The layout of your office is like organizing your cd’s. If you don’t keep them in a case they will be scratched and eventually useless. Same goes for employees not perform their jobs when their work space is not in order. Before you begin an office redesign, think about the types of tasks employees perform in the space. A good office design is not only functional, but provides comfortable work areas for your staff. Hiring an Architect will assist you in the most efficient and productive space; whether it’s for a new building, revising your existing space or determining if a new space you are considering to rent works. The time planning is important considering that you will be using that space for years to come.
Lounge Space
A comfortable Lounge Spaces in your office layout provides staff with places to meet, collaborate or decompress from the office environment and recharge. By all means don’t make it too task oriented like adding furniture that has the same height as the desk they have just left for the last 3 hours. You want to go beyond a bean bag chair of course. Something casual with an edge. Not too comfortable so they just go to sleep either. Depending on the needs of your group, Lounge Space may include low tables with sweet magazines and chairs that let the body recline and face others to open up casual dialogue. The proximity of Lounge Spaces could be near employee work areas and provide enough room to meet needs of departments that will use them. Break rooms and coffee areas can act as a Lounge Space and should be large enough to accommodate several employees at one time. I try to keep sinks and refrigerators out of the Lounge so someone doesn’t start eating a hoagie and stink up the vibe. You know it will happen.
Efficient Workspace
An effective office layout provides employees with the space and tools they need to complete assigned tasks. Work surfaces should be large enough to accommodate files, papers and other documents. The use of comfortable chairs and adequate lighting may reduce muscle aches and eyestrain, which can hurt productivity. If possible, place employee workstations near frequently used office equipment, such as copiers, postage machines and printers. Generally working with a systems furniture company who specializes in certain systems like Knoll, Herman Miller or Teknion can give you the most efficient space *and you will look really cool playing solitaire*. Providing an efficient workspace can also minimize the appearance of clutter if the user can organize their tasks to avoid ‘piling’ of tasks. The furniture systems can also provide a unique space in terms of finishes and fabrics, ranging from cutting edge modern to more modest designs.
Private Spaces versus Open Plan
In an open office, employees work at communal tables or at low-walled workstations that allow them to view and interact with co-workers. However, it’s important to consider whether your employees will benefit from an open plan before you redesign your office. If your employees perform the type of work that requires intense concentration or privacy, traditional offices might be a better option. Not as efficient in terms of space, but possibly more efficient in regards to productivity. Another space to consider is drop-in stations. These are for employees that may either be on the road or work from home. This allows for an employee to have a space in the office for temporary as needed. These spaces allow for a place to touch down, check emails, and charge all their devices. In some instances, a private drop-in space may be required. Many times an un-occupied conference room can be used, but may be in-convenient if it is used frequently.
Convenience
Effective office layout groups people together based on functions they perform. Grouping employees who do the same or related work will help to ensure that documents and papers will be shared and handled in a timely and efficient manner. For Example, it may make sense to group employees who process invoices close to your accounting and purchasing departments, so employees can consult with one other. If you plan to redesign your office layout, make a list of key tasks employees perform, such as speaking to customers on the telephone, handling mail or crunching invoices. The list will serve as a convenient reference when you begin planning. If the designer is familiar with your business practice and can observe the current workspace that you utilizing, this will give them an insight on ways to improve the space. This is generally called ‘programming’. You may also have to just throw out all your scratched cd’s while your at it and go digital.
To Taliesin West for a 9am tour is where I was headed today, and my daughters actually enjoyed themselves. Lily wished she lived there which impressed me. When I asked her why she said she liked the secret tight feeling hallways and small funny shaped doorways. The entry ways captivated me most. I found all my favorite colored Prisma colored pencils used in a frozen symphony of texture and rhythm.
The entry shown in the middle photo is jaw dropping with the turquoise and non-photo blue sky sandwhiching the taupe stone. I love the Cherokee Red used for the punchy accent on the door and checker board window panel to the right of the double doors. The guide had mentioned that this was Frank Lloyd Wrights winter home, working studio and fellowship for his students. Wright called Taliesin West his sketch because it was his design testing laboratory. In the 30’s and 40’s this site in the very north east end of Scottsdale was so remote that he and his fellow architects were uninterrupted to experiment with cutting edge ideas.
