open spaces, but we’ve had to adapt our workplace solutions and create something out of nothing. We don’t have the population or budgets—we’ve had to take risks. Culturally, we’re early adopters, which is why many new technologies and even films are released here first.

In terms of laws and policies, I’ve found Canada to be very similar to Australia. Compared to the US, it was always the little brother trying to punch above its weight. Australia takes a similar position to the rest of the world... always something to prove.

AM ANDA STAN AWAY I believe the aggressive nature of our labour market, and our local businesses, have driven organisations to use the workplace as a vehicle to attract and retain talent.

I believe Australia have some of the most progressive thought patterns around work. We (as professionals) have found it much easier than the British and Americans to break hierarchy and barriers of workplace. It’s in our cultural DNA and comes from the fact that we, as a society and culture, don’t do hierarchy well: we like flat structure and empowerment.

I believe we have become skilled in understanding what the drivers of business are and how that plays into the physical workspace. If you authentically live what you sell—collaborative, connected, and transparent — you can create great spaces.

As designers, we have also been taught to be unique and to challenge. I think we have also always had a great global perspective, and the fact that most Australians work around the world provides great value to our industry. The challenge is that design now often looks the same, and how do we as workplace leaders legitimately maintain a “local” and distinct Australian Style.

BILL DOWZER I think Australians are great second-stage adopters. We’re not necessarily the most innovative thinkers; we’ve borrowed a lot of our workplace knowledge from the Dutch and other people coming to our market.

Australians are very good at thinking globally and finding things. Then we adapt them really well. And it’s a small enough market that you can get to a tipping point more quickly.

Everything to do with the banking sector here in the US is difficult. You realise just how sophisticated Australia is in terms of retail banking and finance. Everyone here still cuts a cheque! It means the system has so many opportunities for disruption. There are opportunities for people to redesign parts of the system.

Google Office Dublin | Architect: Evolution Design

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T H E N E W W O R K P L A C E

BILL DOWZERWeWork is absolutely a disruptor of architectural practice because they have a team of close to 90 in-house architects working on their spaces. They have employed architects from very different companies. WeWork has grown its staff from around 300 to 900 in one year. They change their designs based on data all the time. They are evolving and reiterating exceedingly quickly.

We’re looking at the whole co-working and flexible lease market. At the moment we are looking into a brand-new flexibly leased building in New Zealand and working with Liquidspace (a network for office space where startups and growing teams connect directly with real estate owners) on a new model for office occupation here in the US.

AM ANDA STAN AWAYIn the Australian market, we have really understood physical connection as fundamental to a great workplace. And we have designed the social space, ground plane, amenities, and placemaking critical to the workplace: by blurring the lines.

We have a really interesting culture in Australia. The banks and other big corporates have driven each other to “create” better workspaces and elevate what they offer their employees. I also believe developers are slowly understanding what they can uniquely provide tenants and how they can legitimately contribute to the placemaking of our cities.

“WeWork is absolutely a disruptor of architectural practice because they have a team of close to 90

in-house architects working on their spaces.” - Bill Dowzer

“’I want my space to be like Google’s’ is the most overused brief we get, and Google have done a great job building a brand for their sales team.”

- Simon Pole

SIMON POLEWhile the financial industry has adopted ABW working as its own, you can’t ram a fully flexible, agile workplace down the throat of a tech or software development company because they work in a different way. “I want my space to be like Google’s” is the most overused brief we get and they [Google] have done a great job building a brand for their sales team. If this means that our clients want a creative and innovative space, then brilliant, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of efficiency and productivity supporting their core business.

There was a point in the 00s where there was just one model of ABW in its purest form. There are now many versions of it depending on where the clients are, what needs to be performed, what tasks their people are doing, and what outcomes they want. That’s when the term “ABW,” in the eyes of some, became bastardised into this agile workspace thing. Now, it’s become the norm and will remain that way for the foreseeable future.


W E W O R K T H E D A T A - D R I V E N W O R K P L A C E

Founded in 2010 by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey, WeWork’s valuation has skyrocketed to over $16 billion; surely, they must be doing something right? The company, which provides shared workspace and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, and

small businesses, now has more than 90 locations and 50,000 members. By the end of this year, WeWork expects to be in nearly 30 cities in 12 countries.

