KURSTY GROVES AND OLIVER MARLOW
SPACES FOR INNOVATION The Design and Science of Inspiring Environments
HOW THE BOOK WORKS This book is a framework, providing context, examples, inspiration and direction to help you to explore and understand your organisational challenges in the creation of spaces for innovation. Anchoring the flow of the book from beginning to end are ten themes, which mirror the process of formulating your new space. Supporting content runs in conjunction, through association and connection to the themes themselves. We have developed icons that will help you navigate the book, defining article types and categories as well as identifying themes, case studies and interviews. Strategic questions are provided as provocations to assist with assimilation to unique situations. Interspersed throughout are also a handful of infoboxes for further reading, and at the back of the book is a detailed bibliography. There is an interconnected flow throughout; readers are guided to other sections in the book by the way-finding footnotes that link to related themes, case studies and interviews, as well as contributor biographies. Whether you’re a cover-to-cover reader or enjoy dipping in and out, we hope to have created a coherent narrative and easy navigation to suit your style.
? Organisational challenges
x 10
! Insight and direction
SPACES FOR INNOVATION The Design and Science of Inspiring Environments
CONTENTS 4 Foreword 6 Introduction 9
17
Airbnb
73
81
87
MediaCityUK
97
The Spark
Impetus for Change
The Leadership
Direction, Change and Support
99
Institute of Making Alex Hillman
The Invitation
25
LEGO Group
29
Activity-Based Working
107
Despina Katsikakis
33
Jennifer Magnolfi
113
Workplace Paradigm Explored
37
Dave Coplin
114
Impact Hub Caracas
118
Xin Dan Wei
121
Allan Chochinov
The Purpose
41
Engagement and Involvement
Ambition, Scale and Goal
49
CPW
57
James Moultrie
61
Kerstin Sailer
65
Microsoft
2
125
The Experience
Setting the Stage
133
Alison Williams
137
Exploring Learning Environments
138
Vittra Telefonplan
147
d.school
153
Peter Barrett
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The Spatial Context
157
237
The Outcomes
Location, Proximity and Interaction
Assessment and Communication
165
Greg Lindsay
245
Ben Waber
169
iHub Nairobi
247
Steve Coster
175
Zappos
249
Medibank
185
260
189
Simon Allford
The Processes
261
Views and Biophilia
The Legacy
Tools and Activities
Lasting Impression
197
Gareth Loudon
265
Laboratorio para la Ciudad
201
Impact Hub Amsterdam
273
Rachel Botsman
208
Coworking Goes Big-Scale
209
Ambulatory Care Centre
277 278
217
The Resources
Time and Money
225
IDEO
233
Biographies
285
Bibliography
287
Acknowledgements
288
Credits
Franklin Becker
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Afterword
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
There’s a famous photograph of the French-American designer Raymond Loewy that has always appealed to me. It presents a showman of the Great Depressionera industrial styling at work in his studio, perched on a low bench, relaxed with his jacket open and smiling into the camera. A large-scale model of his design for the Greyhound bus and a mock-up of his Coca Cola packaging sit in front of him as mute witnesses to a message that you simply can’t miss: Loewy is telling us that he’s right in the space where innovation happens. Another Loewy publicity shot from the 1930s shows the master repeating that message in more serious mood – he is posed archly in a dark suit in a brightly lit office full of curvilinear lines and chrome edgings, sketches of streamlined cars and ships on the wall. Here we see an upright icon of progress and modernity in an environment that is the gleaming embodiment of those values. Like many other forceful entrepreneurs of his era, Raymond Loewy was acutely aware of the symbolic power of showing potential clients inside his working world; it was all part of the shrewd image management in which the Loewy design firm specialised, and it worked at the time because it reflected an essential truth about an innovative and successful company in operation. But in the many decades since the heyday of Loewy and the bold corporations that commissioned him, one could argue that organisations generally have lost the thread between space and innovation. This has not been for want of trying – there have been countless research studies, design experiments and pilots to make workspace both catalyse and reflect a culture of creativity and innovation; especially so since the knowledge economy, which puts a premium on new thinking, has eclipsed the industrial one. But, despite a frenzy of activity in the field, we still don’t know enough about the precise characteristics of workplace design that might stimulate innovation. Nor do we know enough about what innovators might require from their work environment in a fast changing, digitally disrupted world. When culture, behaviour and new ideas collide in physical space, what are the place-making rules by which organisations today should play?
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It’s an important topic and one that Kursty Groves and Oliver Marlow, co-authors of this publication, address with commendable logic and flair. They don’t pretend to know all the answers – one size does not fit all – so Spaces for Innovation is not a how-to guide for making workspace turn clerks into creative geniuses. Instead this book, based on a research project commissioned by Nesta, brings a sophisticated and open-ended approach to a complex subject. It identifies ten core themes as ways to think about the subject, and backs them up through interviews with some great people and, literally, an A to Z of great case studies (from Airbnb to Zappos). The result is a welcome addition to the literature that raises the argument about spaces for innovation off the office floor and into the upper echelons of people, leadership and strategy. My favourite theme is perhaps the first: aptly named The Spark; this deals with the question of the underlying motivation for transforming space in order to generate innovative ideas. Which brings me right back to Raymond Loewy, who never lacked motivation or failed to communicate it. I hope this book motivates designers and managers today to think more deeply and imaginatively about how workspace can stimulate and support innovation. We need action on the round and some of the inspiring stories you will read here might just be the spark.
JEREMY MYERSON
Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art and director of the Worktech Academy
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INTRODUCTION The pace, complexity and scale of the problems that organisations face on a daily basis requires innovation to survive and flourish. Spaces for innovation are the physical, digital and social contexts within which people create, collaborate, share knowledge and solve problems. Yet, in our experience as both innovation consultants and space designers, we have witnessed countless examples of working environments that dampen potential creative energy and, at worst, actively impede people and business performance. We have also seen great examples of environments that attract, inspire and embrace growth gracefully. Until recent times, research investigating creativity within organisations has centred around the psychological and social aspects of motivation and management; there has been little comprehensive thinking around building environments for creativity, and the complex relationship between space, creative behaviour and innovation. In this book we explore this relationship, synthesising a thematic approach to the development of spaces for innovation, with understanding coming from numerous case studies of organisations from across the globe, interviews with thought leaders and an extensive review of published literature.
