What will the UK General Election mean for the workplace? Some experts respond

What will the UK General Election mean for the workplace? Some experts respond 0

Any residual feelings of certainty that anybody in the UK may have had about the country’s future following last year’s Brexit vote, will have had them pretty much eradicated by last Thursday’s General Election result. However, we must try to make sense of things for society and the wider economy as well as specific facets of it, such as the world of work. The whole thing looks like the pig’s ear that it is, of course. Fortunately, as some experts have already argued, there are some reasons to see some positive outcomes, including a soft (or softer) Brexit and the chance of a more positive approach to workplace rights, now that the Government needs to maintain a broader consensus. The fear or hope that the UK would lighten its already soft touch approach to workplace legislation would seem at least to be less well founded.

 

 

More →

Bisley’s classic MultiDrawer recognised with a Design Guild Mark

Bisley’s classic MultiDrawer recognised with a Design Guild Mark 0

Bisley’s iconic MultiDrawer, one of the office’s most recognisable products for 60 years, has been awarded a Design Guild Mark, recognising its timeless qualities in design, functionality and quality. Now approaching six decades from its launch, the MultiDrawer has never lost its appeal, becoming an icon in storage. Almost 2 million of the diminutive cabinets have been sold, helping the brand name Bisley become part of the lexicon in the German language to describe storage cabinets, such is the reach of this British born icon. Created by Freddy Brown, founder of Bisley and an experienced metal worker, the MultiDrawer was first made in 1958. The Bisley factory was expert in metalwork having evolved from car body repairs, then making metal waste paper bins and, during the war, designing and making the large metal containers that were dropped by parachute into war zones to deliver supplies. The Design Guild Mark is awarded by The Furniture Makers’ Company, the furnishing industry’s charity, in order to drive excellence and raise the profile of British design and innovation.  The award recognises the highest standards in the design of furniture in volume production, by the best designers working in Britain or British designers working abroad.

Whether you choose order or chaos depends on what you want to achieve

Whether you choose order or chaos depends on what you want to achieve

Chaos gets a bit of a bad rap when it comes to running a business. Yet as Greg Lindsay highlighted in his interview with Insight a while back, chaos is something that many organisations should actively try to harness as a way of fostering the creativity they claim to desire. Certain structures, be they cultural silos, traditions, professional demarcations or the physical walls and storeys of a building inhibit chaos and so restrict interactions and creative processes. So, if you want to achieve what many businesses say they want to achieve, they need to introduce a little anarchy. We’ve known about or suspected the links between harnessed chaos and creativity for a long time. In his 1883 novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, writes, “I tell you: one must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.” The same idea has been expressed in many ways, but few of them quite so poetic.

More →

Nearly half of occupants say their building’s toilet facilities need some improvement 0

Most FMs would tell you that the state of the workplace toilets is often one of the main determinants by occupants on how well the facilities department is doing its job. So it’s disturbing to learn that according to a new survey a significant number of employees have cause to complain about the state of their workplace toilet facilities. The research, carried out by the Association of Plumbing & Heating Contractors claims that 16.5 percent of people are unhappy at work due to the condition of their employer’s toilets which is having a negative impact on their levels of engagement. Their research found 43.8 percent of the people surveyed felt their workplace toilets needed to be better maintained. And when asked if their workplace toilets require updating or refurbishing, 44.4 percent said they did. London seemingly has the worst workplace toilets with 50.9 percent of workers surveyed believing they need to be better maintained and require refurbishing.

More →

Coworking and the current French revolution in the workplace

Coworking and the current French revolution in the workplace 0

In France, we might have been the first to behead a King and hold a revolution, or to stand on barricades and die for ideals of justice and equality, but when it comes to change – especially in large organisations– we always seem to lag behind. You could blame it on a number of factors: a cultural bias towards tradition, the legacy of an interventionist and ever-present state, spawning bureaucratic models of large state-owned corporations, the everlasting grasp of the elites stifling innovation and the ability to “think outside the box”… Whatever this may be, the debate around remote working – a type of work organisation which allows employees to work regularly away from the office – in France has always been articulated around the preconception that France was behind. And that while its Anglo-Saxon or Nordic European neighbours displayed a boastful 30 percent of the working population as remote workers, France struggled to reach a meagre 9 to 10 percent in 2010.