WeWork provides its members with health care, payment processing, IT support, payroll, legal assistance, education, and training. The company,

however, looked beyond these traditional offerings and tapped into the largely unrecognised zeitgeist of millennial workers, creating for them hip,

meticulously designed office spaces for collaboration and an invigorating, all-inclusive sense of community (as well as free beer and food during its famous

Thursday happy hours).

The WeWork app, for example, gives members access to an entire community of creators and entrepreneurs, allowing them to discuss ideas, find or list

opportunities, book conference rooms, and a whole lot more. “If you look at our app for one hour—without touching it, just reading it—you could

look at your city, your country, the whole world, and see people minute by minute posting their specific needs—for a developer, a co-founder, whatever,” Neumann told inc.com. “And you’d see eight-to-ten immediate [responses]

coming in, all with high-quality references. You can become multinational by the press of a button.”

While the business model of WeWork seems straightforward, its ability to gather and process big data sets it apart from more established real estate enterprises. In reality, many still think of the company as a “tech startup.”

Recently, WeWork bought Case Inc., a New York-based architectural studio that specialises in Building Information Modeling. Daniel Davis, an }

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RMIT University PhD graduate in computational design and former senior researcher at Case, is now WeWork’s lead researcher.

During his keynote speech at the Design Modelling Symposium in Copenhagen, Davis related how usermetrics revealed flaws in the design of their new Case office. “We had spent a lot of time designing the kitchen area in the new Case office,” he said. “We had this vision as designers that everyone would hang out there and have these coincidental meetings, but it ended up a space where people spent the least amount of time.

“For me, the frustration with this research is that we could get it to this stage—we could say that these spaces were not really used or there was some fundamental problem with the architecture, but we weren’t really ever going to redevelop the Case office. No one was ever going to pay us to redesign the kitchen, so we got it to this stage where we identified the problem but couldn’t do anything about it.”

Davis then recounts the sense of liberation when he joined WeWork. Now, design flaws could be remedied—rapidly, as a matter of policy—with the deployment of data-gathering methods developed by the company.

“They have this data,” he told the symposium audience, “about how many people are in the building and where they are in the building. We also have this booking data from the WeWork app—who’s booked a room, how big the room is, what other kinds of rooms they’ve booked before—and we can start interrogating this data to make the design of the WeWork spaces better.”

In his blog “Spatial Analytics: New Ways of Understanding Architecture at WeWork R&D,” Davis gives us a glimpse into WeWork’s professed fanaticism about analysing member feedback: “After a member uses a conference room, for instance, a screen pops up on the WeWork app asking them to rate their

experience in the room—much like how you would rate a ride with Uber. This feedback is immediately sent to the building’s Community Manager, which allows our teams to quickly remedy any urgent problems, such as missing whiteboard markers.”

A daily summary of the reviews is then dissected by the designers of WeWork. “Imagine being a designer and getting an email every day containing feedback from people who have used a conference room you’ve designed: every day, you read about the acoustics and the furniture you specified; every day, you hear directly from the people you are designing for. Over time, you develop an empathy that makes you acutely aware of how your designs impact the people who inhabit them. It is a level of feedback that is virtually non-existent in the rest of the architecture industry.”

Crunching vast amounts of data into actionable design solutions is one of WeWork’s most underrated competitive advantages. Writes Davis: “To give one example from this research, we have been analysing the size of meetings in the conference rooms. In other words, what is the average size of a meeting in a four-person conference room? In a six-person room? In a twelve?

“Your intuition might be that a four-person room tends to have four people in it, and a twelve-person room tends to have twelve people in it. Before this research, that was my intuition.”

Sometimes, however, the intuition of even the brightest minds can be erroneous. In fact, WeWork’s Research and Development team learned that the average meeting involves just two or three people, regardless of room capacity. “For our designers, this type of insight sparks all sorts of ideas about how we could improve the meeting experience at WeWork.”

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WeWork’s relentless scrutiny of data, and more importantly, its willingness to have its design principles shaped by the resulting conclusions, is compelling architects and interior designers around the world to recalibrate what constitutes successful design. Before, it meant fulfilled deliverables that left clients happy and the eventual inhabitants of a space initially contented. WeWork dared to disagree.

Writes Davis: “As WeWork grows, we believe there’s value in investing time to listen to our members and analyse our buildings. It is something that almost no architect can do, and it is something we hope will differentiate the quality of design and experience at WeWork locations.”

It is a radical redefinition of the desired design outcome. Whereas once the aspiration was to adhere as closely as possible to a proposal collectively agreed upon, WeWork asserts that unlocking the potential of a space can truly occur only after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.


