Search Results for: commercial

October 29, 2013

Looking forward to Workplace Week; productivity and the connected organisation

‘High Street’ at Network Rail’s Milton Keynes base

There’s not much time to go before Workplace Week, which takes place from the 4th to 8th November. The annual workplace conference and fundraiser for Children in Need will include more than a dozen visits to offices in London and around the UK, a one-day convention and events staged by Kinnarps, ASOS, KPMG, Herman Miller and Colebrook Bosson Saunders. Site visits include to the public sector’s new generation of landmark buildings, Network Rail, RBS and Innocent Drinks. The theme of this year’s convention on the 5th November is Driving Productivity Through The Connected Organisation which will take place at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ offices. Speakers includes Keith Saxton, director of financial services at IBM Research; Johnny Dunford, global director of commercial property at RICS; and Liz Nottingham, Regional HR Director for Western Europe at Starcom MediaVest group.

October 25, 2013

The Great Gatsby and the rehabilitation of the office cubicle

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Furniture, Workplace design

The finest closing sentence of any novel in my opinion is that in The Great Gatsby. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” It is a reference to the futility of our attempts to escape the past, even as we look to the future, dreaming of how “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”. F Scott Fitzgerald was referring to people when he wrote it, and Jay Gatsby in particular, but it’s a passage that resonates in a number of ways, especially in those areas of our lives that deal most intimately with what it means to be human. And one of these is self-evidently the workplace, where any articular attempt to define the ideal office for a particular time, including the future, is complicated by the fact that we must always meet the needs of the beasts that inhabit it. Regardless of the tools we have at our disposal with which to work more effectively, or just plain ‘more’ we remain fundamentally the same animals we were thousands of years ago.

October 25, 2013

Economic recovery, the changing psychological contract and the future of the office

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Workplace design

There has always been a link of one sort or another between the labour market and office design. So, as the UK’s unemployment statistics continue to fall, they remain moderately high and there continue to be structural changes in the nature of work, typified by this year’s debate about the growing use of zero hours contracts. You have to wonder what impact structural changes, levels of unemployment and redundancy (around 4 million in the UK since 2008) have had on the way we manage and design our workplaces. There is no doubt that the downturn combined with the structural changes in the way we work have had an effect on demand for commercial property, but what will it all mean in the longer term?

October 21, 2013

Co-op’s One Angel Square in Manchester wins RICS’ Project of the Year

by Sara Bean • Architecture, Environment, News, Property

One Angel Square in Manchester has been awarded Project of the Year in the RICS Awards that celebrate the built and natural environment. More than 600 building projects entered the awards which also saw category awards presented for building conservation, community benefit, design and innovation, and regeneration. The overall winning project – a £100 million new headquarters for The Co-operative Group – is the largest commercial office building in Manchester and has also achieved the highest scoring BREEAM ‘outstanding’ office rating in the country, setting a new national benchmark in sustainable design in the commercial sector. RICS judges said every aspect of the building has been constructed with sustainability at heart. More →

October 17, 2013

Video: reimagining work to help people become happier and more productive

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Events, Facilities management, Technology

[embedplusvideo height=”190″ width=”220″ editlink=”https://bit.ly/1cweZHz” standard=”https://www.youtube.com/v/G11t6XAIce0?fs=1&hd=1″ vars=”ytid=G11t6XAIce0&width=220&height=190&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=1&autoplay=0&react=0&chapters=&notes=” id=”ep5343″ /]

Most companies are engaged in an attempt to help employees become happier, more productive and – yes –fitter at work. Firms do this because they are nice people or in the commercial interest of the business, or both. The problem is they are not doing it with a fixed set of criteria. Not only do they have to cope with changing commercial and economic conditions and legislation, they have to do it while the very nature of work evolves rapidly and in very different ways for different organisations. This is not so much like somebody moving the goal posts as it is like one of those games on It’s A Knockout where a contestant tries to do something while other people are shaking the platform they are standing on, squirting them with water, running into them, hitting them with things and yanking them back with ropes.

