BusinessDay
August 2014
THE OFFICE
RETHINKING THE
WAY WE WORK
RENAISSANCE
BILBAO’S TRANSFORMATION
VOTED BEST
MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT
DESIGN
WORK IT
THE CONTEMPORARY OFFICE MAKES SPACE
FOR MODERN WORKING HABITS
TEXT BAMBINA OLIVARES WISE
PHOTOGRAPHY BRETT RUBIN STYLING CARLA UYS
Keith wears: suit, R11 999;
poloneck, R1 999; boots, R6 899,
all Tiger of Sweden. iPad case,
R3 100, Quamta
Tumi wears: Top, R650, a.y.k. Suit
pants, R3 599, Tiger of Sweden.
Shoes, R1 099, Zara. Earrings,
R1 940, Kirsten Goss. Ring, R895,
Blink & Co. Travel box, R9 500,
Quamta. iPad case, R749,
Ordning&Reda
Bianca wears: dress, R3 599, Tiger
of Sweden. Coat, R1 799; ankle
boots, R1 299, both Zara.
Bag, R53 000, Louis Vuitton
Furniture: Orangebox chair,
R9 000 each, available at
M and F Business Furniture
20 AUGUST 2014
WANTED
DESIGN
WHEN THE EMINENT ARCHITECT SIR NORMAN FOSTER
finally unveiled his iconic HSBC headquarters in Hong Kong
in 1986, he was lauded for reinventing the office tower.
Almost 30 years later, it’s not just the office tower that is
constantly being reinvented, but the office itself. As
technology and full-on connectivity have allowed us to lead
more flexible and mobile lifestyles, the way we work has also
experienced a transformation.
In the past, offices — at least for the non-creative
industries — were soulless and bland, dressed in impersonal
grey and flooded in fluorescent lighting, more corporate
prison than home away from home. This was where one
toiled away at one’s desk for at least eight hours a day for
a paycheck, and job security extracted job loyalty. The idea
that the office could be a space where one could move
around, confer, collaborate or even chill from time to time
was unthinkable.
Today, with more and more millennials entering the
workforce and companies like Google redefining the
workspace, the office has become, in many ways, the
extension of the home.
Like the iconic Google-search landing page, the Google
headquarters in Mountain View, California are cheerful and
bright — more children’s playground than corporate jungle.
Fondly known as the Googleplex, it epitomises an approach
to work that apparently works. Google has a market
capitalisation of $200bn, and its founders, Sergey Brin and
Larry Page, are among the youngest billionaires in the world,
worth some $15bn each. Productivity in the workplace
certainly doesn’t seem to be an issue.
22 AUGUST 2014
WANTED
Taking its cue from Google, Cennergi — a mining
subsidiary focusing on clean-energy systems — decided
a few years ago that its Centurion premises needed some
sprucing up. The company enlisted the design services of
the renowned Joburg-based interior design consultancy,
Head Interiors.
Emma Luyt, a project manager, recalled the challenge of
turning 880 square metres of office space into a playful, noncorporate -looking environment for engineers. “Unlike at
Google, these were not casual, Silicon Valley types working
in internet start-ups. Engineers tend to be rigid, methodical
people, used to working in their own cubicles. It was a huge
departure for them,” she says. “Now they have to work in
a much more open space, on desks placed along a winding,
curving path, cutting through the space.”
DESIGN
Coat, R7 699, Tiger of
Sweden. Ostrich-leather
clutch, R15 000, Quamta
The 2 200-plus strong workforce at Alexander Forbes’s
stunning new premises — an eight-storey, certified green
building in Sandton. Joburg designed by Paragon Architects
and Paragon Interface — is not made up of casual Silicon
Valley types either. But the energising and efficient
atmosphere in which they now work certainly imbues them
with an ease rarely seen in financial institutions, which in
turn inspires and motivates, making them happier — and
more productive — workers.
The desks are still there, but much more thought has gone
into creating an environment that almost makes you want to
linger at work, instead of rushing home to escape from
corporate drudgery. Richard Andrews, the Managing
Director of Inspiration Office, which provided the office
furniture throughout Alexander Forbes, noted that: “Your
space is a strategic asset. It’s essential to extract the most
value out of your space, to understand how it works and to
provide the right furniture and the right application for the
right space.”
Inspiration Office is the local licensee and exclusive
dealer of Steelcase, the world’s largest international
office-furniture manufacturer, and also represents select
local brands. For Alexander Forbes, Andrews said the brief
was simple and direct: “They wanted a workspace that was in
line with European trends — open plan, collaborative spaces
to encourage people to go and collaborate with one another.
Research has shown that 70% of ideas in a workspace are
generated when people collaborate with each other. So give
people space to do that.”
Vitra, the leading Swiss designer and manufacturer of
contemporary furnishings, has always believed in being
responsive to the changing needs of people, whether at home
or at work. Understanding that by nature we are social and
communicative creatures, the company, working with
designers such as Antonio Citterio, Arik Levy, Werner
Aisslinger and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, constantly seeks
to improve the workspace experience, reintroducing life and
vibrancy to the office.
