Better Office Building

Prototype Building__Realistic Perspectiv

The future of the corporate environment

The Evolved Office Building is Flexible & Adaptable

Evolved Office Buildings must be flexible and adaptable! The future is not fixed and as the recent pandemic has shown, our assumptions about life and work can be shifted drastically without a lot of time to adapt. The overall global response to the pandemic has also shown that Humans have a great capacity for adaptation and resilience. It is that same nature that has allowed certain species, including ourselves to evolve and adapt to survive over time. This is reflected in Charles Darwin’s concept 'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, not the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change’. Thus the evolved office building must pay close attention to creating resilient infrastructure throughout the facility while doing it in such a way to allow future adaptations with minimal impact. Those that adapt most easily are most likely to flourish. Some have called this “future proofing”. The building we designed is intended to do just that but the principles employed can also be applied to improve or re-position existing buildings to derive similar benefits. The Building can Adapt to Office, Lab, Medical Tenants easily and could be adapted to retail; educational and even residential without substantive changes to the infrastructure and in alignment with evolving market demands.

Competitive Advantages Include:

Open floor plates with large column spacing
Uninterrupted Office Space with Remote Tower Support Spaces
Lab and Medical Use supported
- High Ceiling on First Floor to Accommodate
- Individual Grade Level Access on First Floor
Adaptable Floor Plates for Single and Multi-Tenant
- Without Common Corridors
- Lobby Access for all Tenants
Café on Ground floor with Exterior Seating Area
Fitness Room with Exterior Access
Co-Working Space as Building Amenity
Solar at Rooftop
Touch-Less Environment
New HVAC with higher fresh Air and Filtrations
Up and Down Stairs

Flexible Strategy: Every Business is unique but the perseverance of the last year establishes that there is not a need to be in the office 5 days a week and 8 hours a day. It is generally understood that most office based businesses will be looking at some sort of hybrid work model integrating the office, homes, and other remote locations. Recent research indicates that employees want to work 2.4 days remotely on average, once the pandemic is over. Also, 71% of employees expect a more flexible work schedule once they return. In many places there is still a real need to attract and retain talent to support continued growth and having a strategy to accommodate the employees needs for flexibility will allow them to be more engaged and productive.

Flexible Workplace: A flexible working strategy requires that Offices become more versatile and spaces multi-use without renovation. An office should be also be able to function as a small meeting room utilizing the same furniture. Individual employees should be able to select a space depending on their need, collaborative, concentrative, administrative, communicative, etc. It is also important to remember that one of the most cited reasons for return to the office is to do concentrative work without the disruptions inherent with children and various pets in the “Home Office”. Small adjustments to workstations or technology should be able to accommodate evolving issues of distancing or separation. Core office space (“hubs”) should be able to be supplemented with remote offices or home offices as spokes that lead back to that hub – providing flexibility in office “footprint” and a safety valve to avoid frequent renovation. Such spaces can be fun and flexible and serve as the nexus of the Business culture and reinforce their particular brand.

Flexible Collaboration: When functioning optimally, businesses can form their own sense of community within the organization and nothing reinforces a community like collaboration amongst its member. There are proven productivity and innovation benefits to collaboration in the workplace. The positive impact to employee psychology from the social and business aspects of this collaboration is one of the most often listed reasons for a desire to return (61% in one study). Creating places for these interactions to happen in the office is critical but also the need to incorporate technology to allow remote workers to feel part of the community when they are not there in person.

Flexible Tools and Technology: In order to make all of this flexibility work without it becoming incredibly unwieldy, Businesses will need to provide employees technology and tools that facilitate their productivity and collaboration both remotely and in the physical office. The past year has given many a lot more experience in remote laptops, internet connections and their interruptions, wifi; Teams; Zoom and many others. We also have seen good ergonomics start to move into the home office but also the various ping pong table, boiler room and other less than ideal models. In the expected Hybrid Working Model, robust technology that is issued and maintained by the office will be a requirement for both access as well as security of systems. Investment in ergonomic chairs and technology will help to support the continued productivity of the remote workers. In the office it will be important to supplement the existing technology in many places to facilitate collaboration, interaction and management of the more remote workforce. Additional screens in meeting rooms and a continued increase in the ability to video conference will be critical to this more Flexible hybrid work model.