Spaces for innovation blueprint. 1 COMMUNITY
CREATIVITY
Ă—
Ă—
COLLABORATION
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SPACE
SPACES FOR INNOVATION
=
Our Approach
We deployed the following methodology to develop and maintain diverse perspectives on the multifaceted question: What role does space play? During the course of the research we: — Visited the workplaces of over fifty organisations globally across sector, industry, life stage and size, using ethnographic techniques to uncover workplace insights. — Interviewed over one hundred academics, practitioners, experts and thought leaders with a breadth of experience and perspectives in the fields of creativity, innovation management, workplace design, architecture, organisational development, environmental psychology and neuroscience. — Analysed over five hundred sources of literature from scientific journals and PhD theses through to government white papers and surveys to books and articles. — Facilitated a co-design workshop at Nesta’s headquarters with leading thinkers and practitioners to define the ingredients of our working hypothesis.
Our Hypothesis
As we developed our language for spaces for innovation, we brought together a group of experts to help us define some of the critical elements. We co-created a series of definitions that underpin the whole book and from that formulated a single blueprint of those elements (Infographic 1). This covers:
COMMUNITY – a group of people sharing interactions and experiences, contributing towards a common purpose, creating identity, belonging and awareness. CREATIVITY – the generative capacity to think and act on new ideas, breaking rules and solving problems. SPACE – the frame within which we exist: a physical, digital, emotional and cognitive resource. INNOVATION – applying creativity in a particular context to realise a tangible outcome that changes things, something people can find useful. COLLABORATION – the action of working with someone or a group of people to produce something. As we sought to define our terms and explore these fundamental elements, we developed a series of principles: — Space is only one component of spaces for innovation. — Priority must be given to the needs of the community, but the needs of individuals must also be recognised. — The value of teams and teamwork through collaboration underpins spaces for innovation. — Each individual has a unique creative footprint.1 — Creativity within a community is only made possible through collaboration. — The collaborative principle is dynamic, and remains present even with shifts in scale or intensity of the other three elements.
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We identified and developed a series of themes that inform the depth and range of this blueprint.
Summary of Themes
1 The Spark discusses the external driving forces that are shaping the way we live and work. 2 The Purpose describes the need to articulate goals, defining the parameters and constraints of ambition and clarity of progress. 3 The Leadership discusses the importance of ensuring that there’s strong leadership that understands and can support an empowered and inspired team to deliver and respond to the changing needs of a creative environment. 4 The Invitation focuses on the engagement of teams, stakeholders and the wider community: before, during and after a space transformation. 5 The Experience defines the elements that provide the right conditions for creative thinking and behaviour as well as the expression of organisational culture. 6 The Spatial Context considers what can and can’t be influenced regarding the location and spatial parameters, and how they impact interaction and behaviour. 7 The Processes discusses how the new space supports a spectrum of individual, teams and organisational activities. 8 The Resources outlines the parameters that might constrain – or inspire – the creation of a space for innovation. 9 The Outcomes looks at how to assess and communicate progress against the initial goal. 10 The Legacy considers the lasting impression of the place; the stories people will tell. Through exploration of the book, we hope you will: — Understand the ten key elements that make up spaces for innovation. — Build an awareness of the impact space has in different cultures with different innovation ambitions. — Discover inspiration and information, statistics and stories. — Form your own vision for the spaces you need to support your vision and goals.
KURSTY GROVES and OLIVER MARLOW
1 A Williams, ‘The Creative Footprint: The Impact of Physical Space on Workplace Creativity’, Proc. 7th Conf. Creativity & Cognition (Berkeley, United States; 2009).
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Photos Jeremy Bittermann, Carlos Chavarria and Emily Hagopian
AIRBNB
Online community marketplace Airbnb ensures its workplaces in SAN FRANCISCO and PORTLAND reflect the brand’s ‘belong anywhere’ philosophy, supporting a creative culture.
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Meeting spaces replicate existing Airbnb listings serving to bring employees closer to the ‘end product’ and provide a tonal variety for different behaviours and interactions.
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Airbnb is a website where people list, discover and book accommodation around the world. Whether a flat for a night, a villa for a week or a castle for a month, Airbnb connects guests to unique travel experiences – at any price point – in more than 34,000 cities and 192 countries. With a focus on ‘world-class customer service’ to a growing community of users, Airbnb has grown to become an easy way for hosts to monetise extra space they own. Airbnb offers a professional photographer (bookings tripled with good photos), handles all transactions (taking a fee) and provides a 24/7 customer support service (including USD 1 million insurance for the host). Industrial designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia met at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). They shared entrepreneurial aspirations but neither wanted to ‘create more stuff that ends up in landfill’. In August 2008, together with Nathan Blecharczyk, they founded AirBed & Breakfast. From the get-go, their approach to business was fuelled by witty design and confident creativity, with the first round of funding bootstrapped through selling Obama and McCainbranded cereal at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. This peer-to-peer lodging marketplace has seen significant growth through investment, competitor acquisition and the development of a culture based on a set of core values that extends beyond the walls of its corporate headquarters to a community of hosts that has helped shape its ‘movement’. In 2013, the company moved six hundred people to its headquarters in a four-storey 6700 m2 building in the Design District of San Francisco. Entering
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‘We are a sharing economy company and a lot of people that work here believe in that, and the office can be a chance to share resources in a dynamic way’
through a huge, light-filled atrium, the angular open space is embraced on one side by a lush vertical garden that zig-zags its way up a raw concrete wall, and a string of jewel-like boxes that are connected to the space by floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, these meeting and communal spaces are replicas of some of the most popular Airbnb listings – accurate recreations of Amsterdam or Shanghai apartments can be found alongside a Vermont cabin, all of which can be rented in real life. A tour of the building with Jenna Cushner, head of Ground Control (a team of around twenty people who act as the hosts of the space and guardians of the employee experience), reveals the thinking behind the interior and how it reflects and supports the culture. The task seemed daunting at first, but Cushner soon realised: ‘I wasn’t working for a tech company; I was working for a hospitality company that has values I completely align with, along with all the other people who work here. Then it became easier. Technology is the mechanism, and I jumped at that.’ In just three years, Cushner has experienced an explosion of the company; when she first joined, there were a hundred people and now there are over thirteen hundred employees. It is immediately apparent that the approach to culture, space and work is different here. The vernacular is more about community, hosting, experience and space than it is about staff, leadership, management, procedure or facilities. This is a fundamental platform upon which the whole experience of Airbnb is built – physically and culturally – and it permeates every interaction and decision, both internally and externally. Cushner explains, ‘When you think about it, it’s just one big community. You have guests, you have hosts, you have employees and we’re all part of Airbnb. Every person here is either a guest or a host in some way. Often when I’m trying to make decisions about something, I’ll look to the
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community or I’ll look at how our hosts and guests might solve that problem and think about how that might apply to our employees. Our primary function as a business is to rent space to people – sure that’s one thing, but now it’s evolved into so much more than that in terms of the whole trip experience.’ The role of Ground Control to curate experiences for people echoes the role of the hosts in creating memorable experiences for their guests, and giving them a sense that, whilst they don’t own the space, they are very welcome. At the heart of the success of Airbnb spaces is an attention to design and an appreciation of the magical touches that inspire people. ‘There’s something about going into somebody else’s place where they’ve done something you wouldn’t have done yourself, that just really opens your mind. So when you translate that to a working environment that has been curated with love and attention to detail and tells a story, it kind of switches on your brain in a different way,’ says Cushner. Not only are the replicated listing rooms designed to accentuate the notion of ‘heterogeneous travel’ – where the unique character of different places is celebrated – they also act as alternative working spaces away from open-plan desks, enabling people to select a specific area depending on daily requirements. ‘I think that the uniqueness to each of these spaces lends itself to that. If I want to feel more comfortable, I’ll go and find a place that has a sofa or lower lighting, whereas if I need to do an interview around a table, I’ll find a room that has a more formal tone.’ In addition to making the working environment feel like home, it also reflects the creativity and design ethos that served Chesky and Gebbia so well. ‘At RISD, the design process was never in isolation,’ says Gebbia. ‘In a lot of ways, the real learning at RISD happened after-hours when you’re working side-byside with your colleagues.’ That same collaboration-by-design philosophy was built into the office interior by the incorporation of different work areas. The first design phase of the headquarters, led by Gensler, ensured that the environment
The interplay between the physical world and the digital world makes for an inspiring workspace.
