About Mark Eltringham

Mark is the publisher of Workplace Insight, IN magazine, Works magazine and is the European Director of Work&Place journal. He has worked in the office design and management sector for over thirty years as a journalist, marketing professional, editor and consultant.

Posts by Mark Eltringham:

April 19, 2015

The latest issue of Insight Weekly is available to view online ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Events, Facilities management, Furniture, Newsletter, Workplace design

In this week’s issue; we preview next month’s Clerkenwell Design Week; RBS sets out to save £18 million a year with a major office consolidation strategy in Edinburgh; Sara Bean reports on the importance of office location for employee engagement; Jim Ware offers a CEO’s perspective on a successful real life workplace strategy; Mark Eltringham extols the joys of procrastination and daydreaming; we look at the wellbeing benefits of a groundbreaking new acoustic office design element made from recycled plastic; and we ponder why exactly the electorate gets itself so riled up about office furniture. Sign up to the newsletter via the subscription form in the right hand sidebar and follow us on Twitter and join our LinkedIn Group to discuss these and other stories.

April 17, 2015

A preview of Clerkenwell Design Week 2015 ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Events, Flooring, Furniture, Lighting, News, Workplace design

The organisers of Clerkenwell Design Week have announced the latest up to date details of its events and showrooms programme. Taking place between 19 and 21 May, this is the sixth year the event has taken place in London’s creative centre. Over 80 showrooms will take part this year, hosting a range of activities, discussions, showcases, product launches and talks. Confirmed keynote participants include designers such as David Adjaye (top), Michael Young and Patrizia Moroso. New participants this year include heritage brand Carl Hansen & Søn and modernist storage specialists USM. Office furniture firms Wilkhahn and Connection Seating will both open new showrooms on Great Sutton Street, while flooring manufacturer Milliken is significantly expanding its Berry Street premises.

(more…)

April 17, 2015

Want to rile the electorate? Buy some office furniture. ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Furniture, News, Public Sector, Workplace design

It’s fair to say that most people can go about their day to day lives without worrying too much about the price of office furniture. That is until they need to work themselves into a state of excitement about the amount of taxpayers’ money being spent on desks and chairs. We’ve already highlighted how the hackles of the electorate are raised easily by the sight of refurbished offices although we are at a loss to explain why, especially when you consider it in comparison to the spectacular foul-ups associated with IT procurement and the fact they probably don’t sit around on tea crates at home. This visceral reaction is an international phenomenon. While the good people of Sheffield can whip themselves up about a £73 task chair, across the pond a political storm has formed around the £4 million expenditure of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on office furniture.

(more…)

April 16, 2015

WELL building standard launched in China ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property, Wellbeing

The Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) and the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) have launched their WELL Building Standard in China. The standard sets out to improve the health and wellbeing of people and claims to complement international green building rating programs such as LEED, BREEAM International and Three Star. The Standard is a performance-based system for measuring, certifying and monitoring features that may impact human health and wellbeing, through air, water, nutrition, light, physical health, comfort and mental and psychological wellbeing. The standard claims to be based on medical research that links buildings with the health and wellness of the people working and living in them and helps building owners and occupiers to understand those links and create a healthier working environment.

(more…)

April 14, 2015

RBS to save £18 million a year with office consolidation plans ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to close four of its offices in Edinburgh as it moves to consolidate its operations at its Gogarburn headquarters. The change is expected to divest around 344,000 sq. ft. of space at the four existing sites in the centre of Edinburgh, saving some £18 million a year when the move is completed by 2017. By then some 6,000 employees will be working at the HQ in the rural district of Gogar, doubling the number of existing employees on the site. In addition to the consolidation, RBS is opening up the building to new and existing businesses to promote their growth. The plans involve the creation of a centre for entrepreneurs and small businesses which will allow them access to expert advice and finance, develop relationships with RBS and also encourage them to collaborate and share ideas with each other.

(more…)

April 12, 2015

Designer creates soundproof helmet to deal with noisy surroundings ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Furniture, News, Workplace design

We’re used to seeing intriguing solutions to the much talked about problem of noisy offices. This year’s Milan International Furniture Fair (see our preview here) will be no different. None, however, will be quite so intriguing as this Cork Helmet from Belgian designer Pierre-Emmanuel Vandeputte. According to the designer’s website this is a ‘helmet made out of cork allowing a person to insulate himself from noise. A mechanism devised with a counter-weight, a rope and two pulleys helps to move the helmet up or down one’s head.’ We can’t help but see the parallels with the thinking behind the Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy which feature lenses that turn completely black at the first hint of trouble, thus preventing the wearer from seeing anything alarming.