Wright thought the most appropriate primary shape in the desert was the triangle. The triangle having three sides is echoed everywhere at Taliesin West. I loved the reflecting pool in the shape of the triangle. The photo on the right was taken by me as I was sitting in Wrights office. It was here that he would welcome clients and present his impressive ideas, drawings and models on a huge wood table. Back in the day there was no glass in the windows or roof. Hemp cloth was stretched across the terra cotta painted steel above and used as flaps at doorways and window openings. Can you imagine how rustic that must have been? Wright lived and worked here in the winter months so he wore a full tweed suit everyday to work. I could have stayed in this space all day just soaking it in. Wright designed and built a fireplace in every room and outdoor patio. Having an office to receive clients with a fireplace is certainly a nice touch to make them feel at home. I love the terra cotta concrete floors! The middle photo is the entry to Wright’s office. As I entered I felt embraced by the tight space and super low ceiling and then once I walked in I felt expansive as the space opened up.
Gold leaf checker board with turquoise spears…glorious! I love the folded planes. The photo on the left is from the building on the first row of photos with the grand entry. This is the Drafting Room. The middle photo is the entry to the underground auditorium used for Taliesin Nights. This underground space has 98% perfect acoustics because there is not one 90 degree angle inside. The poured in place deadens the sound as well. Taliesin Nights was a weekly event for guests, clients, students, artists and family to visit Taliesin West for dinner and entertainment. Everyone dressed for the occasion and met in Mr. Wright’s living room for live piano, second was dinner in the underground theatre and finally, guests would proceed to the Music Pavilion for a live musical or theatre production.
Eva my daughter liked Wrights living room best. She said that it was like a fairy tale. There was no roof but 3 layers of cloth over the terra cotta steel frame. The light quality was perfect when we were sitting there listening to the guide. I was sitting in a Taliesin Wing Back chair designed specifically for the space. Before the air conditioning was installed, all the cloth was removed from the windows and roof members before the facility was vacated for the annual migration back to Taliesin in Wisconsin. When the caravan returned to Arizona in the winter they would have to spend weeks clearing out all the dead and live animals that would roost in the living room space. The photo above is a glimpse inside the fairy tale like space.
I am grateful that I live in Arizona and this place is there for me to visit. Can’t imagine lighting a fire in one of those fireplaces right this red hot minute but the fresh inspiration is so necessary.
Theatres are fun to design. The stage builds confidence. Stage size or location doesn’t matter, there is a built up excitement about rising higher than the crowd. Once the crowd is quiet and all the eyes are on the performer, there is a switch from reality to fantasy. I recently attended a recital for my ballet dancing daughters. The experience of being on stage is so different than practicing the routine in your home knocking into kitty condos and couches. The stage is a place to spread out and give others space to shine. The little tiny kids always seemed to ball up on the right hand of the stage to do their routine.
The theatre above is a theatre Serbin Studio designed for the City of Phoenix. This design was completed well before the Center for the Arts building addition was completed last year. The theatre design inspired future programs and activity at the Center for the Arts.
The photo above is the current North Building on 3rd Street and Moreland in Phoenix, Arizona. The original building was built in 1965 as a Baptist church. All the baptism, seating and walls were demolished during the asbestos abatement. The structure inside doesn’t support having a fly for the stage so we naturally went with a pipe grid system for the design of a proscenium end stage black box theatre.
Black box theatre is the DIY of theatres. It is like learning to drive on a stick shift as opposed to having an automatic for the your first car. For instance, black box is void of fancy computerized stage lighting. You simply cannot flip a switch to have a light rotate to change a spot light on a performer.
Check out the building cross section above…see the stage? It is too small huh. You want me to zoom in. I knew it. Ok go cut out a box tops or something….
So I pulled up the AutoCAD drawing. Here it is. It was really a cool project! See the pipe grid above the dancer on the stage? I love the dancer, that was from our theatre consultant Westlake Reed Leskosky. Her head is so tiny! If you wanted to change the light above the dancer in a black blox you would have to do this: See the cat walk to the right with that red arc thing *acoustic panel*? A person would have to be perched up there during the performance and hand manipulate the spot light on the performers. There is also lighting above the performer on a black pipe grid with lights attached. Pipe grid lighting have to be changed with a Genie lift, long poles or ladders. We designed a metal truss that frames the stage opening that has lights as well. You really want lights to project on the performers and not know where the light source is coming from.
