For its new 10 Hudson Yards office, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) wanted a radically different work environment for its highly mobile, independent, and diverse culture. Across six floors, a variety of tailored room types and flexible spaces provides a diversity of experiences and gives employees the autonomy to select how, when, and where they want to work. Image © Garret Rowland, Courtesy of Gensler.
Editor’s note: This is the second entry in a two-part series exploring how the design dichotomy of the smart and the beautiful plays out through the example of our Legal and Management Advisory clients. Read part one here.
The central challenge confronting Legal and Management Advisory firms today is one of continuous and transformational change. For these clients, a prime differentiator will be the degree to which an organization makes visceral its cultural promise, and how effective it is at framing its purpose and identity. Careful attention to a design’s physical form—the “beautiful” sequence of spaces and experiences—can profoundly elevate a workplace’s purpose and value, engaging the user on a deep, emotional level.
Beauty can be gauged as an emotional connection and a medium of transference between the subject of an experience and the designer’s intention for that experience. This transfer forges a deep connection, seizing one’s attention and launching sequences of engaged observation that build unique, intuitive, and even inspirational experiences. A comprehensive level of engagement goes beyond aesthetics, acting as a true differentiator and attaching to memory on a personal, powerful and positive level.
Following our post on the “smart” perspective to workplace design, this post will explore this cultural/experiential perspective, the beauty-driven side of the design dichotomy of the smart and the beautiful, the three drivers behind this perspective (collaboration, community, and differentiation), and the design imperatives that they inform (diversified choice, tailored experiences, and intentional wonder).
Diversified choice: greater collaboration requires choice
Visually diverse work settings not only engage and stimulate the senses. Studies show that collaboration can also help foster innovation. The Gensler Workplace Survey found that the most innovative lawyers spend 15 percent less time in a private office setting. Spending time in alternative work settings actually increases innovation. So how do you encourage it? Diversified choice in where and how to work—offering a range of focus and shared spaces, and mobility among them fosters balanced collaboration and increases opportunity for informal interactions and diverse stimuli.