Workspaces: What's New Now
We’ve all had to roll with the punches as the demands and desires of our workforce have shifted over the past few years. Our recent renovation of a corporate headquarters in Lafayette is a great example of how flexibility and technology can benefit a team.
Constructed in 1979, with a 1981 addition, the building consisted almost entirely of private offices. The dated layout was closed off and hampered the ability for the team to collaborate. An internal courtyard was hot, stale, and overgrown with vegetation. Left unused, it became a maintenance nightmare.
We raised the courtyard roof, making it six feet higher than the adjacent construction to allow natural light to infiltrate the space. A Big Ass fan was installed to help move conditioned air and the area quickly became a comfortable gathering space where the team could eat lunch, socialize, and meet to work on projects together. We began this phase of the renovation in 2019, when open, airy spaces were the norm.
But post-pandemic, needs have changed again. Employees who worked solely remotely during and after the pandemic are not always embracing the return to the office. So our client challenged us to come back in and create a new design that reflects the team's new requirements. Working with Avison Young, we polled all 425 corporate headquarters employees on their level of satisfaction and to ask what they would like to see in the renovated space. The overwhelming response to this survey pointed out the lack of privacy, as well as too few discrete areas for collaboration and connection.
The design offers more hospitality spaces and a variety of desking solutions, each with various degrees of privacy. We’ve developed zones that include open office plan workstations as well focus rooms allowing more concentrated private work. New meeting rooms serve both small and larger groups, along with collaborative brainstorming areas that can be configured in minutes.