Microsoft Building 42 – team workspace. Redmond, Washington. © Copyright 2017 Benjamin Benschneider.
For the past three years, Metropolis’s director of design innovation, Susan S. Szenasy has led Think Tank, a series of conversations on human-centered design. On August 16, 2017, she visited the Seattle-based firm ZGF Architects to discuss designing for workplace wellness. What follows is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity by S.T. White.
Susan S. Szenasy, director of design innovation, Metropolis (SSS): Ninety percent of our lives are spent indoors, mostly between work and home. Today, we’d like to share experiences about designing places that accommodate our changing senses of health and balance. Microsoft has had a wellness program since 2007. How many employees are on the Microsoft campus and how does the program work?
Ruta Patil, workplace strategist, Microsoft (RP): We have 120 buildings and 45,000 people. The program used to be called the Workplace Advantage and now we call it the Intelligent Workplace. The company started in 1975 and moved to Redmond in 1979. The original promise used to be that every worker got a door, which meant you got an office, but the space is very different now. Culture enhancement happens quite a bit when the model of the physical space changes. Democratizing daylight and views is really important, so that they’re not rewards for seniority while sitting in darkness is the norm for everyone else. For the longest time, we focused on the business aspect of workplace design, like productivity and profits. Then, we realized that the more we think about employees’ overall well-being, productivity goes up as a result.
SSS: Most of the employees are software engineers. How does the campus reflect their particular needs and ways they work?
RP: The average person is very smart, analytical, and data-based. When we tell them we can’t do something or need to, they expect us to prove it with a presentation and numbers. They take immense pride in being geeks, which has its own subculture and personality. They are very curious, and actually analog methods of working are alive and well. We can never provide enough whiteboards, post-its, and large sheets of paper to map out the process. We try to provide a space that represents their sense of humor and culture.