“Design is important because chaos is so hard.” Often quoted in the design community, this line from American satirist Jules Feiffer has never felt so relevant. We are living in a time of great uncertainty and we are all feeling overwhelmed and anxious. But this is only temporary. Eventually we will begin to reoccupy our shared spaces and start getting back to work and school, even visit museums and movie theatres.
As we move forward, the world is going to need the design community to help everyone feel safe and assured – particularly in our workspaces. “This isn’t going to last forever, but it will change the way we experience our built environment, in both the short and long term” says Inger Bartlett, founder of Toronto interiors studio Bartlett & Associates. “We need to be here to help our clients find effective ways to manage new expectations within their existing interiors. We also need to treat this as an opportunity to explore, innovate, and deliver even more adaptable workspace for the future.”
So what does the post-COVID 19 office look like?
Do we replace the ubiquitous water cooler with a hand-washing station? Will we gather (six feet apart) around the sanitiser dispenser to compare notes on the weekend? Perhaps. There are definitely changes on the horizon, but the good news is that we already have some highly favourable frameworks in place. Inger has long specialised in the design of workspace and is confident that the open office remains here to stay. “The recent trend towards Agile Workspace Design has left many of our clients with incredibly flexible open offices,” she explains. “These spaces are already built to adapt to constantly changing needs, to put people at ease and let them work in a way they feel comfortable.”
Providing Flexibility with Agile Workspaces
For example, the modular open breakouts and Town Hall gathering spaces that are essential elements in agile space will provide the flexibility to maintain physical distancing and still bring groups of employees together. And that interaction is something people will crave after weeks in isolation. In fact, an increased desire to connect and collaborate is one of the silver linings to be found in this crisis. Sharing this challenge is reminding us that we are strongest when we work together!
Mill St Offices
Edelman
Bartlett & Associates designed Agile Workspace for Edelman and Mill Street, both of which complement open office areas with small meeting rooms. Though these rooms will be ideal for accommodating virtual meetings, which we can expect to continue when we return to work.
Though we won’t be packing our existing meeting rooms to the same densities as before, they still have an important role to play. Workforces will emerge from isolation with improved technological capabilities. A higher level of comfort with using digital communication tools will mean these spaces are used as much for virtual meetings as face-to-face. They may also be used to accommodate small teams, as we look to distribute workforces.
Volaris
McCann
League
Breakout zones, such as the high-backed booths featured at McCann, the modular lounges at League and the cozy armchairs at Volaris, offer the option to maintain distance in small meetings. Alternatively, these can become temporary workstations when redistributing people in an open office.
New Ways of Zoning and Interacting
Free-desking or hotelling is likely to fall out of favour. As most clients emerge from this situation with new capabilities for remote work, the Bartlett team predicts this will lead to more rotating work-from-home systems, rather than more workstations, and new ways of zoning space. “Keeping teams that collaborate frequently together in a designated space is one preventative measure to limit the number of unnecessary interactions and potential spread of viruses,” Inger suggests. Should clients wish to define areas for these teams, B|A is ready to offer solutions to reallocate space, reorganise work groups, or introduce design tools such as partitions to modify interactions. We can develop design concepts that support individual corporate protocols for keeping workplaces safe. And by implementing visible changes we can help employees feel confident that their wellbeing is being protected.
While existing flex spaces will help us maintain some degree of distancing for as long as necessary, for the longer view six-foot-wide-by-36-inch-deep workstations could become a new standard for the open office; those dimensions would allow six feet of space between seated employees. Extendable partitions could also come into play for future preparedness: When issues rise, so does the screen.
Sage
Spacious lunchrooms, lounges, and Town Halls will also provide the flexibility to meet in groups and enable social interaction while still maintaining physical distancing.
Additional Health & Security Measures
Some of the biggest changes will be at the landlord level. Enhanced HVAC and air purification systems will be of interest and sanitation protocols will be of more concern to tenants. Entering an office tower could become a process akin to passing through airport security: some buildings will implement screening protocols that include temperature scans and ID checks. In order to prevent these processes from becoming too invasive, intimidating or time-consuming, designers will need to create dedicated spaces that are comfortable, inviting, attractive, and efficient.
Crown Lobby, 5255 Yonge St
The artful screen that defines Bartlett & Associates’ Crown Lobby project could help designate the elevator bay as a secure area. Entering an office tower such as this may become a process akin to passing through an airport. Flexible amenity space could be re-positioned as security zones, where temperature and ID checks occur before visitors and employees can access upper floors.
Utilising Hands-free Technology
New touch-free, voice-activated technologies could quickly replace current systems, particularly in reception areas–where we have already started to see digital systems take over–and in elevators. That’s not to say we anticipate losing the tactility of our spaces. An interior designer’s knowledge and understanding of finishes will be invaluable in creating safer workspaces that remain warm and inviting. Another positive outcome of this crisis is the innovation it is sure to inspire –we can expect new products, new materials and designers need to push for those and contribute to their development.
