Author: Anita Turner

“Biophilia” sounds like something one would want to avoid in the workplace, right?  Despite the unsettling moniker, that couldn’t be further from the truth.  Australian property development company Lendlease recently leased a floor at 1201 Demonbreun (the coolest new building in Nashville) and Hastings Architecture incorporated biophilia into Lendlease’s workspace to great success.  I had the pleasure of touring the space on a recent trip to Nashville.

What is biophilia?  It is a school of thought that suggests there is an instinctive bond between human beings and nature.  Proponents therefore encourage the incorporation of plant life into office space to assist workers with psychological restoration.  Studies have confirmed that utilizing design elements that encourage a direct connection with nature can help employees mentally recover and maintain positive well-being.[1]  In addition, biophilia is a requirement for certification as a WELL building space under the International Well Building Institute program, a certification that Lendlease is currently in the process of obtaining.  When Lendlease completes this process, they will occupy the first WELL building space in Tennessee.

At Lendlease, biophilia begins in the elevator lobby with a large living wall.  Then, as you turn and enter into Lendlease’s reception area, there is another living wall; this abundance of plants continues throughout the space.

Additional warmth is brought into the Lendlease reception area with the use of reclaimed wood on the walls and wool rugs on the concrete floors.   This reception area is delineated from the main work areas by a half height wall topped with re-bar lattice so that the entire space feels open and airy.

Within the work areas, Lendlease uses a completely open benching plan.  Per Claire Johnston, Managing Director of the Nashville Lendlease office, “There are no private offices in our new space; everyone works at team tables and can choose a space based on what their day entails… if you have focused work to do, you can move to a focus area or garden. If you have a private phone call to take, we have phone booths. We have enclosed and open spaces for team meetings of all sizes… We want our employees to feel comfortable and for everyone to get up and move throughout the space during the day. It’s physically and mentally healthier for all of us.”

Although employees may camp out at one desk for a day or two, they are encouraged to move around and work with different people if they appear to be settling in.  Overall, Johnston says that the open free-address plan has been well received by employees as they recognize that it allows them to be more engaged and work more collaboratively.  This sentiment was echoed by Lendlease’s receptionist who told me enthusiastically, “We LOVE it here!”

“Everyone has adapted to the space beautifully and everyone is finding new and better ways to work every day – whether that be utilizing the stand-up desks, working in areas like the Den, the Social Hub, or taking walking meetings outside. We couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome and are very proud to call this office ‘home’,” say Johnston.

Whether your office design budget is big or small, I encourage you to consider incorporating biophilia into your workspace.

[1] Human Spaces: The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, Interface, Professor Sir Cary Cooper and Bill Browning.

Recently I made a presentation to the Birmingham tech community entitled “how to hack your office space to foster productivity and innovation.” The subtitle could/should have been “on a budget.”  To illustrate this point, I shared my experience touring Zappos in its early Vegas days – before Amazon bought the company and it moved to funkier and more urban space on the Strip.

About ten years ago, Zappos leased space in a non-descript (read: ugly) suburban midrise building on the outskirts of Las Vegas.  From the parking lot, the building looked corporate in every negative sense of the word, however, once you walked in the front door, the space was edgy and funky.  The floor plan was completely open plan and the C Suite was actually just a row of mismatched cubicles affectionately referred to as “monkey row” with numerous stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of whimsical décor around it.

Zappos’ culture was (and still is) zany and funky – a place where everyone is welcome.  Maybe because this space was so wacky, none of the quirky personalities working there really seemed out of place.  And that worked for Zappos.  Even on a budget.  They were always able to find employees who were loyal and bought into the customer service mission of the company even when the pay was on the low side of market.  This was a big part of their culture, fueled the stickiness to the company and was a source of energy for all.

Last week, I was able to spend some time with Jay Brandrup, the founder of Kinetic, a digital services agency and developer, to learn a little about how, like Zappos, Birmingham-based Kinetic built a culture — and eventually a space conducive to that culture — without going broke.

Started over twenty-two years ago, Kinetic’s founder rented inexpensive office space for the initial sixteen years of its business.  This allowed Kinetic’s owners to focus on investing in their business while also saving money to buy a long-term home.  Five years ago, they bought an old building down the street from their old offices on Birmingham’s cobblestoned Morris Avenue.  The purchase price was extremely low, reflective of the significant amount of work the building needed, and while Kinetic made a sizable investment in restoring the building, they didn’t spend “Microsoft” sized money on it.

Because Kinetic’s business depends on the imagination and ingenuity of its people, Kinetic’s culture is all about sparking creativity and out of the box thinking.  They accomplish this by focusing on technology, history and play.

After visiting their space, I would describe their culture as technology focused, but not in the “we’re a Silicon Valley firm that is creating some new app so please refer to us as a technology company” way.  Rather, Kinetic seems to be a company of people who are genuinely fascinated by new technologies.