Geremia Design San Francisco studio | Photographer: Melissa Kaseman

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How did you start out?

L AUREN GEREMI AThis is basically my first job. I’ve never worked for an architecture or design firm. I think that has shaped a little bit of my idea of work and my approach to design, but it also probably made a lot of things harder! So I didn’t really have any experience working for any designers or architects, but I did go to the Rhode Island School of Design [RISD], and that has been pretty helpful.

RISD [pronounced “RIS-DEE”] is an art school with a strong reputation and an even stronger network of people that went to the school. Pretty much anyone that comes out of RISD does something relatively interesting. It’s a small school that focuses on a liberal arts education. You’re cross-registered and can take classes at MIT and Brown—it’s an interesting school with good funding and a great alumni. It’s something I’ve relied on a lot for resources, ideas, and community.

The focuses of RISD and the majors it offers all kind of have a lot to do with my work—furniture design, painting, and photography. I’ve been able to incorporate a lot of friends, which has made my job fun.

In what ways was your lack of an architectural or interior design background a stumbling block? Conversely, how did your different perspective help?

L AUREN GEREMI AMy unique approach to the field meant I had to learn some things the hard way, but for the most part it’s been a huge asset. I’ve had the opportunity to come to the conversation with fresh eyes, full confidence and a curious willingness to learn everything.

When did you start your studio?

L AUREN GEREMI AThat kind of depends on how you look at it. I started doing design work in 2004 after graduating from RISD that year. I was providing design assistance for styling and retail work.

I moved up to San Francisco. My boyfriend at that time was a painter—that’s what I went to school for too, painting.

So you didn’t study to become an architect or interior designer—you just had an inherent curiosity?

L AUREN GEREMI AYes, in fact I’m still learning a lot about space! For example, my most recent project was an intimate garden apartment in Greenwich Village, which provided some challenges due to low ceilings and access to light. It was an exciting challenge to discover how to brighten and expand the space successfully.

There are a lot of different areas to focus on in interior design. Some interior designers are not creative at all but offer incredible customer service. Some interior designers are actually architects, but they pick out furniture, and that’s really valuable because they are a one-stop shop. Some interior designers offer a branding component and turn, say your restaurant, into a full-service brand.

We are an interior design firm that has bolstered my lack of experience by having people who can do really intense space planning around me while I am really interested with the products, furniture, and art. That is how I started.

I get to migrate my interests. It’s not like we make just one product—we work with different types of people in different kinds of projects like commercial, residential, and hospitality. We make and design 65% of our furniture and have it fabricated all over the US. Sometimes, I devote about a month to learning about factories. Sometimes, I’m really interested in social media and marketing. Sometimes, I just want to really understand the psychology behind spending people’s money for a living. There are different “buckets” of my job that I like learning more about, which definitely keeps me interested and reenergised. }

L A U R E N G E R E M I A ’ S P A T H T O W O R K P L A C E D E S I G N S U C C E S S

Interview with Lauren Geremia | Founder and Principal Designer of Geremia Design

Thirty-three-year-old interior designer Lauren Geremia, founder and principal designer of Geremia Design, draws on her Fine Arts background for concepts and designs (as well as her deep relationships with artists, galleries, and vendors) to lead high-profile clients like Instagram and Dropbox into new design territory.

Photographer: Jen Siska


What would you say are your major influences?

L AUREN GEREMI AFine arts is definitely the biggest influence for me. I love talking to artists, understanding what clients would like about a piece of art, and translating somebody’s needs through art. That’s the most fun, best part about my job. On my time off, I go to art shows, I look at work online, and I surround myself with artist friends. That’s my biggest influence—finding an amazing piece of artwork, and then we usually design around that.

It’s not really just paintings or photography or something like that. Sometimes it’s wallpaper or a really intense antique, classic piece of furniture.

Instead of a very robust sample library, instead of reading about new tile products out there, and instead of going to reps in showrooms and talking about Henry Miller furniture, most of what we do internally as a team is ideation around art.

You seem to have focused on workplace design.

L AUREN GEREMI AHonestly, it was just being in the right place at the right time. It’s impossible to avoid workplace in San Francisco! It’s just kind of the way it is. People here are spending way more money on their workplace than on their home, that’s for sure.