April 9, 2015

Video: Perry Timms lays down some thoughts on the future of work ⁰

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Flexible working, Workplace

[embedplusvideo height=”226″ width=”350″ editlink=”https://bit.ly/1H5dW1V” standard=”https://www.youtube.com/v/qGH7nkXNm_k?fs=1&vq=hd720″ vars=”ytid=qGH7nkXNm_k&width=350&height=226&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=0&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep4799″ /]

Regular readers will know we’re not too fond of the F Word at Insight. This isn’t because we think there is nothing to talk about when it comes to the future (what else did you think we meant?) of work and workplaces. We just believe that the word is now routinely misapplied to justify an endless effluvia of simplistic nonsense, absurd generalisations, undisguised commercialism and wishful thinking. Not to mention the eternally tedious idea that the ‘office of the future’ can be defined in very specific ways based on a few supposedly cool but actually infantile features borrowed from primary schools. Fortunately, all this misdirection makes the informed, wise and sober reflections of Perry Timms all the more powerful when he spoke recently at TedX in Bucharest to outline the challenges and opportunities of the future of work.

April 7, 2015

New masterplan submitted for £5bn East London development

by Mark Eltringham • Cities, News, Property, Technology

Developers have submitted a revised masterplan for the £5 billion Greenwich Peninsula mixed use development in East London. The new plans not only increase the number of homes on site but also include a greater focus on digital arts and media studios as well as more high rise buildings in keeping with London’s current predilection for tall buildings and emphasising the shift in London’s centre of gravity eastwards. The original plan, created by Farrell & Partners and dating back to 2004 are described as outdated by developers Knight Dragon, who have submitted the new mixed use plan for around 15,000 dwellings, 59,000 sq.m. of hotel, retail and recreational space and 60,000 sq.m. of office space as well as a design district, space for healthcare buildings, educational facilities, transport hubs, visitor attractions, parking, cycling paths, community facilities and parks.

April 2, 2015

UK labour productivity continues to flatline in spite of upturn

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, News, Workplace

UK labour productivity continues to flatline in spite of the recent economic upturn, according to a new report from the Office for National Statistics. Overall productivity as measured by output per hour fell by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared with the previous quarter. In 2014 as a whole, labour productivity was little changed from 2013, and slightly lower than in 2007, prior to the economic downturn. As ever, the devil is in the detail. There were notable increases in productivity in both manufacturing and construction but the modest gains in service industries obscure the fact that there is a great deal of variation across sectors and also the fact that any gains reflect a greater number of hours worked rather than an increase in the overall number of people employed or their underlying productivity.

(more…)

April 2, 2015

New study explores link between workplace design and productivity

by Mark Eltringham • Flooring, News, Wellbeing, Workplace design

The latest report linking specific workplace design elements with increases in productivity and wellbeing has been published by flooring manufacturer Interface and organisational psychologist Cary Cooper. The Human Spaces report into The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, claims that employees who work in environments with natural elements report a 15 percent higher level of well being, are 6 percent more productive and 15 percent more creative overall. The report is based on a study of 7,600 office workers from 16 countries. It concludes that office design is so important to workers that a third (33 percent) of global respondents believe it would ‘unequivocally’ affect their decision whether or not to work somewhere. Design is particularly important in India (67 percent), Indonesia (62 percent) and the Philippines (60 percent).

(more…)

April 2, 2015

CIBSE launches updated guide to environmental building design

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) has published the latest edition of Guide A: Environmental Design which the organisation claims is ‘the premier technical reference source for designers and installers of building services, especially low energy and sustainable buildings’. As well as updates to legislation and new research, the edition includes a completely new chapter which identifies specific requirements for achieving quality in environmental building design: adopting a holistic approach as well as a system to assure the quality of design calculations and decisions. The other chapters deal with a specific aspect of design including criteria such as comfort and ambient weather and methods of calculation for performance, heating and ventilation systems, methods for thermal comfort evaluation, energy demand and so on.

April 2, 2015

Flexible working and recognition linked to happiness at work

by Mark Eltringham • Flexible working, Knowledge, News, Workplace

The eternal quest for happiness is the subject of two new reports which conclude that if you want to feel more satisfied with your working life, it’s important to feel as if you are in control of it. New research from Professor Andy Charlwood at Loughborough University claims that government and employer policies that give people greater flexibility to choose the hours they work helps to foster their wellbeing and that overworked people are less satisfied with their lives and experience lower levels of psychological wellbeing overall. A second, less scientific study commissioned by US software provider InLoox claims that one of the most important determinants of happiness at work is an ability to work unsupervised or not to report to anybody at all so, if you must have a job, make sure you’re in charge.