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Staff can choose from numerous locations to get down to work on any specific day.
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met the creative standards of its inhabitants. ‘We wanted a space that we considered the most creative place on earth,’ continues Gebbia, ‘We wanted to make a space that facilitates idea generation. That was top priority for us.’ To accommodate this, the founders insisted that the designers of Gensler become embedded within the company for four months to fully understand Airbnb culture and how the employees function. ‘The idea is that you have a place that you feel comfortable in, that you’re inspired by – with all the tools and parts and pieces that you need to get your job done,’ comments Cushner. ‘I think that’s why people come to work.’ Equally important is that the space expresses and reflects the passion of both the product and the people who are collectively servicing the purpose of the business: ‘The people who are here are really here because they’re championing a mission, because they’re passionate about Airbnb. Could you imagine being so passionate and walking into a plain space that doesn’t have any connection to that? You’d just be totally lost and it’s that passion that actually leads to the great work.’ As the company continues to grow, so too does its learning – about how to respond to external dynamics and how to stay true to the core movement. An interesting milestone in this learning journey was in Airbnb’s philosophical evolution in how it thinks about itself both as a business and a brand. The shift
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In Portland, semi-secluded niches are carved out for private working whilst still giving a visual connectivity to the rest of the space.
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from ‘tech’ to ‘hospitality’ provided a resonance that has fuelled further service innovation, with the brand making a departure from ‘travel like a human’ to ‘belong anywhere’. Distancing itself from the typical tech company, at Airbnb there is free food with a single choice at each meal (whether its breakfast, lunch or dinner), which ‘helps us all feel like we’re all having one meal together,’ as explained by Aaron Taylor Harvey, leader of the Environments Design team. ‘These cultural, non-traditional work elements – not perks – are specifically designed to create a sense of unity. They make us feel like we’re doing this thing together – we’re in this space together, we’re having this meal together and we’re working on this product together. I think that’s really powerful and it helps people to frame their job in the bigger picture rather than just being isolated to whatever little team they’re in.’ Both Harvey and partner Rachael Harvey, formerly external architectural consultants to Airbnb, were lured inside to join the Environments Design team by the creative approach of the business and plenty of opportunity to create ‘architectural links between culture, marketing and facilities’. This unique role speaks volumes about Airbnb’s understanding of – and deep respect for – the profound effect that beautiful environments have on people. ‘I haven’t heard of this job in other companies but, practically, it means that we get to iterate in the
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same way one of our products iterates – but instead of it being about digital space it’s about physical space.’ Arriving after the San Francisco headquarters had been completed, Harvey and his partner were able to build on the learning garnered from ‘living’ in the space and apply that learning both to an extension on the third floor (which was previously empty) and also to a new call centre based in Portland. Unlike Airbnb’s headquarters which accommodates a mix of different functions, a customer experience (CX) centre in Portland became home to around three hundred people at the end of 2014. The Environments Design team members were able to take full lead on the design of the new office, which enabled them to dig deep into the process and interpret the cultural and functional needs from an internal perspective. ‘For us, the space and the workflow and the culture are just one thing. We wanted to figure out how to get people in and out of different ways of working – whether intensely, collaboratively, alone or in groups – how can we get all those different conditions without creating walls everywhere, because visual transparency and sightlines across space importantly remind you that you’re part of the community,’ says Harvey. Working in close collaboration with many of the people who would occupy the building, the team engaged in deep information gathering from the local team. One of the first insights came around workflow, Harvey recalls, ‘We found that here, there are basically a whole bunch of people who do practically the same job – taking calls, answering questions and generally engaging with people that are having trouble. All they need is a MacBook and a headset. They don’t need filing cabinets, they don’t need big display monitors, they don’t need desk lights, they don’t need all this stuff that has existed in offices for a hundred and fifty
‘The people who are here are really here because they’re championing a mission; they’re passionate about Airbnb’
Airbnb’s own team, supported by in-house architects, designed and built the various meeting spaces in the Portland office.
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Genuine involvement in the creative process of a working design has given the teams not only confidence but real learning and deep pride in the place they helped build years.’ Understanding that there are actually very few components required, he continues: ‘We were able to think about the office in a totally different way’ – which meant an end to the assigned desk. Far from the notion of free-desking as a kind of ‘depressing homelessness’, the team was able to rethink the work setting through the lens of the culture and brand. ‘We are a sharing economy company and a lot of people that work here believe in that, and the office can be a chance to share resources in a dynamic way.’ Linking the ‘belong anywhere’ philosophy of the brand to the space, a range of work configurations are therefore offered, allowing people to sit in different places throughout the day, which makes for healthy ergonomic movement, increased socialising and, critically, a sense of choice. CX agents start their day at ‘landing spots’ – essentially large tables with storage cubicles – where they look out across the office landscape and see ‘all potential opportunities’, including lounges, shared tables, sheltered desks and ‘the bluff’, a large plywood structure with a cushioned mezzanine level and multiple ground-level ‘duck-ins’. Located throughout the office, the latter are felt-lined nooks where CX agents can quickly find privacy. As with Airbnb’s other offices, the Portland branch includes exact reproductions of listings from around the world. The difference here is that in addition the workforce was much more involved in the process, with teams designing their own spaces in temporary accommodation before the move. When the team leaders saw the creativity and passion that went into creating these communal spaces, rather than using the same interior designer that had created the listing rooms in San Francisco, they invited the employees of Portland to become a part of creating this brand new office. However, as Harvey explains, ‘Instead of letting them do whatever they wanted, we still based the rooms on existing listings and overlaid the technical requirements.’ Two of the customer service agents who had shown themselves to be naturally organised leaders went on to become project managers and, over the course of two months, they led teams of five people, who pitched ideas for the thirteen meeting spaces on the site. ‘What was interesting was that it ended up functioning like an interior design class; it was the real thing, not a make believe thing.’ Over the six days before the office actually opened, the teams installed wallpaper, paintings and furniture, did minor carpentry and built the rooms themselves. ‘To me,’ remarks Harvey, ‘that’s real creativity – engaging in a process.’ Rather than placating people with the notion that they can be creative by just putting up a chalk wall and saying, ‘Great, you’ve painted a sun, now you’re creative’ – Harvey believes that the genuine involvement in the creative process of a working design has given the teams not only confidence but real learning and deep pride in the place they helped build.