For instance, other than the actual San Francisco Wired offices which I visited last year, I have never seen another library that included every published issue of Wired magazine.  Kinetic’s fascination with Wired does not end with their library.  The company once voted on their favorite Wired cover and then commissioned nine artists to design their own interpretations of one-ninth of that cover.  The nine pieces of art now hang in Kinetic’s Board Room.

Another example of Kinetic’s technology fascination?  Everything in the office can be run by an app.  Pull a beer from the kegerator – your photo is going to be taken by a digital camera and can be pulled up from an app.  (The company has found this to be an effective way of ensuring no underage drinking is occurring in their offices.)  Change the lighting on the spaceship-like workspace in the center of the offices from an app.  Check the security cameras.  Shoot a basket in their game room and a mysterious computerized voice tells you the angle of your shot.  When you spend a little time in an environment like this, it forces you to think about what other challenges could be addressed or processes improved with technology.  Mission accomplished.

Despite Kinetic’s love of futuristic technology, the company also carries a deep respect for its building’s history.  Once a restaurant named Victoria Station (a nod to the English train station), two boxcars and a caboose complete with their undercarriages were built into the building.  Kinetic obtained the original hostess stand from the restaurant and it sits in the reception area.  The old Victoria Station sign hangs in the space and other various Victoria Station restaurant memorabilia (which Brandrup still actively and perhaps obsessively collects) can be found throughout the building.

Kinetic and its architect/contractor, Appleseed, also incorporated the railroad train history of the building in the renovation.  The corrugated texture of its boxcars’ sides is reflected in paneled honeycomb-like walls throughout the space.

The board room table is actually a slab of glass mounted on two train wheels Appleseed found.

The wall bench in that board room sits on train springs Appleseed also salvaged.

The third piece of Kinetic’s culture is play.  To that end, antique and classic toys can be found in nooks and crannies throughout the space and employees are not only allowed but encouraged to play with them.  In addition, on the second floor, there is a full game room with video games, the aforementioned basketball hoop, musical instruments and a pool table.

Out on the rooftop patio, there is a giant chess set and a rooftop driving range.  The building also has a large outdoor barbecue area which sees significant use.

While building to encourage Kinetic’s technology, history, and play-focused culture was not without cost, Kinetic did not borrow money to build their space.  To control costs and create a unique environment, they made creative use of “found” objects and trusted their Appleseed design build team’s judgment.  The result is a quirky space that encourages creativity and out of the box thinking.

As a post script, buying a building is not right for every small company.  (More here.)  It works for Brandrup and Kinetic because according to Brandrup, Kinetic is a “lifestyle business” without huge growth plans.  Kinetic’s building currently houses 16+/- employees and could easily accommodate a few more, so it will meet Kinetic’s needs into the foreseeable future.  And, Brandrup does not have plans to seek venture capital and become the next Zappos, so culture — rather than flexibility to grow and relocate — was the priority.

Tech companies are not just leasing older buildings for their hip addresses.  Instead, tech companies and the people who work in them are attracted to the long sight lines often found in these buildings.  Older and warehouse-style buildings were frequently built with the elevator shafts, mechanical rooms and restrooms on one exterior wall of the building, rather than in the core.  These buildings also often contain high ceilings and large windows which combine to produce space with long sight lines and great natural light.

Compare this environment to traditional office buildings where a floorplate could be a 20,000 square foot rectangle with a  ~3,000 square foot rectangle housing elevators, restrooms and building mechanical placed right smack in the middle of the floor.  In this scenario, employees sitting on one side of the floor have to walk around the core to get to employees on the other side of the floor.  And they certainly can’t see across to their co-workers.

AtlasRFID, a software developer for the construction industry, recently moved from the Innovation Depot business incubator to the newly renovated circa-1928 Gray Construction Building in the Birmingham CBD.  AtlasRFID leases ~19,255 square feet on the fourth and fifth floors of the five-story building.  While a 10,000 square foot floorplate is small compared to the market norm of ~20,000 square feet, because the elevators and restrooms are on two of the exterior walls rather than in the middle of the floor, the space is completely open from one side to the other and feels expansive.

The building’s owner, Gray Construction, was responsible for transforming it from a non-descript vacant downtown building with dark interiors (compliments of the small windows and overabundant concrete) to an open, airy and modern office building.  Gray added much larger windows to two facades of the building in their renovation so the space is now flooded with light, and the ceilings in AtlasRFID’s space range from 13.5’ to 16’ high.  (More traditional office building ceilings are usually 9’ to 10’ high.)

AtlasRFID designed each of their floors to take advantage of the abundant light by placing clear glass fronts on the exterior offices.  This ensures light penetration to the interior of the space as well as giving a feeling of openness and approachability to the offices.

The furniture in AtlasRFID’s space was selected to further enhance the open feeling.  Richie Hamer with Business Interiors helped AtlasRFID select workstations that are no taller than 50”.  This height provides seated privacy while not impeding the visual horizon.  On the fourth floor, software developers and engineers sit at bench seating with numerous monitors mounted from the ceiling in the area.  The bench seating, a Knoll product, has been such a success that AtlasRFID is in the process of expanding it.  (Read more about bench seating at San Francisco tech companies here.)

