Search Results for: office

June 7, 2016

Office best place for productivity, subject to wellness, tech and design ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Wellbeing, Workplace, Workplace design

An increasing number of employees may be opting for telecommuting and on-demand workspaces, but 66 percent of American employees consider the office as the most productive place to get work done. Thirty-six percent say it’s the most inspiring place to work as well, more than any other location. But as workers spend more time in the office, the onus falls on employers to keep their employees healthy, productive and inspired. According to The Staples Business Advantage Workplace Index, 70 percent of US office workers and managers report working more than 40 hours a week, many of whom say they’re working longer hours simply to catch up on work they couldn’t tackle during an eight hour day. And that workload is taking a toll, with 64 percent of respondents saying their workplace has contributed to stress, nearly half feeling so overworked they’re motivated to look for another job and 13 percent having taken a workplace stress-related leave of absence.

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May 27, 2016

Gallery: World’s first 3D printed office opens in Dubai ⁰

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

The Government of Dubai has announced the opening of what it claims is the world’s first 3D printed office building, a project it first unveiled last Summer. China may take issue with them on that claim but the announcement marks yet another step in the development of the construction process towards mainstream use. The Emirate is using the 250 sq. m. Museum of the Future building as an example of how the UAE can lead the world in 3D building technology. A 3D printer took 17 days to print the building using a modified cement material in layers. The total cost of the print was US$140,000 excluding interior fit-out and furnishing. The developers also claim that there was a 50 percent saving on labour costs as the project only involved 18 people on site, mostly electricians and engineers. The design claims to achieve ‘a shift from the traditional form of work environments and provide greater opportunities to stimulate innovation and communication between workplace teams.’

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May 27, 2016

Canary Wharf bucks London’s Brexit office market slow down ⁰

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

Canary Wharf has outperformed the Central London office market during the past 12 months, with rental growth reaching 26.7 percent, ahead of Mayfair and St James’. It seems Canary Wharf’s high quality purpose built space, coupled with its relative affordability when compared to the rest of London, has helped attract significant deals in recent months. The most notable deal during Q1 was Thomson Reuters take up of 300,000sq ft in St Martin’s 5 Canada Square. Faisal Durrani, Cluttons head of research, explained, “It was only a matter of time before the area began to draw in occupiers, particularly from the City and City fringes. It’s a market that has undersold itself and its full potential is yet to be realised but we may be approaching a significant turning point in its attractiveness. In recent months, the Central London market has experienced Brexit nervousness and general settling of the market but Canary Wharf has bucked this trend.”

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May 23, 2016

Employers ignore ways that flexible working has eclipsed traditional office life ⁰

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

A significant proportion of businesses are still not giving their employees the support they need to work remotely and flexibly, despite the fact that 72 percent of UK office workers now believe the traditional fixed workplace is no longer relevant. For the vast majority the traditional nine-to-five is already a thing of the past, with nearly two thirds (62 percent) of people already using some form of flexible working at least one day per week. On average UK workers spend 2.5 days each week working remotely. The findings claimed by ‘The End of Nine-to-Five’ report commissioned by TeamViewer suggest that, despite the increased demands and expectations of employees, nearly 2 in 5 (37 percent) UK office workers said that their company’s IT department do not encourage remote working and do not make it easy. This figure went up as the size of the organisation increased, rising to 44 percent for companies with over 500 employees.

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May 17, 2016

London’s central office market peak driving change for other zones ⁰

by Tobi Crosbie • Cities, Comment, Facilities management, Property

There are plenty of good reasons to believe that London’s Central office market has hit its peak. Rents are at an all-time high in the majority of core office locations and whilst the start of 2016 has seen rents rise, there is certainly a clear steadying of the pace. According to our own data, the Landlord’s quoted rents for offices across the entire Central London market. Core offices such as Mayfair and St James’s have reached levels of £150 per square foot (pfs) in Q1 2016 compared with £120 per square foot in Q1 2015 a rise of 25 percent in 12 months. That does sound excessive, until this is compared with the rises seen East of the city in so called ‘fringe markets’ of Clerkenwell, Old Street and Shoreditch. Here the rents have become eye watering. In Q1 2015, the prime quoting rent in Shoreditch had reached £55 psf. In Q1 2016, this number had reached £75 psf highlighting an increase in 12 months of over 35 percent.

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May 17, 2016

Rent rises may help meet shortage of Grade A office space in Belfast ⁰

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

A chronic shortage of Grade A office space, especially those offering floor plates of over 10,000 sq ft in Belfast city means there is a growing acceptance in the market that Grade A rents need to continue to grow to encourage speculative development. This is due to the markets failure to provide suitable options within the City Core, finds the latest Belfast Offices Snapshot from Colliers. This lack of Grade A office stock Belfast has seen two well established Foreign Direct Investment companies (Allstate and Concentrix) bridge the gap from occupier to developer to secure their optimal property solution. However, the Belfast office market experienced a lower level of transactional activity in 2015 than expected. Take-up figures in 2015 totalled c.310,000 sq ft with the inclusion of the new c.100,000 sq ft Belfast City Council headquarters and therefore some way off the 2013 and 2014 take-up figures of 425,000 sq ft and 375,000 sq ft respectively.