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THE SPARK Impetus for Change 17
THEME
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The nature in which spaces are planned, designed and equipped speaks volumes about the culture and values of organisations, the mentality of managers and the motivations of employees. Organisations can often set-off on a space transformation without really understanding the effects (positive and negative) that the physical change might have on their business performance or culture. Taking time to consider The Spark – the true motivations behind your organisation’s desire to create spaces for innovation, as well as consideration of the broader context and how that might be influencing the decision – is the important first step in a successful transformation. Before embarking on any type of change, it’s worth pausing to consider the broader context so that well-informed, strategic decisions might be made.
External Forces
There is a myriad of factors influencing the changes in the way we live and work, shaped by external drivers. Infographic 1 presents a summary of sixteen global trends intended to be used as thought-starters for considering the future world of work and living. These trends are discussed within six driving forces below.
DEMOGRAPHIC
More socially and globally connected than ever through mobile digital devices, Generation Y (with the oldest turning 40 years of age in 2020) will dominate the workplace, with a greater sense of freedom and job interchangeability that supports an ‘on-my-own-time’ ethos as both a management strategy and lifestyle.1 The first post-internet generation, Gen Z, will turn 18 in 2026, and enter the workforce with a strong work ethic, valuing structure and
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predictability. At the other end of the age spectrum, seniors are opting out of traditional retirement, instead choosing work as a lifestyle; continuing to work or starting completely new careers. The oft-stated ‘war on talent’, created in part by a new generation of highly-skilled roles and partly from a wider translation of skills that span industry boundaries, has created a greater emphasis on viewing the office or work environment as an attraction and retention tool.
SOCIAL
Unprecedented public access to information on corporate behaviour, operations and activities is forcing organisations to become more transparent. Social networks are fuelling the participatory economy; with a surge in growth of business and civic models that rely on effectively creating and working with collaborative communities that include customers, suppliers and business partners. Customers increasingly control the economic relationship, shifting business from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ marketing. Meanwhile, localism fuels better work–life balance (or eradicates the term altogether), as people work from, or closer, to home. Trust in previously solid, paternal monolithic institutions is beginning to wane, being replaced by an emergent and changeable social trust capital. The place of corporate headquarters (HQ) is questioned, making way for open, transparent and networked local hubs – reminiscent of eighteenth century English coffee houses.
ECONOMIC
Collaboration is increasingly becoming a common way of doing business, both across small businesses and between big and small; creating opportunities for spaces that support open innovation. With traditional employment no longer the norm, work shifts from full-time to free agent. A tide of autonomous, selfdirected contractors and small, agile start-ups with flexibility are fuelling the explosive success of coworking spaces. The long-term trend of hiring contingent workers continues to accelerate with more than 80 per cent of large corporations planning to sustainably increase their use of a flexible workforce.1 The need for one-desk-per-person, sitting for hours on end is quickly becoming a thing of the past. As real estate continues to shift from corporate HQ ownership to multi-let developer rental, increasing opportunities for clusters and inter-dependencies emerge, providing opportunities for collaboration and inspiration.
ENVIRONMENTAL
Sustainable business practices and products become integral to business success, moving from social novelty to business necessity through the recovery from the great global recession. The rapidly-growing ‘emerging middle class’2 places new pressure on resource supplies and prices globally. Regulation, taxes and other efforts to reduce carbon footprints add to these pressures.1 The trend for localisation supports city clusters, reducing carbon footprint of daily commutes and long-distance travel.
TECHNOLOGY
Advanced analytic tools, large data sets and social and mobile computing platforms will become pervasive, drastically reshaping industries, businesses and consumers’ lives. The speed of change of technology creates a greater need for flexibility; programmable environments become an essential way of
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Global trends that influence 1 how we live and work.
THE MISTRUST OF INSTITUTIONS
THE CORPORATE MEGALITHS
The crisis of public debt and an inequality of trust
Only 22% of Americans trust the nation’s financial system, and 19% have confidence in big business Edelman Trust Barometer (2016)
The consolidation of companies and the illusion of choice Between 1983 to 2011, the 50 companies that owned 90% of the US media have shrunk to just six Frugal Dad (2013)
THE GENERATION CONUNDRUM
THE REAL-ESTATE CRISIS
From Millennials to Gen Z
By 2025, three out of every four workers globally will be Millennials, whilst Gen Z (born after 1998) is the first post-internet generation
Nowhere to live, nowhere to work
60% of Londoners will rent accommodation in 2025, compared with 40% in 2000 PwC UK Report (2015)
Time Magazine (2013)
TECHNOLOGY AND PLATFORMS
ROBOTICS AND LABOUR MARKETS
Everything is an app is an app
By the end of 2017, market demand for mobile app development will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organisations’ capacity to deliver them
The end of the office
Over 5 million jobs will be lost by 2020 as a result of advances in genetics, AI and robotics; two thirds of these being losses will be in administrative/office roles WEF Report (2016)
Gartner Report (2015)
THE COLLABORATIVE TURN
THE URBAN EXPLOSION
Sharing and collective engagement
Collaboration and teamwork are increasingly important; for people working in a team: 71% feel more creative, 62% cite increased productivity and 90% feel more confident when coworking Deskmag Forecast (2013)
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Moving to the city
54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, estimated to rise to 66% by 2050; by 2030, there will be 41 megacities (> 10 million inhabitants) compared with just 10 in 1990 UN Report (2014)
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THE END OF NATURE
A SECOND LIFE FOR ALL
Species and wilderness reduction Around 50% of the world’s original forests have disappeared; as tropical forests are home to at least 50% of species, the clearance of some 17 million hectares each year is a dramatic loss
The explosion of online identities 72% of online adults visit Facebook at least once a month, and in 2016 there are 1.6 billion active monthly users, a 14% growth from 2015 Facebook (2016)
WWF Report (2016)
RAPID MAKING AND CUSTOMISATION
HYBRIDISATION OF ENVIRONMENTS
Disrupting manufacture and supply chains
The growth of the global 3D printing industry is expected to rise from USD3.07B in 2013 to USD12.8B by 2018, and exceed USD21B in worldwide revenue by 2020
No more single-use architecture
What will become of the brick-and-mortar office when an ‘in my own place, on my own time’ regimen is further enabled? Intuit Report (2014)
Wohlers Report (2014)
PURPOSE AND SELF-WORTH
CREATIVITY AND FLOW
Finding fulfilling work with meaning
Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged in their work, emotionally invested and focused on creating value for their organisations every day Gallup (2013)
Conditions for psychological happiness ‘Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person’s capacity to act’ M Csikszentmihalyi, Flow (2008)
WORKING AND SERVING
MONEY AND VALUE Ownership and collaborative consumption
Who is the boss?