Sprinkled among the workstations and benching are work tables and soft seating which cleverly conceals filing drawers.

The entire space has a very crisp and clean aesthetic.  It is white with bright orange accents that brand and give energy to the space.  Because the open ceiling is painted white, AtlasRFID floated restored wood “clouds” throughout the space to add warmth to the environment.

There are flexible team conference rooms along the window wall which feature unique furniture that can be easily reconfigured for different group sizes, meeting types and work styles.  For instance, the “think tank” room contains furniture with soft booth-style seating on the front and counter height seating on the back to allow two rows of people to sit around a central screen.

The boardroom contains a large square conference table that is back-painted white glass.  The shape facilitates a sense of equal participation for all seated at it.

A teleconference room with a stand-up counter (and no chairs!) was placed on one of the non-window walls.

The space has both a casual hospitality lounge for client interaction and a separate employee lounge and kitchen area.

While AtlasRFID only has windows on two walls of their space, through careful design and furniture selection, they have built a bright beautiful space where the absence of those windows is unnoticeable.

Photos by Sarah Peyton Photography

“Collaboration” as a buzzword is getting as old as “value engineering”; however, the inherent concept is increasing in importance.  All of our clients, from start-up tech companies to decades-old law firms, are realizing the value of collaboration among their employees as well as with their clients.  LinkedIn is a trailblazer in this respect and I had the privilege of touring their new San Francisco headquarters last year.

Designed by global design firm IA Interior Architects, LinkedIn’s space encompasses more workspace innovations than I could detail in this blog post.  Erik Hodgetts, Marita Schardt and Neil Schneider of IA were kind enough to spend some time with me to share how companies like LinkedIn use space to encourage collaboration.

Schneider was part of the team that worked on the LinkedIn headquarters.  Per Schneider, one of the best magnets to pull people together is food.  To that end, IA designed a food “stack” to ensure that there was some kind of food amenity on every floor of LinkedIn’s 18 floors at 222 2^nd Street.  The stack also encourages employees to move between floors and mingle with employees on other floors.  Every third floor has a coffee bar and water area.  Another third of the floors have coffee, water and snacks and the final third include micro kitchens.  The conference spaces are always concentrated around these food amenities and game rooms were built near every micro-kitchen.

To further encourage informal “collisions” between employees, LinkedIn designed each floor with a theme and then built different “interactive arts” spaces to pull people together.  For instance, there is a San Francisco poets floor that features writable walls at either end of the floor.  On one of those walls are quotes from famous poems and on the other are the names of famous poets.  The floor also includes a small library lined with poetry books.  The piece de resistance on this and every floor is the “staff wall.”  On the staff wall, each of the approximately 175 employees that work on the floor are invited to write a haiku and hang it on the wall.

Other floor themes include “obscure San Francisco parks” and “coffee houses.”  On the parks floor’s staff wall, the employees are invited to put up a picture of themselves picnicking or enjoying a San Francisco park.  On the coffee floor, employees can drop their “mugshots” in glass coffee mugs.  There is a “music” floor with a silent disco where a number of employees can put on wireless headphones and have a dance party.  The “game designer” floor has a wall in its main lobby with rotational balls marked with 0s and 1s so the tech savvy employees can leave binary messages for each other.  On that floor’s staff wall, the staff can design their own avatars to share.

Locally, Daxko has a “staff wall” where they encourage employees to answer specific quirky questions about themselves such as “favorite ice cream.” These walls give employees a place to start a conversation with their colleagues that can be the impetus for collaboration.

IA’s Hodgetts often works with law firm clients and said that designing collaboration space in professional service firms has some unique challenges.  “How do you encourage interaction in a culture where often the safest place to be is at your desk?” asked Hodgetts.  Many service firms make an effort to provide different environments in which to work throughout their spaces.  However, the success of these environments is contingent upon the culture of the firm.  In firms with a culture of observation, associate lounges have more success when they are in enclosed opaque spaces – i.e. a clubhouse feel – where associates don’t feel like they are being observed and judged for taking a break from billing.

Change management programs can help law firm and other employers to create a culture where employees (professional and support) are encouraged to use collaboration space.  IA’s Schardt say that usually this involves firm management leading by example in using the spaces.  If the partners use open and collaboration spaces, the rest of the firm’s employees will follow comfortably follow suit.

Law firm Hand Arendall recently built out new offices in the historic Federal Reserve Building in Birmingham’s CBD.  Because many of the building’s original features were maintained in the renovation, the building includes several vaults.  Hand Arendall’s architect Williams Blackstock optimized the vault in their space by building an attorney lounge with a wet bar inside it.  Talk about a “safe space” for collaboration!

Bottom line: Encourage a collaborative culture by focusing on food and activities that will bring people together, and create a space to house those two amenities.  You can spend a lot of money or a little money; the results will be the same – a more engaged and relational workforce.

If you want to read more, go here to learn how Google built to encourage serendipity in New York City.