More →

Office temperature is most likely source of conflict at work

Office temperature is most likely source of conflict at work 0

Nearly half of office workers (47 percent) cited differences over the office temperature as the aspect of their working environment that causes the most frustration in the workplace, according to a survey of 1,371 working UK adults by Emo Oil. 57 percent consider their office too hot, whilst 43 percent believe the opposite that the office temperature is in fact far too cold for working conditions, which just goes to show what a contentious issue it is. 63 percent state that the temperature affects their productivity in the working day. And as many as 1 in 6 (17 percent), even admitted to having asked their manager to work from home, due to being unhappy with the temperature in their working environment.

More →

FIS publishes new guide to office fit out

FIS publishes new guide to office fit out 0

The Finishes and Interiors Sector (FIS) trade association has published a new guide to help occupiers and others apply best practice in the creation of an office fit-out. The publication, A Client’s Guide: Office Fit-Out and Refurbishment, was launched at this year’s Clerkenwell Design Week and is available free to read or download. They do want your email details however. Image: Claremont

Google submits revised plans for vast new campus in London

Google submits revised plans for vast new campus in London 0

Google has submitted a revised application for planning permission to Camden Council for its proposed £600 million King’s Cross Campus in London. This building will be the first, wholly owned and designed Google building outside the United States. Construction on the purpose-built 11-storey building, comprising of more than 1 million square feet, of which Google will occupy 650,000 sqft, will commence in 2018. The building, designed by Heatherwick Studio and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will feature a natural theme, with all materials sourced through Google’s healthy materials programme. This new building, combined with the current building at 6 Pancras Square and an additional third building, will create a Google campus with the potential to house 7,000 Google employees. The new building is being developed from the ground up and will contribute to the Knowledge Quarter and King’s Cross’s growing knowledge-based economy. The original plans for the building from 2013 by AHMM had been put on hold, although some features such as a running track remain.

More →

Revised guidance is published by the BIFM on space planning and management

Revised guidance is published by the BIFM on space planning and management 0

Revised guidance is published by the BIFM on space planning and managementThe British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) has issued updated guidance to help in-house FM teams understand what is involved in managing and changing space. The revised Space Planning and Management Good Practice Guide aims to provide practical advice on the tools and techniques that can be deployed when planning and managing space, clearly illustrating the processes involved and enabling facilities managers to set overarching space management strategies for their organisation. Key areas covered in the guide include space demands, strategy and standards, programming and managing projects and the technologies available to help with the process. The guide has been updated by its original author Joanna Eley, director of Alexi Marmot Associates.

More →

Sprinkling a little stardust on the workplace design debate

Sprinkling a little stardust on the workplace design debate

The idea that extraterrestrial organisms have throughout time seeded the surface of the Earth is not the sole preserve of loonies, mystics, conspiracy theorists, the permanently stoned and various wishful thinkers. This idea of panspermia has some pretty high profile and serious adherents. Perhaps one of the most surprising was the renowned but controversial astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle; pillar of the scientific community for much of his life, atheist, Darwinist and the man who coined the term Big Bang, albeit as a way of disparaging it. Yet also a man who believed that the global 1918 flu pandemic, polio and HIV were each the result of micro-organisms that fell from the skies rather than developing here on Earth. The broader scientific community dismisses such thinking because it derives in part from either an incredulity at the processes involved – as was the case with Hoyle – or an ignorance of them.