40% of the workforce in the US by 2020 will be freelance or in temporary contracts
The consumer peer-to-peer rental market is worth USD26B
Intuit Report (2014)
The Economist (2013)
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I think will terrify a lot of people but are really important conversations for us to have.
Could this become a tool that helps people in larger organisations to improve their performance as a kind-of stepping stone towards being much more transparent and able to share our information? I think that’s bang on and that’s exactly what will happen. The interesting thing will be to what level can you aggregate that information and keep it anonymised so that it still delivers value. For example, say you’ve got a business unit that is about to be sold off or made redundant. You’ll see that the quantity of email traffic between that department and HR will be abnormally high. So even though it’s aggregated, even though it’s anonymised, you see that something’s up. These are all conversations that we have to have and in many ways they’re not dissimilar to conversations that we’ve been having in the consumer space for years about consumer privacy. What we need to be mindful of is the absolute value in making this happen. We just have to do it in a way that’s respectful to the privacy of the individual and to the goals of the organisation. I think that’s the real trick here.
emails and, if you take that principle of matching a pattern of the incoming mail to your behaviour, you can then start to build some really interesting scenarios; you can turn it into a more positive thing. So for example in the world of work, we might notice that Dave spends a lot of time writing about beer and motorcycles, so I bet Dave actually knows quite a bit about beer and motorcycles. I’m going to promote him internally as a guy who knows about beer and motorcycles (your topics will vary), and all of that stuff then starts to do a lot of the heavy lifting for individuals in terms of what they can do. I think if you couple these three spaces together – more personal computing, reinventing productivity and this world of intelligence – we’re going to be presented with a really interesting capability that will change people’s perception of both how they work but then will lead to implications of where they work and the spaces they require to support their own work.
What’s the third big theme? This is just simply the continuation of what we’ve had before us in terms of algorithms, which will automate a lot of things for us and will give us some interesting choices to make. Essentially these algorithms spot patterns in the process of what we’re doing or how we communicate and then give us choice, like an opportunity cost to decide what we’re going to do with it. For example, there are algorithms now that go through your email to check for spam. Now the curious thing about spam is that we think it’s all bad, but actually there are grades of spam. There’s the stuff that you never asked for and has no value to you (that’s true spam); then there’s the stuff you asked for but has no value to you (that product you bought ten years ago and now you’re on some bloody mailing list that you’re not interested in); and then there’s the stuff that you did ask for and you are interested in but you just don’t have the time for it right now. This algorithm will look for your reaction to all of these
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1 D Coplin, Business Reimagined (Harriman House; 2013). 2 D Coplin, The Rise of the Humans (Harriman House; 2014).
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THE PURPOSE Ambition, Scale and Goal 41
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Whilst most agree that innovation is essential for energising an organisation and shifting it towards growth, many are uncertain about how to make it happen, especially when the pressure to mitigate risk and cut costs is so strong. The ability to spot new opportunities and mobilise resources in their pursuit is fundamental to the survival and success of organisations of any size – from super corporations to civic institutions, start-ups to SMEs.
Defining Innovation Types
There are different approaches to innovation – from a systemic creative culture where ‘ideas can come from anywhere’ through to coordinated assaults on specific challenges or invitations for external input –with different models requiring different approaches to space (Infographic 1). Research conducted by Steelcase has identified specific variables that affect how organisations approach innovation.1 Different combinations of these attributes combine to create eight different structural models of innovation, each with its own space implications. By first identifying the organisation’s preferred methods, the spatial type space that will best support these efforts can be explored. For more information on the different spaces to support innovation types, see The Spatial Context chapter (p.157).
Defining the Purpose
The purpose of a space for innovation needs to focus on innovation efforts but must be balanced with other organisational objectives. It’s important to take a moment to align on the true – rather than merely stated – purpose of the transformation. Without assessing the honest reasons for the move or
1 Different innovation models offer
CENTRALISED
differing approaches to space.
In-house marketplace
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In-house share model
In-house centre model
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Off-site centre model
change, the likelihood of falling at the first CFO hurdle is high. Establishing a comprehensive objective that links business, cultural and spatial objectives will enable a fuller picture to emerge. In order to get the best ‘why’, look at what you do (business/ organisation), who does it (people) and where they do it (space); with the ‘how’ of all of the above being unique to you (your brand and culture). The strategic aims – the overall ‘why’ – may include: organisational goals, performance targets or opening up new markets. From a people perspective, the goals might include attracting, developing and retaining talent to deliver organisational objectives. Spatial objectives include the management of physical and technology structures that enable people to deliver on the organisational goals.
5Es of Inspiring Environments
We consider there to be 5Es for inspiring (work) environments, the first three of which were identified in a framework developed by workplace consultancy pioneers DEGW – efficiency, effectiveness and expression – and developed to categorise measures of workplace performance.2 To these, the author Groves has added an additional two – empowerment and evolution – which have emerged through our research as essential for spaces for innovation (Infographic 2).
EFFICIENCY objectives are all about saving money and describing what your organisation is trying to achieve from an efficiency standpoint – whether streamlining processes, reducing headcount or consolidating real estate.
