“Collaboration” has become an abiding design goal for many nonresidential building types, such as offices and educational institutions. But the medical field, with its hierarchical divisions and silo mentality among professionals, continues to resist a more collaborative workplace culture.
Perkins Eastman set out to find out why, and used one of its own projects—the 95,000-sf NYU Winthrop Hospital Research and Academic Center in Mineola, N.Y.—as a test case a year after it opened in 2015.
The firm's post-occupancy evaluation—whose findings it published in a recently released white paper “The Effectiveness of Collaborative Spaces in Healthcare and Research Environments”—focuses on the activities within a third-floor multi-use space in the facility that the firm designed specifically with employee interaction in mind.
The white paper touches on the evolution of collaborative design, and singles out two examples—Bell Labs’ headquarters in Murray Hill, N.J., in the 1960s, and Google’s national headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.—where cross-disciplinary collaboration took root and where “activity based” working is now on full display.
The paper notes that offices and education facilities are creating these kinds of environments by planning for collaboration early in the design process, “to include a variety of different kinds of areas to support one-on-one, individual, small group and large groupings.”
However, even the most thoughtfully designed space won’t lead to meaningful change in a workspace if it isn’t supported by policies and attitudes that foster collaboration. And that support is what Perkins Eastman found was missing at NYU Winthrop Research and Academic Center.
Its third-floor space was seen as a microcosm of Perkins Eastman’s design intent. Its programmatic elements include a pantry with small cook and prep area and two vending machines, a café dining space with tables and chairs, a break area with soft seating, a low four-person conference table and sit-up bar; a work room with a TV, tablet chairs and writable magnetic wall; a research area with a large writable wall, movable ottomans, and high-top tables and writing table tops; and a conference room with a large executive meeting table, digital projection capabilities, wet bar and seating banquette.