Selection of Materials and Surfaces
In the meantime, we must implement more seamless surfaces, antimicrobial fixtures and coatings, washable fabrics, and other finishes that are easy to maintain and durable enough to stand up to frequent sanitisation. “There are a lot of transferrable lessons to learn from healthcare design right now, in terms of surfaces, textiles and even furniture,” Inger says. “And that’s not a bad thing. Our offices are not going to end up looking like sterile hospitals. This situation presents a unique opportunity for different sectors to work together to find the best solutions. We are going to come out of this with stronger, more resilient communities and more beautiful projects.”
About the Author
Bartlett & Associates is dedicated to innovation and excellence in interior design, incorporating creative design solutions across hospitality, workplace, retail, institutional and speciality projects.
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This week's instalment of the #SBIDinspire interior design series features the complete transformation of the lobby area of a 30-year-old office tower. Once a series of dark, awkward spaces lacking in a clear axis or flow of movement, the lobby is now a bright and airy volume defined by a graphic screen that emphasizes 30-foot-high ceilings. Toronto designers Bartlett & Associates were commissioned to reimagine the space as a welcoming amenity that would attract a stable of noteworthy new tenants. The design team took an architectural approach to the project; removing a disused storage space made way for a public café, while the custom-designed screen was added to anchor the front desk and delineate the elevator bay. The striking black sculptural screen plays off against a dazzling white wall with a surface of subtle peaks and architectural texture.
Practice: Bartlett & Associates
Project: Crown Lobby – 5255 Yonge Street
Location: Toronto, Canada
What was the client's brief?
The mandate from our client, Crown Realty, was to reposition a dated office tower’s lobby for the 21st century. The building is right on Toronto’s north Yonge Street, a prime location that offered the potential to create a significant destination. Crown wanted a space that would inject new vitality into this rather tired building and position it as a desirable location for a more vibrant class of tenant. Our design transformed the lobby from an uninspiring entrance to an energetic amenity that makes a compelling impression on visitors – including prospective leaseholders.
What inspired the interior design of the project?
It’s the challenges of a project that typically inspire the best ideas and in this case we were dealing with a modest budget and an awkward space that was completely covered – all the floors, all the walls – in a very dated and dull granite. Tearing it out was cost-prohibitive, so the new surfaces were something we put a lot of thought into. Nature is also a constant source of inspiration for us and adding biophilic elements is something we try to do with all of our projects. As we spend more and more time in our urban office buildings, immersed in digital worlds, it feels increasingly important to make those connections to nature wherever possible. This is often achieved through very subtle interventions, but with this project the scale of the space presented an ideal opportunity to do something big – something a bit more direct, really impactful. So of course that was the screen, and beyond that we used a lot of wood- and stone-look low-profile surfacing that was applied right over the granite to avoid spending a lot of time and money on demolition and to avoid creating a lot of waste.
What was the toughest hurdle your team overcame during the project?
Resolving the awkwardness of the space while keeping the budget in check was huge. Originally the effect of the high ceilings was all but obliterated by this bulkhead wall that sort of cinched the walls inwards about a third of the way up. It loomed over the elevator bay, feeling very heavy with its stone cladding, and made that space feel a bit ominous. And then the corridor running off the east wall was this dark, narrow tunnel – it was all very uninviting. In the end we tore out a single short, angled wall to open up the corridor and make space for a public café. Then the screen was an amazing solution that both masks that bulkhead and transforms the elevator bay into a cozy little annex. Walking behind the screen to access the lifts offers this sense of discovery, which is a much nicer way to start your work day than trudging through a dark hall. Overall it feels like a cohesive sequence of usable space now, rather than a patchwork of hallways that were strictly for moving through, not for stopping or spending time in.
What was your team’s highlight of the project?
The screen is definitely the highlight for us – it won an award for the project before the space was even finished and it was also reimagined as an installation piece for the Design TO festival, which is part of Toronto’s Design Week in January. It’s obviously a stunning feature that is also functional, but there is a bit of hidden genius going on there as well: Not only does it hide that awkward bulkhead, but it’s actually supported by a mounting system originally installed for the granite cladding. Most of the granite was left intact and simply covered with low-profile materials, but by removing a bit of stone from the bulkhead, we were able to avoid creating customized brackets to hold the screen. That was a big cost-saver and just one of those eureka moments that you want to have on every project.
Questions answered by Inger Bartlett, lead designer and president, Bartlett & Associates.
We hope you feel inspired by this week's Office design! Let us know what inspired you #SBIDinspire
If you missed last week's Project of the Week featuring a contemporary loft apartment situated above the famous Soho Theatre, click here to see more.
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