When the economy here exploded again, there was a ton of construction firms, a ton of design firms that also do the architecture, and design firms that do the branding—there was a lot of competition.

The priority shifted quickly in San Francisco, and the ideas of service and convenience are always changing. I’ve noticed a shift towards services that bring more lifestyle convenience and flexibility, freeing up time for personal pursuits. Congruently, I’ve seen less focus on personal connection, the senses, and the arts, which is one reason I advocate so passionately for these issues with my work.

We just try to roll with it right now, try to expand my market and clientele to as many people as possible. I don’t like working for one demographic. I don’t like just solving how people work. I also like thinking about how people sleep, how they fall in love, and how they like to eat. San Francisco is catering to very specific experiences at this time.

Dropbox by Geremia Design | Photographer: Bruce Damante

Lauren’s favourite artist | David Benjamin Sherry

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If we just focus on what you have done especially in workplaces, have you mostly done tech?

L AUREN GEREMI AThere’s been biotech, retail, and financial companies mixed in there, but a lot of it is tech. I got really lucky by being able to work with very large and influential companies in the beginning when they were still forming their identity and brand. This was a time when people were super-inspired, things were growing, and all the news was good news. It was really fun to jump in at that time.

I learned a lot. Among my clients in tech were Dropbox, Path, and Instagram.

For Dropbox, the company was growing rapidly, so we invested in modular systems that could be added to and transported. In the several years I worked for them, the firm was always growing, and new employees would arrive. My goal was to keep the new members comfortable and visually organised as they joined the firm’s ranks.

For Instagram, it was a thrilling time to be involved—the firm was purchased by Facebook in the final days of our collaboration. Our work became integrated in the overall Facebook campus, and it was remarkable to watch the company journey to extreme success.

Path’s founder, Dave Morin, is a champion of great modern design. It was exciting to work with him, as he loved being introduced to new products, furniture, and art. He had great vision, and it was fantastic for the collaboration to be in such alignment. Dave was sensitive to the inherent restrictions of office spaces. Since Path didn’t own the building they used, it was challenging to find solutions to sound problems, fluorescent lighting, and building materials, since we couldn’t make major changes. We’re used to working within these restrictions, and Dave really supported us in negotiating for better material solutions. The design was better for it.

I had access to the founders of these companies, and they were obviously very smart and inspiring. They helped me want my business to be successful. I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur for the first time in my life, and that would never have happened otherwise. I learned about business rituals and running a company from them—like what programs they were using and where they found their best employees.

How is designing workplaces for tech companies different from others?

L AUREN GEREMI ATech companies exist in a startup mentality and ethos, and are always moving efficiently and quickly to stay current. They value workspace environments that reflect those qualities and are often willing to take creative methods to inspire and retain talented employees.

So do you still work for those kinds of companies?

L AUREN GEREMI AWe work for 2-3 tech companies of various sizes at a time. We like to pick people whose products we understand or at least seems original, so we can comment on it through the design. We like to work with people who have decent ideas, obviously, or those who have respect for our expertise and design perspective.

In your process, “discovery” is the first step. What initial questions do you ask clients about their design goals and needs?

L AUREN GEREMI AThe discovery stage is an important part of our process—we slow down to begin the conversation well, asking many questions and investing in research. We provide an in-depth survey to our clients to fully understand their needs, addressing questions of company culture, brand identity, workplace flow, and creative values.

We like to work with people who are interested in building art collections. We like to be able to pick—even if it’s a small budget, but they are willing to put a lot of that money back into local artists or causes that we’re excited about. That would be a reason for us to take on a tech project right now.

We like designing furniture. If it’s a platform where I get to work out a design for a standing desk or a product I think I can use again—I definitely get excited about that. }

Instagram by Geremia Design | Photographer: Molly DeCoudreaux


Do you follow trends in the workplace—do you focus on human behavior and trends in generational shifts?

L AUREN GEREMI AThose two things are connected. Right now, ergonomics is a huge trend. I have no idea if we’ll find out five years from now if standing desks will have no impact on your health, but for now people are really willing to spend money and time on them. Ergonomics was not an issue a few years ago, but now people are really connected to their health.

We like to design and build a lot of the furniture so it doesn’t feel trendy. There are only so many products in the world. So if you’re buying that 2010 lighting fixture from DWR, then I think you can really date a project. Because product lines can be limited, so we like mixing in antiques and being eclectic. We don’t like there to be too much of a theme to make the design last as long and be as flexible as possible. This is something I care about for environmental reasons. Some people spend a lot of money on design that become irrelevant in a short amount of time.

