The Centric Lab's Araceli Camargo; Landsec's Carissa Kilgour; Unilver's Nikki Kirbell; HLW International's Michele Neptune; Cluttons' Freddie Pritchard-Smith; International WELL Building Institute's Ann Marie Aguilar
With a question from the floor, Dan Silverman of U.K. and European Investments absolutely nailed it.
To paraphrase: It is easy for large office owners and developers to embrace the most cutting-edge trends when it comes to technology, data, design and wellness.
But how do you do that if, like a vast swathe of the commercial property world, you are a small or midsize landlord, with older, unfashionable assets, catering to tenants who want 5K SF or less?
Fear not. Though Bisnow’s Future of the Workplace event was held in Landsec’s fancy new Nova North, part of its wider £2.2B Victoria redevelopment programme, the panelists had some very practical advice for how to incorporate wellness into buildings — something tenants of all shapes and sizes are increasingly demanding. A lot of this goes beyond the physical infrastructure of the building.
“You don’t need a big café to create a sense of community,” Landsec Workplace Director Carissa Kilgour said. “So when you’re constrained with an older building that is more difficult to refurbish or is smaller so can’t have big common areas, you have to think about the less tangible things to deliver holistic wellness.”
Examples include competitions that pit different tenants in the same building against each other over who takes the most steps in a day — something that gets tenants interacting and promotes a healthy lifestyle.