October 16, 2013

Workplace Week announces details of visits to London Government buildings

by Mark Eltringham • Events, Facilities management, Flexible working, Public Sector

DfE London HQ

For the first time, Workplace Week includes visits to two Government offices, the Department for Education at Sanctuary Buildings in Great Smith Street (pictured) and the Department for International Development on Whitehall. The DfE is just a stone’s throw from the Houses of Parliament and boasts outstanding views of several major landmarks. The building is home to some 2,000 staff who work in a flexible environment with 7 desks for 10 people. The Department for International Development moved to its new London HQ, the oldest purpose-built office in London, at the beginning of the year. The DfID has created a modern, flexible environment which encourages collaborative working, whilst being sympathetic to the historic nature of the building.

October 15, 2013

Demand in UK regional office markets beginning to outstrip supply

by Mark Eltringham • News, Property

The latest report from property consultancy Savill’s looking at trends in the UK’s commercial property market paints a now very familiar picture of an increasingly healthy market driven by a number of sectors in general and the tech and media industries in particular, but also of growing confidence outside of London. It also highlights a marked shift away from public sector to private sector employment. Although the upsurge in demand is putting pressure on the supply of appropriate office space in certain parts of the country, a new report published today by KPMG also highlights the growing order books of UK construction firms and an increase in confidence amongst builders.

October 8, 2013

Nearly two thirds of SMEs now trust employees to work flexibly

by Sara Bean • Flexible working, News, Workplace

One of the main arguments against flexible working amongst blue chip organisations – which was well documented following the Yahoo furore earlier this year, is that it is detrimental to fostering a collaborative working culture. Amongst small and medium sized companies, the reasons against are more straightforward, in that it demands a level of trust small business managers can ill afford to bestow unwisely. Now a new survey, carried out among over 200 UK-based SME decision-makers, highlights a growing acceptance of flexible working within these businesses. Well over half (63%) of senior executives say they trust their employees to remain productive when working away from the office, the Citrix-commissioned YouGov survey has shown. More →

October 7, 2013

Full details of Workplace Week event are announced

by Mark Eltringham • Events, News

PwC More London Offices

More details have been announced about this year’s Workplace Week, which takes place on 5 November at PricewaterhouseCoopers More London building. Our support for the event means that Insight readers are offered discounted tickets. The event is organised by Advanced Workplace Associates in aid of Children in Need. The event includes a chance to visit some of the UK’s most innovative workplaces including RBS, Innocent Drinks and KPMG as well as convention and a series of Fringe events. Speakers include Johnny Dunford, global director of commercial property at RICS; Curtis McLean, founder of Innovation Places; Keith Saxton, director of financial services at IBM Research; Jessica Pryce-Jones, founder of the I-Opener Institute in Oxford; and Mark Sherfield, COO of global accountants BDO.

September 28, 2013

Two major new London fit-out contracts for ISG

by Mark Eltringham • Company news, Workplace design

Multinational fit-out and construction firm ISG has won a contract for the fit-out of clothing retailer Arcadia’s UK headquarters near Oxford Street in London and is believed to have won a £50 million contract to fit out the ‘Baby Shard’ at London Bridge for Rupert Murdoch’s News UK. The £32 million Arcadia project for the reinvention of Colegreave House, designed by Sheppard Robson, involves the fit-out of four storeys and 155,000 sq. ft. of the existing building. Staff at the firm responsible for High Street brands such as Dorothy Perkins, Top Shop and Burton will remain in situ for the duration of the phased project which includes the installation of glazed roofs over the atria at the heart of the building to provide new community areas for staff.

September 27, 2013

Balfour Beatty appointed main contractor for St James’s Market scheme

by Sara Bean • Company news, News, Property

The Crown Estate and Oxford Properties have announced the completion of a joint venture agreement to finance the £320 million St James’s Market scheme around London’s Regent Street area. Balfour Beatty has been appointed as the main contractor, with work due to start on site in the next month. The St James’s Market scheme is set to deliver 210,000 ft² of office and 50,000 ft² of retail and restaurant space. Bob Clark, Managing Director of Balfour Beatty’s Major Projects division said: “As a global infrastructure group we will be bringing our experience in delivering high end commercial properties to the scheme and utilising our investment in 4D information modelling technology and modular construction capability to ensure perfect delivery.”