We have reached a pivotal point in the field of workplace design. It’s hard to find an article published in the past several years that doesn’t highlight the importance of the employee experience, the need for collaboration or the increasing focus on wellness. If you were to take a poll right now of people working in the architecture, design, and real estate industries, I think that most people would say that square footage is decreasing. For certain organizations, they would be right. Many companies who relocate or lease space on a long-term lease haven’t yet reaped the benefits of increased design efficiencies. However, companies that lease space on a more frequent basis may feel that the square footage is actually increasing. As part of the workplace group at Ted Moudis Associates, we’d like to take a moment to talk about the how and why our data shows that we have reached the limit of densification.
We have been tracking metrics across the firm’s projects since 2012, and in 2016 decided to publish our first Workplace Report highlighting our findings. When we began tracking our data, it was considered progressive for an office to have an average usf of 175 per seat and to have 80 percent of staff in open plan seating. In our 2016 report, we saw an average of 142 usf per seat and 89 percent of staff sitting in open plan. Since the release of that report, we have seen the percentage of staff sitting in open plan continue to rise (92 percent) but have correspondingly seen an increase in usf per seat (165 sf). We attribute this shift to our clients’ greater understanding of the way their employees work. Efficiency is valued, but no longer at the cost of efficacy.
Image courtesy of Ted Moudis Associates
Choice through “alternative” spaces
Let’s talk more about those alternative spaces: If you were to count all the places to sit in an office you would have your total “seats”. We have taken those total seats and divided them by type. We subsequently broke them out into “work seats”, those at workstations and in offices, and “alternative” seats, which are those that are found in the collaboration, amenity, wellness, and focus spaces mentioned above. Until recently, most corporate office designs included work and meeting seats, but lacked in amenity, wellness, and focus seats. In our 2016 Report we saw a great influx of alternative seating options, but work seats held the majority at 53 percent. In the 2017 Report we saw these numbers flip, and today we see the number of alternative seats continue to rise.
Why is this happening? As more organizations adopt an open plan, the design industry and employers are recognizing that this isn’t increasing productivity for all employees. Yes, it’s great theoretically for “collaboration” and increasing efficiency with regards to space, but for the average worker it’s not conducive for the focus work that is often needed, and in fact it can be incredibly disruptive. It doesn’t always facilitate the most productive or inspiring conversations either. Although the traditional desk is designed for majority of the work employees may need to complete in a typical day, there are other spaces better suited for alternate tasks. For example, someone who needs a quiet space to write an article or crunch numbers may be better suited to a focus booth or quiet room. If a team needs to brainstorm a project room may be better suited. If you need to have a 1:1 or catch-up with your team, then having a conversation on casual sofa in an open setting may be better. It’s about creating those choices.