I don’t even know what to say about trends anymore. It seems like it’s the same 2000 images rotating on Pinterest at any given moment, and then the next week there’s 2000 more. I don’t know… it just seems people are becoming kind of immune to cool-looking things!

I used to focus on products in isolation—I would say I love this chair, and we have to use it; I want to support this artist, let’s do so. But now it’s really about what somebody can’t do on their own. Anybody now can come up with a bunch of cool products and figure out how to track them down. In purchasing, most of my clients are better negotiators than I am! So what is my value here? Combining those items and coming up with a really interesting narrative and concept, solving problems, and creating products that are not out is how we add value.

Do you ever incorporate ABW ideas into your workplace designs?

L AUREN GEREMI AAbsolutely, the theories of activity based working have been helpful. We’ve observed that employees are often in flow when a range of working environments are provided—community desks, personal space, lounges for intimate meetings, and phone rooms.

In San Francisco, people really want to be comfortable. Comfort, lighting, and ergonomics are really huge in the Bay Area right now. Engineers, I think, are inherently sensitive people because they work long hours in front of a computer; they’re sensitive to light and sound.

Are lighting and acoustics underrated aspects of workplace design? What are your design philosophies behind these?

L AUREN GEREMI ADefinitely. Sound abatement is a crucial component of each of our designs, and we are often looking to creative solutions beyond the typical approach. In our recent office project with Metromile, we sourced classic wood-bead car seats and installed them in a grid in the phone rooms. The pieces brought acoustic softness to the room while providing an interesting design detail. For lighting, we seek to include pieces that you might find in an elegant hotel, bar, or home to elevate and add inspiration to the workspace.

Could you give an example of a workplace project where the narrative led you to solve a problem more creatively than usual or led you to create products you’re particularly proud of?

L AUREN GEREMI AMetromile is an innovative car insurance company that approached us to complete their flagship San Francisco headquarters. We took on the concept of the road trip, which infused the design with leather and chrome material choices, large-scale photo murals that invoke car journeys, an installation of dozens of transportation mirrors in the kitchen, and a custom conference table with details that referenced car design. The vision definitely opened up our creative direction, resulting in one of our favorite projects from the past year.

Metromile by Geremia Design | Photographer: Cesar Rubio

40WOODFORM ARCH.COM


Metromile by Geremia Design | Photographer: Cesar Rubio


Late last year, the quick actions of three American servicemen stopped a terrorist attack on a train traveling from Paris to Amsterdam. Experts say the reason they were able to react while others sat stunned and nonreactive was due to something called “situational awareness.” When

you or I hear the sound of gunfire, we’re confused, it takes time for our brain to process what the sound is, and we lose time, but trained military personnel are programmed to immediately and appropriately react.

While it may seem a stretch, adapting to new work environments requires a similar type of awareness for individuals and organisations to successfully conceive and accept new ways of working. Over the past decade, workplace experts have understood the impact of mindset, as well as the incorporation and integration of new technology in creating successful workspaces. This workplace ecology or comprehensive approach is all the more critical as new types of work environments seek to redefine what it means to work.

The notion of workplace has evolved from being a desk we sit in to incorporate the floor that desk is on, and the entire buildings and precinct it belongs to. We continue to expand the concepts of what workplace is by exploring the digital environment along with the physical; we are also beginning to really challenge the status-quo approach to procuring space through the emergence of Co-working spaces. The global rise of Co-working spaces could arguably be one of the most significant changes to workplace that we have seen in the last half-century.

Co-working spaces are shared work environments generally located in prime CBD buildings. The main difference between a Co-working centre and the traditional hired or temporary office space provided by companies like Regus is the acknowledgement that work today is less about completing a series of tasks and more about connecting; collaborating; and from a personal standpoint, feeling part of a community that inspires and delights.

The typical Co-working venue provides a worker with a place to set a computer, coffee cup, and their backside, and also offers the service of savvy centre managers to facilitate professional introductions when a specific synergy or skill set might be beneficial, for instance pairing an accountant with a web designer. Centre managers in Co-working environments organise seminars and learning opportunities to educate their constituents, creating a state of constant stimulation for those who work in them.

