April 14, 2015

Cambridge to get new tower as office take up doubles over last decade ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

Both Oxford and Cambridge are experiencing a huge increase in office take-up, but despite Oxford’s reaching an all-time high last year, it is still three-quarters that of Cambridge. Research by Savills has revealed that Cambridge’s office take-up is double what it was 10 years ago. Now a new 39 metre office tower has been approved by Cambridge City Council which will house Cambridge University’s international exams group, Cambridge Assessment. Called The Triangle site the new building will be situated on Shaftesbury Road in Cambridge, which was previously home to Cambridge University Press’s Edinburgh Building. The new building will be designed to bring together Cambridge Assessment’s locally-based staff, currently based at 11 different sites – into one headquarters by 2018, when staff numbers will be about 2,300.

April 13, 2015

Approval granted for new 27-storey office building at Canary Wharf ⁰

by Sara Bean • Company news, News, Property

Planning permission has been granted for a new 27-storey office building at 1 Bank Street, Canary Wharf in London. The new 700,000 sq ft office building will comprise office space, three levels of trading floors, a retail unit at ground level, a free-standing retail kiosk on South Dock Promenade, public realm, planting and landscaping and basement car and cycle parking. There will also be public access to a new promenade along the South Dock. According to developers Canary Wharf Group, the new offices will provide capacity for an additional 5,837 full-time equivalent jobs. French bank Société Générale, has already agreed a lease for 280,000 sq ft of 1 Bank Street, covering the ground and first to seventh floors on a 25 year lease. Tower Hamlets also granted Canary Wharf Group outline planning permission for just over 1 million sq ft of space at 1 Park Place.

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 10, 2015

Central London occupiers prepared to pay more for upper floors and terrace ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, News, Property

There is a growing trend for London occupiers prepared to pay more for upper floors, particularly with access to a terrace, as according to the latest research by Cushman & Wakefield (C&W), unprecedented rental rates are being paid for tower floors and roof gardens. Central London office leasing activity overall, was 2.4 million sq ft for the first quarter of 2015, which equals the same period in 2014, which marked the highest first quarter volumes since 2007. Momentum in the City of London office market has also continued, with a total of 1.8 million sq ft let, up 34 percent for the same time last year. The West End recorded a relatively quiet quarter, with leasing volumes down to just over 600,000 sq ft – the lowest level since mid-2013. However, this is against a backdrop of falling vacancy rates, leading to the increasing migration of commercial occupiers out of the West End.

April 10, 2015

Workplace wellness programmes can reduce obesity levels of staff ⁰

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Workplace wellness programmes can help people lose weight, but are more effective when staff are actively involved in the process, a new study has found. The results of a two-year project published in the American Journal of Public Health show that providing healthier food choices and increasing opportunities for physical activity, successfully reduced the number of people considered overweight or obese by almost 9 percent. Results were particularly good when these efforts were designed with the input and active participation of employees. An estimated 68 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. As they spend on average a third of their lives at work; researchers based at the University of Rochester’s Department of Public Health Sciences worked with a local company to see how effective workplace intervention could be in addressing the obesity problem.

April 8, 2015

One in three employees have experienced conflict at work, reports CIPD

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

As many as one in ten employees are leaving their organisation as a result of workplace conflict, research from the CIPD has revealed. One in three UK employees (38%) have experienced some form of interpersonal conflict at work in the last year – this includes one in four (29%) who have had isolated disputes or clashes and a further one in four (28%) who report ongoing difficult relationships. However, there appears to be a clear power differential at play, with employees being most likely to perceive a lack of respect, bullying or harassment from their boss or other superiors and as many as 1 in 4 said that their line manager actively creates conflict. Employees reported conflicts as being most often with line managers or other superiors (36%) rather than with direct reports (10%). This results in individuals feeling stressed and can lead to a drop in commitment or motivation.

April 7, 2015

New UK Green Building Council Chief Executive lists challenges ahead

by Sara Bean • Environment, Facilities management, News, Property

Julie Hirigoyen, the former UK Head of Sustainability for property consultants JLL takes over today as the new Chief Executive of the UK Green Building Council. Hirigoyen was previously Managing Director and founding partner of Upstream, a leading sustainability strategy consultancy, acquired by JLL in 2007. She said of her new role today: “Buildings and cities are at the heart of what we need to change if we are to achieve sustainable development. There’s been a huge increase in the importance of this agenda, since when I first started out, we were knocking on closed doors. But we must not kid ourselves – we are only at the early stages of the journey. We are still exceeding the limits of the planet, there are still very few genuinely net positive buildings or companies out there, and we are not achieving sustainability as a scientific concept yet – there is much more to do.”

April 7, 2015

“Toxic” employees create stressed co-workers, with over half more likely to quit

by Sara Bean • News, Wellbeing, Workplace

Members of staff who have a negative influence on those around them, and create a poisonous atmosphere in the office, do not affect the overall productivity of their colleagues, but are more likely to make them want to leave. “Toxic employees” make their teammates 54 percent more likely to quit and cost employers up to three times more in hiring fees, finds “Toxic Employees in the Workplace” a new US-based report by Cornerstone. The indirect costs of toxic employees, as measured by the toll they take on co-workers, can have a far greater overall impact and create an even larger financial burden on the business than the direct costs of an employee’s misbehaviour. While these individuals have a negligible effect on the performance of their co-workers, the research suggests they have a stronger influence on stress and burnout than on day-to-day task completion.

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.

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).

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.