EFFECTIVENESS objectives focus on quality, and are concerned with improving the performance, quality and/or output of processes, working conditions
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Consultancy model
Network model
The Purpose
Community model
DECENTRALISED
Partnership model
The headquarters of Cereal Partners Worldwide (CPW) is in the lakeside city of Lausanne, a forty-minute train ride through rolling Swiss countryside from the sleepy town of Orbe – where Nestlé has one of its many Product Technology Centres. Here, you’ll find hundreds of biologists, chemists, nutritionists, food scientists and engineers working on the development of some the world’s favourite foods. The new kid on the block at this location is CPW’s global hub of research and development (R&D), which focuses specifically on breakfast cereal solutions. This seemingly unlikely location for a global innovation centre intentionally acts to leverage the expert support in science and research from both Nestlé and General Mills; its close proximity to the Nestlé Research Centre facilitates collaboration across R&D facilities, and being close to CPW headquarters in Lausanne helps ‘bridge knowledge transfer and cross-functional alignment across the business,’ explains Stephen Gregory, director of R&D at the Innovation Centre. The Innovation Centre has more than eighty employees primarily working on the renovation of existing products (including localisation to market tastes) and new product innovation. Project managers lead the projects from initial prototype stage through to industrialisation in to the factories. They are well supported by quality, engineering, packaging, regulatory and consumer science specialists. The clear focus at all times is the ‘consumer’ – in terms of their needs and how best they can be met. A tour of the three-storey facility highlights the varied activities that happen here, under one roof. Arranged in a kind of ‘amenities sandwich’, all the support systems such as heat exchangers, water tanks, ventilation and changing rooms (many people cycle to work) are hidden in between the research hall on the ground floor and the open office and laboratories on the top floor. Peering through hermetically-sealed windows, shiny stainless-steel contraptions on wheels with tubes and chutes seem to float in the whiteness of a
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The building is designed to drive down energy consumption with elements, such as solar panels and recycled water cooling, making it highly energy efficient.
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vast space on the lower level. Small figures clad top-to-toe in white suits happily move from machine to machine inspecting the latest invention that pops out. This is the Pilot Plant – a mini-factory that’s about one sixth the size of a full-scale cereal manufacturing plant. It is here that prototypes for new-to-the-world cereals are made. This on-site facility enables the project teams to try out new ideas quickly and to make products for consumer testing without having to go to the large factories. The aim is speed and agility and to encourage an experimental mind-set. Part of the Innovation Centre's remit is to be better equipped and able to respond to dynamic market concerns, for example healthier breakfast-cereal choices has seen the introduction of whole grains and the reduction of sugar and salt levels in production. These ‘renovations’ of existing products need to fulfil consumers’ taste, texture and value expectations. Beyond being able to make quick improvements in response to changing tastes and health concerns, there’s a drive to innovate. The top floor of the Innovation Centre houses an array of work areas, kitchens and labs that hug a central open space and arterial circulation path that is open to visitors. Bespoke labs – dedicated to testing – are balanced with more fluid, flexible spaces to support an approach to innovation that is at the same time consumer-driven, encouraging technical exploration and allowing for individual flashes of creativity and inspiration. Far from a platitudinous motto, the CPW Innovation Centre teams are working hard to ‘get closer to the consumer’,
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which is no mean feat given its luxurious location: ‘One of the challenges for an innovation centre sitting in the rolling mountains in an affluent country like Switzerland,’ says Gregory, ‘is to be relevant and to not second-guess what the rest of the world wants or thinks it wants – and not just impose our opinions.’ So the Innovation Centre teams, including Product Guidance Insight, are working in tandem with the marketing teams to engage consumers early in the creation process. They develop multiple ‘rough’ concepts and prototypes to help them get earlier and more meaningful consumer insights and to better understand their needs. Then there is the external Sensory Panel which comes into the centre to sample the products independently, then score them on taste and texture. Once a concept has been developed, it is tested with consumers to check whether their needs have been interpreted accurately, and then translated into reality.
Peering through hermetically-sealed windows, shiny stainless-steel contraptions on wheels with tubes and chutes seem to float in the whiteness of a vast space on the lower level There’s an interesting tension between developing a consumer insight – an un-met need – into a new idea using existing technology, as there can often be a compromise based on the undeniable requirement to leverage existing factory assets. Gregory explains: ‘You’ve got to be conscious that you can get totally trapped and not give the consumer what they want – it’s easy to become biased towards using a cool piece of equipment. So it’s up to us to balance an interpretation of consumer needs with a bit of a technology push. It’s like the iPhone. I don’t think the consumer has ever said “I want the iPhone” and this is the thing; consumers don’t know what they want all of the time.’ One of the most exciting new additions to the Innovation Centre is the ‘iKitchen’ – a dedicated space for ideas that are ‘further out’, when it’s not quite clear whether there is a viable idea. Full of equipment that don’t necessarily relate to machines in existing factories, the experimental nature of the iKitchen supports a behaviour where people can make something up and say: ‘Is this what you’re thinking?’ or ‘How does this look?’ In the instance, where an idea is created but the technology to make it doesn’t yet exist, there’s a small team that works on technology development. An important part of activating this approach to individual experimentation are some of the initiatives and challenges that the Innovation Centre teams create for themselves. Whether the more structured Innovation Shows, where people create ideas and concepts based on loose
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The iKitchen is an experimental place where new ideas for cereal products are explored.
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themes, through to ‘free time’ where people are encouraged to create, the iKitchen is proving to be a place where some of the more obscure ideas can come to life. The building’s huge steel trusses that span the 40-m-long floors enable a level of flexibility that the teams demand – not only are they continually learning about consumers but also about how they want to work. Since moving in, they’ve installed closed spaces in the open office area, re-configured the ‘creative’ space and they have experimented relentlessly with different types of forums and events. The heart of the space on the top floor is deliberately kept open to support its ever-changing uses. It is the one space that has been protected in spite of the temptation to cram in desks as the headcount grows. ‘The desk areas are actually quite cramped – it’s where you get your head down or gather samples and things. But we’d rather have it that way; we like the space in the middle because it’s like a sort of meeting point away from your desk so we fill it with activity, not stuff.’ Health and well-being are key values to the business, which is reflected in the building, designed by Concept Consult Architects, being assigned LEED Platinum (highest level) certification. Architect David Linford explains: ‘The building’s energy efficient elements drive down energy consumption by more than 30 per cent, including back-up steam heating generated from coffee ground waste, a 3000 m2 photovoltaic installation on the roof and a 30,000-litre-capacity reservoir for capturing rainwater which is then re-used for cooling and sanitary
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facilities.’ Respectful to its surroundings, native landscaping has been preserved and restored, whilst the building is situated to allow for expansion that won’t bother its neighbours. Sweeping views of the local countryside through huge windows that allow ample natural light to flood into the interior that extends right down to the factory, through clever placement of light-wells and interior courtyards. A wrap-around external terrace presents frequent opportunity for staff to spend time outside and drink-in the alpine air. The use of large columns made of exposed wood and other natural materials is very unusual for a place that is part of a factory. There’s a deep sense of well-being here and a very natural flow about the place: ‘I feel really comfortable here and it’s just a nice space,’ says Gregory. ‘I feel as though I’m not in an office; I walk around a lot. I don’t have a lot of meetings, so it feels a bit like Central Park in that you just bump into people – it’s not like we're locked in offices. It’s not somewhere I need to escape from at the end of the day. I always come in early in the morning – it’s just a warm, welcoming place to be.’ Maybe it’s the ample light, the breathtaking views, the access to people and ideas that make this place so appealing to CPW’s innovators. Or maybe it has more to do with getting to the free Shreddies first?
