More London convention one of highlights of Workplace Week, which starts today

by • Facilities management, News, Workplace design

More London convention highlight of Workplace Week

PwC More London Offices

Tours of Google, Mintel and Lloyds of London are just some of the highlights of Workplace Week, the annual week-long celebration of workplace innovation which starts today. Organised by AWA to raise money for Children in Need, the inaugural Workplace Week in 2009 happened after Andrew Mawson, AWA’s managing director, had the idea for a workplace-related event raising money for the charity. This year’s week includes a programme of 90 minute ‘working workplace’ tours involving some of the UK’s most innovative workplaces; including Google, Mintel, Innocent Drinks, BDO, Edelman, Lloyds of London, Guardian Newspapers, CBI, Invesco, Prostate Cancer, and PWC Embankment Place. The week will also feature a one-day convention at PWC’s More London office near London Bridge on Thursday 6 November entitled, ‘the Work/place Revolution….taking human performance to new levels’. The focus here will be on taking human performance to new levels, with a range of speakers offering case studies, insights and new research. (more…)

BIM adoption set to soar in UK and US over next two years, claims report

by • Architecture, Facilities management, News, Property, Technology, Workplace design

BIM Level 2Building owners are embracing building information modelling (BIM) as a powerful technology benefitting the design process, managing project schedules, controlling costs and minimizing project errors, according to the recent McGraw-Hill Construction SmartMarket Report “The Business Value of BIM for Owners”. The latest report focuses on the business value of BIM from the perspective of building owners in the United States and United Kingdom for whom the technology has been deployed. Initially adopted as a design tool and later evolving into an important tool for contractors, its adoption among building owners is expanding, the report claims, and that building owners are becoming more directly involved as “their power is even greater to align BIM use with their specific goals, engage more effectively with all stakeholders and extend the value of BIM beyond construction into facility management.” The study claims that 40 percent of US owners and 38 percent of UK owners expect that more than 75 percent of their projects will involve the technology in just two years.

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The business case for green building widens to cover wellness and productivity

by • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

office designThe debate about the economic, commercial and social benefits of green building design continues to evolve rapidly. Where once it was primarily focussed on environmental issues and related cost savings, the world’s major champions of eco-building are now making the case for sophisticated building design that has a broader range of benefits for organisations and individuals. The most significant report in this regard for some years has just been published by the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC). Its study Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices: The Next Chapter for Green Building offers “overwhelming evidence” for the ways in which office design significantly impacts the health, happiness, wellbeing and productivity of people.The report covers a wide range of that influence the wellness, job satisfaction and performance of office workers. It identifies the ways in which these undoubted benefits add a new layer of sophistication to the case for organisations to invest in better, healthier and greener buildings.

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No natural light in almost half of European offices, finds report

by • Environment, Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace design

 

Almost half (42%) of European office employees have no natural light in their working environment, over half (55%) don’t have access to any greenery and 7 per cent have no window in their workspace. Yet according to the findings of The Human Spaces Report, commissioned by Interface and led by Organisational Psychologist Professor Sir Cary Cooper, European employees who work in environments with natural elements report a 13 per cent higher level of well-being and are 8 per cent more productive overall. With nearly two-thirds (63%) of EMEA office workers now based in either a town or city centre and spending on average 34 hours per week in the office, their interaction with nature is becoming increasingly limited. Yet despite city dominated lives, the research found workers have an inherent affinity to elements that reflect nature. Flexible working was a surprisingly low preference, with just 11 per cent of workers choosing a space that suits their needs as their productive way to work.. (more…)

Two new office developments worth £77m for construction firm

by • Company news, Facilities management, Property

Two new office contracts worth £77m for construction firmConstruction group Galliford Try plc, has been appointed to two new major office contracts worth a combined £77 million. Its been selected as preferred bidder by Northamptonshire County Council to build its new headquarters in Northampton in a £38 million project. The new 17,600 sqm four-storey building is intended to consolidate the council’s existing offices in the town, and regenerate an area on the south side of the town centre. In addition to the office space, a café will be created together with extensive hard landscaping around the site. Galliford Try is also to deliver a new office building at Sutton in Surrey for offshore engineering company Subsea 7. The £39 million project creates a new 150,000 sqft Category A office space and associated facilities on the site of the former Brighton Road car park. Galliford Try Executive Chairman Greg Fitzgerald commented: “We have a strong reputation in the office sector and we look forward to providing these two clients with the first class facilities they require.”

