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workspace iiinovalion
WHEN MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS AT MCKINSEY & CO. WANTED TO RENOVATE their
three-story offices in downtown Toronto, they decided to unify all three floors with a centrally
located, free-floating staircase. The result: Ideas now flow up and down the open space, gener
ating more creativity and energy. Sacrificed were multiple private offices from the old model
where acquiring personal square footage was more
important than fostering creativity.
Kimberly Poole, 24, a workplace strategy consultant
(a nonexistent title as little as a year ago) for Dallas
based Aha! Works, says that the movement toward cre
ating teaming areas and
public spaces that pro
mote the cross-pollina
tion of ideas is here to stay.
These creative project areas
range anywhere from five bean
bags nestled in a corner to an
open-air workbench shared by
15 workers to McKinsey’s float
ing staircase. In effect, the
hope is to expand the com
munity that forms around
the proverbial water cool
er to include the entire office.
terms of a five-year plan. Instead of focusing on design
ing landmark buildings that remain unchanged for a
S\ hundred years, architects and
designers must now integrate flexi
bility into their structures, says
jBtfgl Jim Buter, business director for
the Educational and Institutional
Cooperative, an office systems
(furniture, cubes, etc.) manu
facturer and leading proponent
of this new approach. “It’s safe to
say that this will change the shape
of architecture forever,” he says.
Consultants like Poole
and Buter create flexible
offices that can change
as a company’s needs
change, allowing businesses to stay fresh and, more
importantly, competitive. “We don’t concern ourselves
with what a client thinks they need, we first figure out
how their business works to create a workspace that will
grow in ways they have never considered,” says Buter.
To take part in the restructuring of the workplace,
look for opportunities as an assistant or junior associ
ate at a workspace consulting firm, rather than at an
interior design or architecture studio (though experi
ence in these fields is helpful).
When working with a client, Poole’s job entails
observing behavior patterns and workspace ergonom
ics, and then finding a solution—thinking outside the
boundaries of established architecture when necessary.
By helping to design a plan that minimized private
space at McKinsey, she was able to maximize the pub
lic, inspiration-spawning spaces.
Due to almost constant technological advancement,
today’s companies change and reinvent themselves so
fast that they can’t afford the luxury of thinking in
c
_new
directions)
r
AS NEW FIELDS EMERGE, visionaries
are breathing new life into old fields.
They’re taking on fresh ideas, direc
tions, and approaches—and in the
process are creating even more oppor
tunities for adventurous job seekers to
shape the future.
THE INFORMATION ARCHITECTS who
built last year’s web sites are learning
that the term “architecture” no longer
applies to information. As the web gets
faster and more powerful, static presen
tation isn’t going to cut it. Interactive
designers will move beyond navigation
bars and boxes to create sites in which
information is indexed for each user.
The difference? An index presents infor
mation based on the way you use it;
architecture forces you to work within
an existing framework.
“A site like Amazon is generic [for
each user],” says Ted Booth, 31, interac
tion design director for cutting-edge
design firm Method Inc. “It’s full of tabs
and it doesn’t give the user an individu
alized experience. We’ll see sites that
will morph over time to fit individuals. If
one site has 6 million users, it’ll be like
www.experience.com