Search Results for: office design

March 26, 2014

The enduring need to put a bit more of the M into facilities management

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Furniture, Workplace design

Shutterstock’s new offices, Empire State Building

It may well be a statement of the obvious, but it’s worth reminding ourselves sometimes that the term facilities management consists of two words. There is often a bit too much emphasis on the facilities and a bit too little on the management and sometimes we look for design and product solutions to problems that would be better managed in some way. You can put this down to a number of things but to some extent at least it’s down the idea that when you are determined to use a hammer, every job looks like a nail. Obviously the media takes some of the blame for this mindset because it often earns income from businesses who want to sell their stuff to solve particular problems rather than focus on the idea that many of them can be addressed either as a management issue or in combination with products and design.

March 18, 2014

Morgan Lovell to research impact of the workplace on wellbeing

by Mark Eltringham • Facilities management, Workplace, Workplace design

One of the latest pieces of research to explore the possible links between the workplace and individual wellbeing is to be carried out by office fit-out firm Morgan Lovell in conjunction with the British Council for Offices (BCO) and workplace analytics tool HATCH. The firm hopes to create an original piece of research that will help to quantify the impact the workplace has on wellbeing and identify the causal links. The firms says it hopes to use this to create a business case for occupiers who would like to invest in designing offices in a way that fosters wellness and productivity and is inviting interested people and firms to take part. The firm says the survey takes less than 10 minutes and can be found here. To say thank you to respondents to the survey for their time, Morgan Lovell will donate £1 to Comic Relief for every person that completes the questionnaire. The findings will be published in April.

March 17, 2014

The latest issue of Insight is now available to view online

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Newsletter, Workplace, Workplace design

In this week’s Insight newsletter, available to view online; Workplace Insight confirms a partnership agreement with Europe’s largest commercial interior design event, Clerkenwell Design Week [pictured]; evidence that employees who use treadmill workstations as they work not only receive physical benefits but also are more productive; and research finds that our brains are adapting to the changing demands placed on them by technology. Simon Heath presents part two of his field guide to workplace terminology and Demitri Maldonado explains why FM has to embrace its softer side, focus on people skills and develop them to ensure success. We also present a gallery of stunning images showcasing Google’s new offices in Kuala Lumpur. To automatically receive our weekly newsletter, simply add your email address to the box on the home page.

March 11, 2014

A field guide to workplace terminology (part 2)

by Simon Heath • Comment, Facilities management

A year ago we published the first part of Simon Heath’s acid lexicon of the terms people use to obscure the reality of what it is they actually mean. Part One can still be read here. While much has changed over the past year, we are fortunate that Simon’s corrosive, witty and informed take on corporate bullshit, and especially that applied to the parochial field of workplace design and management remains constant. He’s part of a long tradition of those who apply satire to skewer logorrhea, doublethink and obfuscation, the best example of which remains Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary which is quite remarkably caustic and spares no one. First published in 1881 it maintains much of it power and topicality, for example in its definition of Conservative as: “a statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”

March 3, 2014

World Green Building Council to quantify productivity benefits of sustainability

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

In an attempt to broaden the business case for sustainable building, the World Green Building Council has launched a new initiative to define the productivity and wellbeing benefits associated with low carbon and sustainable property. The initiative, launched ahead of this week’s Ecobuild conference in London, will be steered by a group of experts who will produce a final report later in the year. The premise of the study is to show that, as well as cutting costs and improving environmental performance, green buildings have a beneficial effect on the health, wellness and productivity of occupants. According to the announcement, around 85 per cent of an average organisation’s costs are associated with salaries and other costs of employment so a modest improvement in productivity can have a huge impact.

February 25, 2014

City of London grants planning permission for ‘Gotham City’

by Sara Bean • Architecture, News, Property

Planning permission has been granted from the City of London for a £12.7 billion scheme at 40 Leadenhall Street. The building – dubbed ‘Gotham City’ – is located beside the Gherkin at the heart of the City’s eastern cluster of tall buildings and will vary in height between 7 and 34 office storeys. It will feature two additional basement levels, a roof level plant (total height 170m AOD), a flexible retail/café and restaurant uses at ground floor level and café/restaurant with roof terrace overlooking Fenchurch Street. The total size of the building is 910,000 sq ft, split between 890,000 sq ft office and c. 20,000 sq ft retail. As part of the design by Make architects; a grade II listed building at 19-21 Billiter Street, built in 1865, will be restored and integrated into the proposed scheme. More →

February 24, 2014

HS2 is a project for today projected into an uncertain future

by Mark Eltringham • Comment, Facilities management, Flexible working, Technology

Barely a day passes in the media without some new battleground opening up in the debate about the UK’s plan to develop HS2, the high speed line connecting London with Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and, for some reason, a place nobody’s heard of halfway between Derby and Nottingham called Toton (pop. 7,298). While the debate rages about the cost, the economic benefits, regional rebalancing, environmental impact, route and why the Scots and others are paying for a project that may leave them with worse train services, one of the fundamental flaws with the case for HS2 goes largely disregarded. It is that this is clearly a project designed for today, but that won’t be complete for another twenty years. The world then will be very different and, unfortunately, time isn’t quite as malleable as the movies would have us believe.

February 18, 2014

Innovative new work space planned for the home of Dave

by Sara Bean • Company news, Facilities management, Property

The media company which counts Dave, Yesterday and Gold amongst its ten channels has announced its intention to move its 250 staff from its Hammersmith Road location to a ground-breaking new London headquarters by July this year. UKTV has signed a lease for 32,500 sq. ft. of an ecologically-recognised development at 10 Hammersmith Grove, London, and plans to work collaboratively with interior design and architecture studios PENSON to create a new headquarters that is inspirational, distinctive and “built for innovation”. The building itself is highly sustainable: one of the first in London to be entirely lit by LED lights and powered by solar panels and over the three floors of the development, there will be sociable working spaces, a café-bar and outdoor terrace, studio facilities and a screening room. More →

February 12, 2014

Small steps to innovation debated at Workplace Futures 2014

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Property

New or refurbished workplaces are often described as ‘innovative.’ But while the architect and designers behind a building’s design are often credited with innovation, when it comes to the FMs tasked with managing the property, things are less clear cut. Although the FM sector is increasingly under pressure to demonstrate innovation, whether as services provider or as an in-house department; determining what exactly this constitutes, much less being able to demonstrate it in practice, is a lot more difficult. The 2014 i-FM Workplace Futures Conference, held this week at the Siemens Crystal building in London’s Docklands, bravely aimed to address this conundrum. It was, as the organisers admitted, a tall order to ‘nail this innovation theme,’ but it seems that taking small incremental steps may be the key to success. More →