More →

Settings and serendipity define workplace design at Clerkenwell Design Week

Settings and serendipity define workplace design at Clerkenwell Design Week 0

Because a vast show like Clerkenwell Design Week is about as easy to digest as a whale omelette, visitors often find themselves discussing with other people what is worth seeing and, perhaps more importantly, what they think its themes are. At this year’s show, the fine weather meant it was possible for people to occupy the pavements with a drink and share a general feeling that in terms of workplace design, there were few, if any, standout products and that most of the themes were now pretty well understood.

There was a great deal of talk about the need for privacy, the creation of a choice of settings in which to work, the influence of the coworking movement, wellbeing, agile working, Millennials, the intersection of design idioms from the domestic and commercial worlds and planned serendipity. These are now familiar subjects and, with the exception of a largely false narrative about Millennials, all in tune with the main concerns of occupiers and employees. They may be familiar but we should celebrate the fact that this in itself signifies not only growing sophistication in the demands of buyers but also the way we address workplace issues as a sector. Most tellingly, there is one common factor at the heart of each of the concerns addressed in the designs on show; people.

This marks a profound shift from the old hierarchical constraints that used to define office design. The idea that a building should be carved up and shared out semi-permanently between individuals based on their job and status for set periods of time now looks more and more archaic as each day passes. The modern workplace can be pretty much anything it wants to be and we should not take that for granted just because it’s been said before.

Boss Design

Boss Design

Encapsulating these ideas was a brand new range from Boss Design called Atom designed by Simon Pengelly. The business model of Boss has always meant it found itself at the intersection of various forms of design with a portfolio of products that could be used in a variety of settings, but Atom offers a fully resolved menu of elements that make the idea explicit.

Where once modularity in furniture design meant that parts fixed and tessellated, it now refers to a more freeform interpretation. This isn’t Lego modularity but something more organic, ingredients rather than parts.

The designs are very much focussed on people. These are the sorts of products that invite people to work in the ways that suit them best. Designers and office buyers are given the elements needed to offer employees choices but without any sense that solutions are prescriptive. As Simon Pengelly explained, it’s all very well having collaborative space but it only works if you’ve then got a space to do something with the ideas you’ve just shared. This was the best resolved system of products at the show and one very finely attuned to 21st Century office life.

Boss Design

 

Steelcase

The world’s largest office furniture manufacturer was pursuing similar themes while also sharing the stage with Microsoft, a firm with which it has just announced a global partnership agreement, focussed in large part on the forthcoming Surface Hub, previews of which were available at the event. The main focus of the firms’ approach was how work settings can be integrated with technology to produce working environments that foster creativity. In the accompanying presentation, we were told not only that this will be the main focus of office design in the coming years as machines take on most of our process driven work, but also that if office furniture firms want to survive the century, they’ll need to be talking about far more than office furniture which is perfectly true and equally applies to the whole workplace sector. This is not a time for one trick ponies.

Appropriately Steelcase offered up a number of settings to give people the chance to work creatively including a Respite Room. Offices may exist to bring people together but we always need time away from them.

Steelcase (and top)

 

Connection

Connection was one firm that made the link between wellbeing and domestic and commercial design explicit with a soft seating system called Hygge. This is a reference to the modish Scandinavian practice of hygge, which cleverly taps into our ongoing fixation with all things Nordic and our belief that they have a unique insight into how to achieve a work life balance and look after themselves. The firm was also on point with its new co.table which again expresses the overlap between domestic and commercial design as well as the increasing adoption of agile working models. Connection was also addressing the issue of acoustics and privacy with its elegant system of rooms, now a well-established requirement for shared spaces.

Connection

 

Spacestor

Another firm characterising the intersection of domestic and commercial design as well as the creation of room settings, Spacestor launched their new Palisades room divider system. Not screens but the sort of dividers used to break up space, as well as store and display objects. Spacestor were also showing their work pods, including options defined as railway carriage and phone booth.