With the new emphasis on community in the office,
creating furniture solutions that allow undisturbed
concentration when the occasion arises, yet adapt to
accommodate other people when necessary, becomes quite
the challenge. In response, the French designing brothers,
Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, created the Workbay system.
Taking their cue from the idea of a pod, the Bouroullec
brothers created a modular system, based on four curved,
straight or star-shaped wall elements of differing heights to
form a wide variety of cell-like formations that can adjust to
any number of work situations. The materials used are light
yet durable — sturdy industrial fleece supported by
a lightweight aluminium structure.
Freedom of choice is crucial, and this flexibility is what
today’s contemporary workspaces demand in terms of
furniture. With Workbay, for instance, workers can “retreat to
the setting that is most appropriate for the work at hand”. It
could be an individual work station (a space of “retreat”), or
larger meeting situations for two to four people (a place to
“meet”), or combined office landscapes consisting of
different areas (“meet and retreat”).
The Bouroullec brothers stated that the question they
sought to answer when designing Workbay was: “What does
‘living an office’ actually mean?”
Any answer to that question would have to incorporate
mobility and technology in an ergonomic manner. Steelcase,
having studied the way people sit when using portable
devices, designed a more flexible chair to accommodate
nine new postures it said the body adjusted itself into while
on a smartphone or tablet.
The Gesture Chair, according to a company press release,
leans forward as you type, and backwards as you review what
you’ve just written, while the armrests adjust to provide
support from activity to activity.
A group situation could demand mobile lounge chairs,
such as the Belize from Teknion, an international designer
and manufacturer of integrated office systems based in
Canada. The Belize comes with built-in laptop or tablet arms,
which makes an impromptu meeting or informal discussion
more manageable and convenient.
Ultimately, said Andrews: “Your furniture communicates
your brand and culture, which helps you attract and retain
talent. The Alexander Forbes employee is young,
sophisticated and trustworthy — the furniture here needs to
reflect the same thing.”
23 AUGUST 2014
WANTED
While desks are still a prominent feature at Alexander
Forbes, over at international property advisors Jones Lang
LaSalle’s (JLL) new premises, there are about 26 desks for
a total of 50 staff.
“We’re pioneering what is called ‘activity-based work’ or
ABW, explained Craig Hean, the Managing Director. “It’s
a global corporate real-estate buzz-word, a term that
describes the way we work today, in which technology and
the physical environment are more important than the place
we work.”
Hean revealed that ABW has revolutionised and
reinvigorated both workspace and workforce at JLL’s offices
in Sydney, Stockholm, Singapore and London. The Joburg
office, located in The Firs in Rosebank, is the first such
company to embrace this new culture in Africa. Other
companies that have implemented ABW around the world
include multinationals BP, Macquarie Bank, Ernst & Young,
Microsoft and Accenture.
“ABW is an approach to work that requires not
a traditional office but a ‘hybrid environment’ that provides
a place for people with shared amenities and spaces. The
whole notion of hierarchy becomes obsolete as facilitating
collaboration, personal accountability and flexibility take
priority. We recognise that for people to deliver their
objectives and support good values and behaviours, they
need to work in a number of different ways throughout the
course of any day.”
The impact the switch to ABW has had on the bottom line
of multinationals has been positive and dramatic. BP, for
example, reported that “the flexible working strategy
reduced real-estate operating costs by about 35% (£23m per
annum), saved up to £15 000 per person per year in
occupancy costs, halved the average cost per workstation
and cut churn cost from £1 500 per move to about £300.”
As for Ernst & Young, ABW enabled the floor area to be
halved while accommodating the same number of staff. This
provides opportunity for spaceless growth, as desk-sharing
allows growth without the need for additional space.
Desk-sharing at electronics giant Phillips was
implemented at a ratio of 1.3:1 workers per desk, resulting
in space saving of 40% and a two- to-three year return
on investment.
At JLL Joburg, the management tapped Head Interiors,
with Luyt once again managing the project, to transform an
empty shell into a groundbreaking new 780-square metre
office space that maximised the ABW approach.
“It wasn’t an oversight that we ordered fewer desks and
more chairs,” Luyt said. “What we did was to use space and
furniture solutions to connect people. We created zones,
designating each one by colour, corresponding to different
activities so that you can perform a specific task in the
environment best suited to it.”
The key to the success of the design, she added, lay in
change management. “Everyone had to get on board, and
they formed committees and were involved in every single
decision, from the kind of coffee to buy to the kind of chairs
to use. You’re talking about people who’ve never made
a management decision in their lives, and it’s empowering.”
“The challenge,” Hean said, “when you’re going from
a traditional way of working to an untested way of working is
that you have to commit to the solution before you’ve lived it.
“The traditional ways of working have become
antiquated. As technology becomes accelerated, people find
ways to be productive in and out of the office. Productivity
can happen outside bricks and mortar, but collaboration
happens when people are in close proximity to each other.
So you need to design a workspace that allows both
productivity and collaboration to take place.”
DESIGN
25 AUGUST 2014 WANTED