I sit as Design Chair on the Buckeye Main Street Coalition in Buckeye, Arizona. Our group is made up of local business leaders in the Buckeye community.
Our focus is revitalization of historic downtown Buckeye. When I say revitalization I mean projects like designing Wayfinding Signage, paving a park with bricks and adding benches or brainstorming about the pinch point along mainstreet to hang a street banner. When we are not working on architectural or landscape improvements we are working on community events that will help attract more visitors to Main Street. A few weeks ago the BMSC had the opportunity to host the AVTT or American Veterans Traveling Tribute in our Buckeye. It is a 5 day event open to the public for 24 hours that honors an 80% replica of the black granite Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC that Maya Lin designed.
The site plan on the left is the original layout of the wall configuration at the Edgar Park along Beloat/Irwin and Miller Road about 15 minutes south of Interstate 10. In the planning phases of this event I started laying out the basic pieces of what was going to arrive on trucks to be set up. This event proved that drawing up a site plan for planning any event is critical to success. It reminds me of one of my favorite movies Home Alone when Kevin who gets left behind by his family is planning his final attack against the Wet Bandits. You know the drill, Kevin lays out the plan in crayon with the broken ornaments for the bandits to step on, a huge nail sitting upright in black goo on a step in the basement for them to step on, hot iron and door knob. Before I settled into the delicious macaroni and cheese dinner or the AVTT coming to Buckeye I had to get everything on a sheet of paper and pass it to the team.
As you can see from comparing plans, things changed. I had the layout set based on AVTT standard horse shoe configuration they had sent 6 months prior. I worked the tents, stage, trees and chairs around their wall configuration. On the day of set up, that all changed. When you are planning like this you have to ask questions of your team. Are you going to have a booth at the event? How close are the motorcycle riders going to ride up to the wall? Where is the power. How much power will we need? How does one sit and honor, respect and remember? Do veterans want to sit on a bench together or in their own chair with some distance?
Thanks to Dave at Jack Rabbit Nursery who let us borrow his 15 gallon trees for the the event! The mass of volunteers from Keller Williams were wonderful on Thursday May 9th our set up day. We only had a window of about 4 hours to get everything set up. Since the plan had changed in an instant, I was scrambling to re-configure the tree layout. It all worked out great. We measured with soft tape measures about 30 feet from the black wall and arranged the trees with the new layout. The loose chairs were set in between the trees so visitors could have some space and be alone if they wanted.
Even though the marine green tents donated by the Prison did smell I liked the look of them. When I sat under it I felt like I was kind of roughing it under the hot sun in some army camp out. Most of the veterans who visited with me liked the look and feel of the tents too. Desert Oasis in Goodyear donated a POW MIA, Gold Star, and Blue Star floral wreaths. The wreaths really added elegance and color. We set them next to the trees and put heavy sand bags around the tree bases and easels since the wind was so strong during the four days. The loose carnations were from Crazy Daisies in Buckeye and given out on the last day of the event, Mothers Day.
I think the line by line agenda with times for each of the set up times, daily activity sheets and of course the site plan made this event really cohesive. Even though there were changes in the layout we were able to roll with them quickly and adapt. The Town of Buckeye was a huge part of the success as well with the use of the stage, sound system and water. They were there at a moments notice for whatever we needed. If a tent was not throwing enough shade for the locator computer station to look up a fallen soldier for a visitor, the next day there was a new tent with side flaps to replace it. If we ran out of water bottles for the bus loads of school kids a bobcat tractor would pull up with bags of ice and cases of water bottles. Thank you to all who participated.
At the end of the event on Sunday I did feel like gliding along a rope hanging onto a bicycle handle bar and screaming, “Whee!” into my tree house! The veterans who I met and the experience of working together with my team is a great memory that will stay with me for a long time. I send special thanks to Buckeye Main Street Coalition, VFW, American Legion, Doris Goetz, Town of Buckeye, Buckeye Fire Department, AVTT, Jack Rabbit Nursery, Desert Oasis, Crazy Daisies, Daughters of American Revolution and Mike Malcom for playing the bagpipes and wearing a wool kilt for hours on end for five days.
