It’s time to stop the debate about open plan and instead focus on the user experience, a leading workplace strategist told an audience of design professionals at NeoCon, the world’s largest trade show for commercial interiors.
“We know that open plan was not right for everybody and it absolutely has some flaws,” admitted Kay Sargent, Senior Principal, Director of Workplace at HOK, who spoke in tandem with Betsy Nurse, HOK Director of Interiors and co-authored a related article.
“When everybody keeps saying how much they hate open plans I say, ‘I know. That’s why we haven’t been doing it for 15 years. We’ve gone beyond that. There’s a lot of different options and there’s a lot of different choices,’” she emphasized.
Today’s more advanced planning variations allow companies and workplaces to tailor the solution to fit their particular culture and DNA.
To put the newer planning styles in context, Sargent and Nurse gave a chronology of the office environment.
“The cubicles of the 1980s reflected the nature of work at the time,” said Sargent.
“You were assigned a spot and you went and you sat there and that was your space to be in,” she said. “We designed spaces like people were potted plants. By the way, we don’t even design zoos like this anymore.”
“Modern zoos are all about free ranging,” Sargent said. “Let’s not put animals in cages. Yet if you go to most offices, a lot of people are still sitting in that kind of a penned environment.”
As the nature of worked evolved, research revealed how workspaces can foster engagement, satisfaction and productivity.
In the early 2000s, Activity Based Workplaces (ABW) emerged.
“Activity-Based Working is treating you like you’re in college,” offered Sargent. “You’re smart enough to make your own decisions about what you need to do today and you’re going to pick the right space for that, so it’s actually really about empowering people. “
Open plans resemble one room efficiency apartments, according to Sargent.
“Everything is right there. You never have to move. You can’t really move. You don’t have a lot of choices and you’re stuck,” Sargent described.
“But in a house, if I want to cook I go to the kitchen. If I want to sleep I go to my bedroom. Every day you can go to a different space.”
Similar parallels arise relative to privacy.
“In the house the kitchen is a very public space and then as you go towards the bedroom, it’s a very private space,” offered Nurse. “For Activity-Based Working, we learned that not everybody works the same,” she noted, necessitating quiet spaces for heads down work.
Today, the most progressive companies are adopting planning styles to suit a workstyle that is a far cry from the 1980s.
Options include Agile Environments; Maker Environments, Mobile Occupants (MEMO spaces); and Immersive Environments.
Agile Programming Resembles The Manhattan Project
While agile is often used to describe flexible or mobile spaces, Agile Programming (Agile with a capital A, as Sargent emphasizes) is like a Manhattan Project when a cross-functional team is brought together to solve a specific problem and are placed in an environment to solve that problem.
“What do you do when you have a big problem you might need to solve fast? You get the best people from multiple different businesses, in a room together,” explained Sargent. “Live, sleep, eat, and breathe together and they will solve that problem. That’s what these spaces are.”
“You don’t want them moving around and going mobile,” she emphasized. “So, it’s actually the opposite of highly flexible spaces. They’re actually very contained.”
Spaces are typically designed for about eight to ten people at any given time with project timeframes averaging about 18 months.
The concept of Agile spaces has been adapted by other industries as a tool to innovate and stay competitive.
“Pixar does this,” Sargent said. “Pixar does not want everybody moving around and having all these choices and everything. They want their people to speed to innovate, so they put them in these little clusters.”
Sargent described a typical technology company project room under Agile planning. “They are designed as scrum spaces, designed to stream-lined ideation and maximize information sharing.”
MEMO Spaces Bring “Garage-ification-Style Inspiration for the Broader Workspace
“So, now what happens when you don’t want just certain groups to do that?” Sargent asked. “You want your entire company to do that?”
Enter Mobile Environments Mobile Occupants (MEMO).
Whereas Agile spaces contain designated teams within a defined space, MEMO spaces are bigger areas that spillover into the larger workspace, creating an environment to spur innovation among a broader set.
Spaces embrace the entrepreneurial spirit seen in tech’s scrum or maker rooms.
MEMO spaces are, “Well, why do we just contain that to one room? Why don’t we bleed that out through the entire space and make everybody feel like they’re entrepreneurial?” Sargent noted.
“You have kind of a scrappy, raw feeling to it and it’s giving people a variety of settings. It could have some really fun innovative things and spaces for people to go.”
“This is really big in pharma and in tech companies because it is all about speed to innovation,” Sargent explained. “So, how do you get people to speed to innovate? You put them in environments where there’s lots of things that they can display. They can move things around. They can huddle. They can cluster, and they have lots of occupancy.”
“This is happening in Asia and Silicon Valley specifically,” she added. “We’re seeing a lot of this because for many of these tech companies, it’s all about speed to innovation for them. They cannot innovate fast enough and so this is what they’re doing and they’re also trying to attract that talent.”
Features of MEMO spaces might include conversation pits, movable walls, indoor/outdoor rooms, all kinds of biophilia, quiet spaces, reflective areas, collaboration spaces, according to Sargent. “It’s basically ‘Let’s get people to think. Let’s strive to innovation. Let’s open it up. Let’s make it look as far from a corporate office as we possibly, probably can.’”