‘I feel really comfortable here. I walk around a lot, it feels a bit like Central Park in that you just bump into people – it’s not somewhere I need to escape from at the end of the day.’
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Photo Jack Bamford
Interview with JAMES MOULTRIE, senior lecturer at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Manufacturing where his research focuses on design management.
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‘Back in the day, the word “workplace” wasn’t even part of the lexicon’
alike to see what is possible, providing tangible talking points: ‘We couldn’t have gone into old conference rooms and talked about this, you had to have the actual immersive environment. We work in a subjective world, so we tried to bring as much objectivity into it as we could in order to share the impact,’ explains Clarkson. ‘But when asked, often business groups couldn’t express how their new spaces were affecting them, whilst instinctively knowing the new spaces were improving profits, they couldn’t definitively say how.’ This challenge of communicating success to other business units prompted the birth of another weapon in the GWS team’s armoury. Using the power of moving image, the team captures each transformation on video to support and communicate the case for change. ‘Sometimes our best story is the testimony of the client, even if it’s not scientific,’ Clarkson remarks. ‘When you have leaders that believe the space-change has supported their business direction, those are sometimes the best stories – because there is no silver bullet for measuring productivity in knowledge workers. Telling an honest story is the most powerful thing.’ A further subtle, yet powerful, facet of the successful communication has evolved from the symbiotic relationship between the real-estate and facilities team members and the people they solve for and with: adopting the vernacular. Pentikäinen explains, ‘When we were talking with the engineers, we kept hearing that it felt sterile when we used corporate real-estate lingo as part of our change management efforts. Since then we have aligned the words we use with the engineers and are now talking the same “language”.’ A deep shift in the relationship has occurred, where now the groups are working to solve problems together; this shift is reflected in the programme’s recent name change to become the ‘Intelligent Workplace’.
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THE
LEADERSHIP Direction, Change and Support 73
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Creative environments are often driven by a strong leader or leadership group who define the parameters and values that lead to the creation of the physical space itself. Good leadership feels almost invisible, motivating teams and individuals to apply themselves to reach a common goal. It is worth noting the difference between the leadership required to spark transformation or the creation of a space, and the type of leadership required to motivate teams once the space is up and running, when clear outcomes have been formulated. The themed chapters The Purpose (p.41) and The Experience (p.125) elaborate on this idea, respectively. Three components of individual creativity in business - expertise, creative thinking skills and motivation – can all be influenced by leaders. Motivation can be influenced through challenge, freedom, resources (including physical space), team design, supervisory encouragement and organisational support.1 Of the two types of motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic), intrinsic motivation is far more essential for creativity. You can’t force someone to be creative, yet traditional business management systems rely on extrinsic motivators – carrots (salary, fame) and sticks (redundancy, ridicule). In short, the command-and-control leadership style that may have suited more linear job functions will often stifle the creative capacities of individuals and teams. Creativity and innovation require varying measures of discipline and freedom, autonomy and alignment, and the leadership style to enable this needs to be dynamic as a result (Infographic 1). The more autonomy afforded to people, the more intrinsic motivation they need in order to work through challenges. When facing new challenges that cannot be met with previous approaches, people need to learn new ways of operating. It is during these times of uncertainty and increased complexity, when results cannot be predicted conclusively, that leaders need to invite others in to share diverse knowledge,
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discover new processes, and revitalise strategies. A new type of leadership is required, one that is emergent, values-led and able to handle uncertain contexts. It can be described as walking the ‘chaordic path’: an approach that balances change and rigidity through a flexible system (Infographic 2). ‘Order–control’ is where the practice of traditional management lies: predictability is required and procedures and standards are clearly defined and adhered to. However, too much management impedes creativity. So on the far side of order is asphyxiating control, while on the opposite end of the spectrum is chamos – or destructive chaos. When we move toward either of these extremes, the result is apathy or rebellion, and effective failure. When an organisation develops ‘chaordic confidence’ – the capacity to stay in the dance of order and chaos – it supports a generative emergence that allows new, collective intelligence and wise action to occur.2
1 Continuum of leadership from autocratic to democratic.
AUTOCRATIC MANAGER
DEMOCRATIC MANAGER
Use of authority by manager
Area of freedom for subordinates Manager makes and announces decision
Manager ‘sells’ decision
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Manager presents ideas and invites questions
Manger presents tentative decision subject to change
Manager presents problem, gets suggestions, makes decision
Manager defines limits, asks group for decision
The Leadership
Manager permits subordinates to function within superior defined limits
Manager allows full freedom
2 Leadership requirements to progress a complex culture of innovation.
CHAMOS
CHAOS ORDER
CONTROL Innovation emergent practice
3 The change curve describes reactions to significant change, and how leadership might respond.
Shock Denial → Create Alignment Frustration → Maximise Communication Depression → Spark Motivation Experiment → Develop Capability Decision → Share Knowledge
MORALE AND COMPETENCE
Integration
TIME
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Leading People Through Change
When undergoing change, the morale and competence of people can be negatively impacted to varying degrees. The daily routines and sense of belonging for people is challenged. This useful adaptation of the Kubler-Ross change curve, outlines the emotions that people face when undergoing traumatic change, matching them with the approaches that leaders can take to improve morale and collective competence as the journey of change unfolds (Infographic 3). Harvard Business School professor and world-renowned change expert John Kotter introduced his eight-step change process in his 1995 seminal book, Leading Change. Updated in 2012 with an emphasis on acceleration of change, the model still stands as a solid guide for organisational change and indeed leading spatial change.3 The eight stages are: 1 Establish a sense of urgency – consider threats and opportunities, and have a conversation around why change is necessary. 2 Form a powerful coalition – assemble team of influencers across the organisation (your space champions). 3 Develop a vision and strategy – paint a picture of the benefits of the new environment. Distil the most important values of the change with implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future. 4 Communicate the change vision – simply, often and in different forms. Communicate through actions as well as words. Begin modelling new behaviours that will accompany the change. 5 Empower employees by removing obstacles. Provide training where needed so that people can understand how to use and operate new environments. 6 Create short term wins – use pilots and trials, learn from them and communicate what works, what doesn’t and what’s the mini-change as a result. 7 Build on the change and look for improvement. Communicate the need to continually adapt and improve the environment, structures and new behaviours. 8 Anchor the change by looking for opportunities to make it stick. Look for daily behaviours and iconic actions in every aspect of the environment. Adoption of these mindsets will help to identify opportunities to involve people, upgrade autonomy and responsibility levels, sensitising people to their own working patterns, needs and ability to create. New approaches to the leadership and the engagement of teams are required to see people through a transformational change and also to enable an ongoing culture of collective learning and innovation.