If you want to reduce the cost of your office, move to a creative area

by • Comment, Facilities management, Property, Technology

If you want to reduce the cost of your office, move to a creative area

Clerkenwell Design Week

“First we shape our buildings, thereafter our buildings shape us.” Winston Churchill, House of Commons opening speech. Buildings do indeed shape us, but what seems to affect us even more is the neighbourhood. It’s the immediate environment as opposed to buildings that is much harder to create. It needs numerous factors to influence it, among them the two most precious components– the right people and enough time. Politicians all over the world dream of creating zones that will draw the most innovative companies. But it seems that most of them grow organically – the Silicon Valley in California, the Silicon Alley in New York and the Silicon Roundabout in London. The combination of low rents, proximity to the centre of a dynamic metropolis and interesting culture made the East London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, Clerkenwell and Aldgate a perfect magnet for some of the world’s most exciting companies. So should you think about relocating there too? Here are some things to consider. (more…)

Nearly three quarters of workers report office temperature affects performance

by • Environment, Facilities management, Legal news, News, Workplace design

Nearly three quarters of workers report the office temperature affects performanceA workplace’s design may divide occupiers’ opinions, but is not usually a source of conflict. However, when it comes to the temperature of the office, tempers can flare. Legal guidance is sketchy, as health and safety law demands that workplaces must not fall below 16C, but doesn’t set an optimum temperature. This leaves the ‘ambient’ office temperature very much open to interpretation. Earlier this year, researchers from Lancaster University advised that the average office temperature of 22 degrees C was way too high, and that simply turning down the thermostat and asking occupants to don another layer could do much to address global warming. Now over 70 per cent of workers have reported their ability to work is compromised by the temperature in the office. In a survey conducted by Business Environment, two thirds admitted to getting annoyed when a colleague changed the air con to a setting they were not comfortable with and this annoyance can escalate, with 58 per cent admitting that rows have broken out over the office temperature. (more…)

Firms downsizing property dramatically as agile working takes hold, claims new report

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, Property, Workplace design

The sharp reduction in the amount of office space used by corporate occupiers as they adopt more agile working practices has been confirmed in a new study from facilities management services provider MITIE. The survey, as reported in the British Institute of Facilities Management (BIFM) magazine FM World, found that between the years of 2008 and 2014 firms reduced their floorspace by an average of 45 percent. The results of the report, based on interviews with property directors, mirror those of the Occupier Density Survey published last year by the British Council for Offices (BCO) which also found a marked (if smaller) reduction. The authors of the MITIE report conclude, similarly, that the economic downturn has been the main catalyst for the reduction in property used by occupiers and that the main way firms have accommodated the fall is with the uptake of flexible working practices.

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The solution to complex issues like green building is to become more sophisticated

by • Comment, Environment, Facilities management, Workplace design

office designOne of the current preoccupations of the World Green Building Council is to demonstrate how green business is good business. The way it is presenting this argument is intriguing because as well as extolling the most anticipated benefits of green building design, such as lower energy bills, it is linking green building design with human factors such as productivity, wellness and  work-life balance. It has produced a number of reports on this subject, most recently in September with a publication titled Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices which found ‘overwhelming evidence’ of the link between office design and productivity.  What such compelling reports also highlight are the complex challenges we face and the sophisticated approach we must take to environmental issues and corporate social responsibility. Fortunately this is already exhibited by many organisations.

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Awareness of benefits of BIM growing in US and UK, but implementation lags

by • Facilities management, News, Property, Technology

BIM Level 2Building owners on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly aware of the benefits of Building Information Modelling (BIM), even though they may not yet use it directly, according to a new report published by McGraw Hill Construction in partnership with Autodesk and Skanska. The report, The Business Value of BIM for Owners, suggests that this pent-up demand will be unleashed in the near future with 40 percent of US owners and 38 percent of UK owners predicting that more than 75 percent of their projects will involve BIM in just two years, with a particularly high level of growth in the US. Growth in the UK is being driven by the approaching implementation of a central government mandate requiring use of BIM on all national public projects by 2016, with over two thirds (67 percent) of UK owners reporting that the mandate is already having a high impact on their use of BIM. Owners in the UK are also more generally aware of the benefits of BIM and have more experience of it in practice.

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Work begins on ‘living laboratory’ to test eco-build products

by • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

Work begins on 'living laboratory' to test eco-build productsAccording to Constructing Excellence, buildings collectively account for around half the UK national output of carbon dioxide. To help address this, work has begun on the construction of a new £1.4 million ‘living laboratory’ at the Eden Project in Cornwall, where new eco-build products can be installed, tested and monitored. The Green Build Hub (GBH), is designed as a training centre that encourages inward investment by specialist green suppliers by enabling them to showcase and test innovative products. The project, by the Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust (CSBT), made possible by an investment of £1.1 million from the European Regional Development Fund Convergence Programme, aims to deliver a BREAAM ‘Outstanding’ building that acts as a resource of specialist green building knowledge. The GBH design team includes Gilbert & Goode Ltd, Ward Williams Associates, PBWC Architects, Hoare Lea, CDEC Ltd and TClarke Ltd; with an expected completion date of June 2015. (more…)

Two more major US firms scale back flexible working because people work better together

by • Facilities management, Flexible working, News

flexible workingPerhaps the most talked about workplace issue of 2013 was the decision by Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo to oblige the company’s homeworkers to return to the embrace of the corporate bosom. It was controversial but a lot of businesses clearly prefer people to work together in one place for significant periods of time. Yahoo’s methods only differed from those of companies like Google in using a stick to drive them there rather than the carrot of a gilded and playful tech palace to entice them. The controversy in the Yahoo case seemed to derive from a challenge to the received wisdom about flexible working and the same voice have risen in indignation over the past couple of weeks as two more American companies have made it known it’s best for everybody if they spend more time working together under one roof. Reddit and Bank of America have joined Yahoo and HP in deciding people collaborate better when they are in physical proximity.

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