Spacestor

 

Sit/stand workstations

Now almost as ubiquitous as the bench desk, sit/stand workstations have become mainstream in the UK as they have been for quite some time in parts of Scandinavia. In part this is down to the medicalisation of sitting down as a result of some well thought out but – in my view – slightly off the point PR. But it is also a signifier that firms are interested in the wellbeing of their staff, an issue about which it is impossible to be cynical.

So Staverton, Humanscale and others had nice products on show, but it is evident that as is true with bench desks (and toilets, come to that), the product itself exists in pretty much its purest form as it is. It is a worksurface with an actuator to make it rise and fall. It’s a good product, but one which you can hardly expect to see evolve.

Staverton

 

Task seating

Conversely, the design of task chairs has actually returned to a simpler form. Over the past 20 or more years, there had been a race to see who could offer users the most adjustments. So, where once the chair merely went up and down and rocked, every part of it had to be adjustable in at least one dimension and preferably three. An arms race, if you will. The result was a proliferation of controls around and underneath the seat.

Over the past few years, we have seen a reversal of this in favour of something more intuitive. Typical of this new generation of chairs are the se:joy from Sedus, Trinetic from Boss Design, various designs from Humanscale (who, it could be said, catalysed the development of chairs that work with the body rather than an instruction manual) and, new this year, the EVA chair from Orangebox which claims that by ‘refining the chair to just a few controls has allowed us to focus on maximising the range of adjustment it offers’. Counter-intuitive maybe but they’re right.

Orangebox

 

Flooring

Innovation in carpet design tends to come about as a result of the interrelationship of new materials and manufacturing technology and the designs each manufacturer can derive from them. There are some great products on the market, and each one has a separate narrative woven around it, if you’ll forgive the pun. These can range from the use of colour and trends forecasting, to environmental concerns, the crafts movement, biophilia and printing techniques.

In typical fashion, the major flooring showrooms at Clerkenwell Design Week had lively events programmes that highlighted trends in the market and are perhaps somewhat less product focussed than furniture showrooms. So, Interface focussed on the positive effects that design can have on people, Milliken hosted a series of events including a Design in Education debate with Jay Osgerby and Annie Warburton and Shaw Contract hosted several CPD accredited talks including one rejoicing in the title “Using virtual reality as a participatory approach for evolving spaces in our cities”.

Porcelanosa

 

Socialising

And, of course an event like Clerkenwell Design Week would be nothing without the chance to have a drink and a chat with friends and colleagues. The event this year was blessed with blue skies and temperatures in the high twenties, which is a mixed blessing if you’re hosting parties at one of the showrooms. Despite concerns that the warm weather would mean people swapping bars for studios, all the events seemed incredibly well attended, including those at Vitra and KI.

This is, of course one of the main aims of such exhibitions, to bring an industry together as one and with one voice, at least this year with regard to the aims and concerns of workplace occupiers and the people who work for them. In all senses, an event about people.

_________________________________

Paul Goodchild is the Design Director of Fresh Workspace.

Research into office lighting reveals negative impact of poorly-lit workplaces

Research into office lighting reveals negative impact of poorly-lit workplaces 0

Issues with the quality of their workplace lighting frustrate the majority (83 percent) of UK office workers; while 80 percent experience negative symptoms due to poor lighting a new study suggests. The survey by Lutron Electronics focused on key areas including the impact of lighting on mood and wellbeing and whether workers had personal control of their lights or were subject to standard lighting control settings across the office. Understandably, 88 percent of UK respondents said that their office lighting is important or very important and one third (32 percent) stated that their existing workplace lighting aids them in the accuracy and visibility of their work. In addition, 27 percent believe it allows them to focus more while 25 percent said it increases their general wellbeing. However, 35 percent of overall respondents said their existing office lighting does not have any positive impact on them at work. This figure is even higher (44 percent) among those in large companies with more than 5,000 employees and amongst the most senior generation (55+), where it reached more than half (51 percent).

More →