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May 12, 2016

Office construction at highest level in London for eight years ⁰

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

Office construction in the Capital is at its highest level for eight years, according to Deloitte’s latest London Office Crane report, which measures the volume of office development taking place across central London. Recognising that the low supply of available office space across central London offers a limited choice for tenants, developers have responded by starting a record number of new schemes since the last survey. The latest results show that the volume of office construction has increased by 28 percent over the past six months to 14.2 million sq ft the highest level since the beginning of 2008. In just 18 months activity nearly doubled from 7.7 million sq ft in 2014. The financial sector has leased the largest share of office space under construction in the latest results, accounting for 2.3 million sq ft, or 39% of the let space while currently accounting for 38 percent of the space let, the TMT sector is a leading occupier group.

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May 11, 2016

Central London office activity slows as EU uncertainty hits market ⁰

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

Given the level of uncertainty around June’s Referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU, the £11.9bn invested into commercial real estate during the first three months of 2016 appeared robust. However, 50 percent of Q1’s volume was in January, with the data from Lambert Smith Hampton showing that activity tapered off significantly in the following two months. Anecdotal evidence clearly linked the slowdown directly to the approaching vote. As a result there was a significant fall in activity, which translated into a very quiet quarter for Central London Offices, where volume halved quarter-on-quarter to £2.2bn, the lowest quarterly total since the last part of 2011. Given that financial services is widely regarded as the most exposed sector to a possible ‘Brexit’, this sector appears to have suffered most from investor caution.In marked contrast, investment in the rest of UK Offices has remained buoyant at £1.4bn, the highest quarterly total since the middle of 2007.

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May 10, 2016

Alternate workplaces strategies explored as demand for US offices grows ⁰

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

The US national office market recovery slowed slightly in the first quarter of 2016 amid some volatility within the financial markets. However, as the financial markets stabilised later in the quarter, office based job growth accelerated, likely signalling stronger tenant demand in the months ahead, according to a new report from CBRE. Tech and healthcare companies continue to drive growth, resulting in a scarcity of creative space in many cities. Meanwhile, energy-dominated markets slowed further due to sustained low oil prices. Many companies continued to seek space in vibrant downtown and suburban areas near public transport links in order to attract talent. A tightening supply within the Class A market has resulted in tenants exploring well-located Class B properties and creative space, with tenants across geographies and industries exploring alternate workplaces strategies to maximise efficiencies and collaboration.

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May 4, 2016

Brexit debate having negligible effect on regional office market ⁰

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

Demand for office space in the UK regional office markets has remained strong for the first quarter of this year, despite uncertainties surrounding a potential Brexit. A total of 1,381,350 sq ft of office space was taken in the ‘Big 6’ regional cities in the Jan-April period, just marginally below the final quarter performance of 2015 but 27 percent higher than the five quarterly average, CBRE has revealed. The leading cities in terms of year-to-date take-up are Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow, with total volumes of around the 285,000 sq ft mark in each of these three cities. All of these markets have substantially outperformed their five year quarterly average and have each supported a strong level of pre-letting activity. In the case of Glasgow, the volume for the beginning of 2016 has been twice the quarterly average. The strong start in this market is the result of Morgan Stanley signing a large pre-let for 154,814 sq ft at the first phase of Bothwell Exchange.

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May 2, 2016

The cocktail party effect and the false narrative of office acoustics

by Mark Eltringham • Knowledge, Workplace, Workplace design

Ask most people what they find most annoying about modern office life and they’re likely to tell you that it is the sounds of other people. The knee jerk response to this is often to blame the hegemony of open plan design and then find ways to reduce the amount of noise generated within the office. Like many others, this is an enduring narrative and one that many well-informed people continue to challenge. As always, the issues around office acoustics are far more complex and interesting than that and we’ve known it for a long time. Donald Broadbent was a researcher who died twenty years ago. Yet his research into cognitive psychology has never been more pertinent than it is right now as we continue to struggle with the the effects of unwelcome noise in open plan offices. Offices may have changed in the last twenty years, but human beings haven’t. This revealing programme, broadcast by the BBC, explores some of his ideas. There are no visuals so you have to use your ears.

April 29, 2016

Start-ups help drive the rise in uptake of serviced offices in Australia ⁰

by Sara Bean • Facilities management, Flexible working, News, Workplace design

The number of flexible workspaces is growing in Australia, which has seen a 15 percent increase in new serviced offices and co-working spaces opening in the last year, according to data from Instant Offices. But the country still has some way to go when compared to other major international destinations for business, with only 300 such offices in total compared to more than 3,000 in the US alone. During the relative economic uncertainty of the past year – with growth limited to 2.5 percent however, Australia is now witnessing the growth of a “contingent” workforce. Small businesses of four employees or less make up more than three quarters of the total market, and considering that in two of the country’s commercial markets, Sydney and Melbourne, the typical entrance to the market has been via fixed lease of seven to 10 years in length; the agility offered by flexible workspaces is gaining in appeal.