Q+A: The Evolution of the Modern Office

Today's professional landscape runs the gamut from smart, innovative coworking spaces to more traditional offices that foster collaboration—all increasingly furnished with amenity offerings that reflect the ethos of the companies that occupy those spaces. For landlords, office design trends are driven by a desire to attract tenants. For tenants, trends are driven by the desire to create company culture, improve the product, and create an environment that's both productive and enjoyable for employees.

We spoke with Pablo Quintana, design principal of architecture and consulting firm Stantec's Washington, D.C., branch about the office design trends he's been observing, as well as the psychological and sociological motives that inspire them.

LoopNet: Let's talk about the evolution of the open-plan office. It's come a long way, and today's workforce wants to refine it further.

Pablo Quintana: Fifteen to 20 years ago, the office was planned as a mathematical construct; designers then sought efficiency and made human comfort a secondary concern. Offices often took shape as rows of cubicles, or "cube farms," with one or two conference rooms, and the higher-ups' offices along the corners, because that's the priciest real estate. They were planned as exercises in efficiency and [return on investment].

Today, the real revolution of the office space is that it's a human-centered environment. There's an equal amount of interest or dedication paid to the idea of "return on objective." We set out these objectives at the beginning of a project by exploring the company's vision, its message, the arc of its business trajectory, and where they want to be 20 years from now. Then we ask, "What do you want to accomplish from your office design?" Most times, the primary goal of the executives is to create an environment where people feel comfortable and safe.

LoopNet: Aside from having a solid security system and quality furniture, what are you referring to when you say comfort and safety are priorities?

Quintana: In the workplace, you want to nurture the right chemistry that triggers a creative or intellectual outcome. To do this, you need to get deep into the behavior of the group of individuals you're planning for—but you also have to be flexible.

In the past, companies were not digging into what employees wanted; they just assumed they knew. Today we're talking about employee culture, their needs and wants, and what do they like to do. Whereas socializing was previously discouraged, today, the boss might say, “Look. It's working. They're connecting!"

LoopNet: How do you create a workplace that encourages connection but does so in a way that the conversation doesn't distract the other employees who need to be head-down focused on something?

Quintana: It's smart to incorporate "back-of-the-house" spaces are where people can spend leisurely time, or work in a place they feel comfortable.

A "third place" space is the notion of creating an area that's not office-like: a game room, a yoga room, a comfortably furnished nook, for example. People like to be in places that incorporate things people like to do when we're not in the office.

In the last five or 10 years, I haven't seen many projects come across my desk that doesn't include a wellness, rejuvenation, or recreation space. That's a radical idea—we are dedicating usable square footage and design budget to create a place in the office where people will not do work.

LoopNet: But when it comes time to do work, American workers still like to have their own desk and dedicated space to go to, right? Hence the backlash against hot desks.

Quintana: In the U.S., you delineate what you own, and this extends to the office. People talk about their workstation like it's their piece of property—though in reality, this is not the case.

Technology enables you to move around and work where you want. You can to the café, go to conference rooms, go outside, or wherever your WiFi takes you. Thus, the trend shifted toward hot desks. However, as it turns out, the idea of your own desk makes workers feel good, and provides a feeling of belonging.

LoopNet: Coming off the hot desk trend, is there now a trend toward letting employees customize their own space?

Quintana: Yes, absolutely. There are very interesting things happening in building intelligent workplaces, as companies are recognizing that the open-plan environment is not conducive to productivity.

One recent client broke their large, open space down to make it feel more comfortable and personalized. Instead of a vast, 10,000-square-foot space containing 100 employees, they found creating smaller rooms within that space—each accommodating 10 to 14 people—worked better for their company's needs as that was the typical size group that might work on a project at a time.

Inside those rooms, it's possible to tailor the space to fit individual team needs—such as fitting it with easily re-configurable mobile desks and furniture. The team "owns" this environment as a team and the rules are theirs to make.

Within those spaces, they also incorporated scrum areas. There are several pieces and parts that can be constructed and deconstructed—similar to Legos. This works very well for developers, engineers, people who code and spend the majority of their time doing focused work, but also need to collaborate as a group on projects.

LoopNet: What are the trends in kitchen and dining space design?

Quintana: We don't have lunch rooms anymore. We have cafés.

For some tech companies, the interior office architecture and design is a major promotional component of their brand. They've created architecture that defines who they are. With [our client] Mapbox, the idea behind the café was for it be geographically centered. It's very oversized, but it's a big PR and HR piece as it visually portrays the investment the company has made in their people. Mapbox wanted to design a space large enough to host what they dub "hackathons" and other tech-driven events. It's a beautiful eating area, but it's also a physical manifestation of an open-source company inviting people to their office to partake in who they are and what they do. It's an extension of their vision.

An office we designed for Gartner Consulting has one entire 23,000-square-foot floor plate that's entirely dedicated to eating, and designed to resemble a park. Half of the space is the seating area, and other half is split between the back of-the-house kitchen, and the service area where people get food. It's 20 floors up, entirely surrounded by glass, so the views are spectacular.

As far as the finishes, graffiti and graphics of trees outfit the space, as well as picnic tables and a large area that mimics a grassy knoll. It's an escapist area that doesn't look at all like the rest of their space. That idea seems to be where the trend for these kinds of spaces is headed.