The advantages to small or start-up organisations are obvious. Following the popular shared-economy trend seen in companies like Zipcars, Co-working cultivates an immediate network to deliver and receive services. For workers whose alternative is to work from home, Co-working satisfies the human need to be a part of a professional and personal community. Anyone who’s attempted bouncing ideas off the family pet can appreciate this concept.

The big “ah-ha” that’s emerged from Co-working is that it’s proved to be just as attractive to small operations as to large established companies who see Co-working as a means to dial up innovation by expanding the circle of professionals people can liaise with to inspire and provoke. For organisations that have merged—or acquired new business to expand and complement a skill set but find they are suddenly dealing with cultural opposites, e.g., big banks or accounting companies with newly acquired digital teams — Co-working is a very attractive solution.

Given the benefits of Co-working and the flexibility it offers from a real estate perspective, one might question why every organisation hasn’t gone down this path. For that matter, we might question why there are still companies who insist on having offices and high partitions, who insist on presenteeism and forbid the use of the Internet at work. To understand why new concepts with such promise don’t always succeed, we need to explore the important impact of people in the workplace equation; in particular, note how awareness of one’s self, of the personal surroundings, and of the situation can impact acceptance.

T H E R O L E O F A W A R E N E S S I N E M B R A C I N G N E W W A Y S O F W O R K I N G

Maximise Activity Based Working and Co-working environments by empowering individuals to be responsible for their own personal and professional issues.

By Laurie Aznavoorian | Aznavoorian Consulting

“The global rise of Co-working spaces could arguably be one of the most significant changes to workplace

that we have seen in the last half-century. ”

42WOODFORM ARCH.COM


To take advantage of new ways of working, such as Activity Based Working or Co-working environments, we must encourage people to build greater self-awareness by asking individuals to make an honest assessment of what they’re good at and areas where they’re not as proficient. This type of awareness is rarely seen in today’s corporate environment, where workers are busy masking flaws, blaming others or their physical environment for internal challenges they have, are unaware of, or don’t care to address.

Cultivating greater self-awareness by accurately and honestly assessing professional performance and contribution, and letting go of the façade many don of believing they’re really good at what they do, when in reality they’re following a template that delivers mediocre status-quo results, is a first step. Those with the guts and audacity to critically self-reflect may gain an understanding of how to control or correct the environment to better leverage their skills and the skills of others around them.

Self-awareness is impacted by culture; therefore, it’s important to appreciate some may have a greater challenge in developing self-awareness than others. For instance, in the United States there is great weight placed on personal freedom and decision making; the typical American vehemently defends their right to choose, while their Asian counterparts have a cultural expectation of alignment. In Australia, the “tall poppy syndrome” discourages individuals from calling attention to their needs and expectations.

It will not be enough for an individual to make the effort to understand their unique workstyles and productivity triggers if there is nothing they can change in the environment to remedy the issues they discover. Challenging the status quo and exploring new notions of how environment might support uncovered issues will require greater accountability and environmental awareness. By thinking differently, individuals can take responsibility and contribute to an expanded set of workplace options to address how a problem might be solved. This is where real innovation will begin—the kind that has given birth to ideas like Co-working that critically analyse whether the way we currently do things is the only or best way they should be done.

Unfortunately, workplace design is one of the few areas where an individual, or company, frequently reverts to their own experiences over the counsel or advice of a professional. This can be very limiting because there’s a tendency to envision the future based on the existing and a propensity to approach new workplace design with preconceived notions based on what is known and familiar.

One obvious flaw is many offices are outdated, leaving occupants few experiences and examples to draw from — they don’t know what they don’t know. Additional problems arise from ignoring what is new: the changing needs and expectations of an emergent workforce, the impact of new technologies, and changing economic pressures. All are critical considerations.

Combining greater self-awareness with expanded environmental awareness will produce a larger number of choices for people to customise their work experience for greater effectiveness. Encouraging people, who are a key ingredient in the workplace ecology equation, empowers the individual to take responsibility for examining their own internal issues and creatively engage with the environment for support, effectively shifting responsibility.

Finally, it isn’t enough to for us to suggest workers become more self-aware and expand their environmental awareness; to take advantage of the rewards a physical environment can offer, they must have the ability to perform like the military personnel on the train; they must intuitively think and act quickly, and have the permission from their organisations to do so.

“Combining greater self-awareness with expanded environmental awareness will produce a larger

number of choices for people to customise their work experience for greater effectiveness”

W E ’ R E P A S S I O N A T E A B O U T C O S T C O N T R O L

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