When Facebook selected to move their HQ to a pre-existing set of buildings in Menlo Park, their brief to interior designers Gensler was that the fit-out should be “open, mobile, socially connected, dimensionally aware, culturally relevant and personally sustaining“. How did this philosophy-led approach to interior design be realised and ware there any lessons that can be learnt from their approach?
When it comes to designing an office environment you would usually imagine a very standard design, right? Well, in 2018, the standard table, chairs and desktop computer isn’t good enough for some of the most well known businesses and brands in the world.
The world of office design, as with any sphere of industry, is replete with buzzwords and nomenclature to describe various concepts from the practical and mundane to the ideological and unusual. Many paradigms swiftly come and go but at the very cutting edge sits biophilic design … and it’s prevalence is growing apace.
With over 70 million work days being lost to mental health every year, it is important for employers to take responsibility for creating a work space that is a happy and healthy place for employees to work in.
The modern office is no longer just about being a clinical space with a purpose for just functionality with recent research identifying the modern office as rapidly changing to create a more comfortable space, with greater emphasis placed on employee’s well-being through office design.
As everyone knows in business, the only constant is change, and in an ever-changing environment it’s not just the practices of a business that evolve but the space in which they are undertaken too.