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The Leadership
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HOW MIGHT WE ENSURE THAT WE HAVE A CREATIVE STAKEHOLDER SUPPORTING THE CHANGE?
WHAT URGENCIES SHOULD WE COMMUNICATE AROUND THE NEED FOR CHANGE?
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The Leadership
WHAT APPROACHES MIGHT WE USE TO SHARE THE VISION, PROGRESS AND RESULTS?
WHO SHOULD FORM THE CHANGE TEAM: COLLABORATIVE, INTERDISCIPLINARY, AUTONOMOUS?
HOW CAN WE IDENTIFY AND SUPPORT THOSE PEOPLE FOR WHOM CHANGE IS DIFFICULT?
WHAT NEW INFORMATION AND BEHAVIOURS WILL PEOPLE NEED TO UNDERSTAND AND LEARN AS WE SHIFT TO A NEW ENVIRONMENT?
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Photos Oliver Marlow
INSTITUTE OF MAKING
The Institute of Making in LONDON transforms its material library into a space for creative discovery.
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In a very short time, the lab has made significant progress in breaking down barriers that have existed for decades the approaches used to bring civic and governmental people together has been through something the team calls sobremesa, which literally means ‘over the table’ and it refers to the art of conversation after a meal. It is a customary to enjoy food and a little wine and allow the conversation to flow. This (often lengthy) conversation is all about following and exploring passions and, in the context of the lab, ministers sit, side-by-side around a huge table with members of the public, which breaks down the symbols of power that so often get in the way of genuine conversation and manage to tackle tough challenges. ‘Forgetting who’s on what side, we all bring different tools and perspectives to the table,’ comments Gomez Mont. This approach frames the conversation in terms of asking: ‘How do we figure out the challenge we’re all passionate about and then work as a team?’ The upshot of following this culturally familiar ritual is that people get to know each other on first-name terms, which lubricates conversations that are usually loaded with negative emotion. The conversation shifts from one of anger or blame to a more productive one; governmental people realise that the civic society is eager and able to help make change, and the civic society see the government representatives as real people. In a very short time, the lab has made significant progress in breaking down barriers that have existed for decades, Gomez Mont remarks, ‘There’s a huge mistrust between citizens and institutions but we’ve seen people shift expectations, allowing possibilities come into the conversation.’ A parallel paradox to this citizen mistrust is an ever-growing interest of the city in and of itself, with an increasing amount of people volunteering and participating in neighbourhood events, not necessarily out of anything but a certain sense of engagement with the city. The space has been instrumental to this, in the opening up of government buildings which previously had a certain intentionality to them: ‘In a way, one has to think about opening up places that can be continuously rethought and repurposed. We should be thinking about space in terms of the behaviours it inspires people to adopt – and what it would be to have something that betters the ethos that one wants in terms of how public officials can interface with their citizens?’ With the aim of attracting people to the lab and its endeavours, it’s important to Gomez Mont that the government ceases to be viewed at arm’s length, a symbol of authority and restraint, but more as a ‘city-making machine’. Whist small and still in its infancy, the Laboratorio para la Ciudad is beginning to make government exciting and accessible. A physical as well as metaphorical structure that covers the whole city, it is developing relationships with diverse minds and diverse people who are having an effect on current and future aspects of city life, and the rules of engagement of how people live and play together as a society.
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Photo Max Doyle
Interview with RACHEL BOTSMAN, author, lecturer and global authority on the power of collaboration and sharing to change the way we live and work, who originated the theory of ‘collaborative consumption’.
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What are some of the things that are emerging as we move into the new collaborative or sharing economy, and how is it impacting work? RACHEL BOTSMAN: One thing that’s developing as the sharing economy matures is how you actually build not just these marketplaces but the organisations that sit behind them.1 Up until now, the focus for companies entering this economy has been on how to build a two-sided marketplace. What you really see is that as these companies hit scale, the way they’re designed internally becomes important. They have to be the company in the middle, facilitating this relationship between providers and customers; they’re structured very differently from traditional companies. I’ve been asked a lot to talk and write about the impact of work and I think that is because the first phase of the sharing economy was focused on the consumer and how people were changing the way they accessed what they wanted. Then, the next phase of that was realising that in order for things to change, the provision of goods and services needed to change, right down to the individuals who provide those goods and services. That’s been a massive focus on everything from Uber drivers to Task Rabbit runners to Airbnb hosts. The big shift here is around work. Who are these people? Why are they motivated? What is it they are doing with their income? Is this a green shoot in the future of work? Now, this is where I think the conversation is really interesting in terms of what it is going to become. When you take an economy that was built on these traditional top-down, centralised hierarchical
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organisations and then you blow that model up, you start to enter a world that is built on these distributed networks and marketplaces – and you get a very different make-up of the way people work. I think what’s starting to emerge is going beyond even freelancers; it’s people beginning to see they can have a whole portfolio of work in a way that really puts them back in control. It’s not just about flexibility; it’s actually about having direct contact with another person that they may feel often removed from in a corporation. In order to get to grips with this, I’m looking at the role that trust plays in society and the role trust has played throughout history in enabling people to take massive leaps to expand what is actually possible – so it’s really interesting when you start to look at it through that lens, it starts to help you understand what’s going on today.
The irony is that in a traditional corporation you might all be colocated but actually interact very little or know each other very little and yet with more distributed working, people are developing very deep relationships even though they’re not necessarily working with the same company or in the same location. Yes, and I think the focus is on the deep relationships that form in coworking spaces or with other independent contractors or freelancers, and now what’s becoming interesting is, if you are independent, do you have a different relationship with the customer or the client? The classic example is when people say:
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‘The really interesting question is why will people need companies and what will the respective roles become, which will start to inform why people have to go to an office to work’
‘I actually talked to my Uber driver, I’ve never spoken to my taxi driver!’ So how people interact is far more about a very human interface.
How are organisations bringing in this more human approach? People describe it as having a relationship versus a transaction, and I think you see that even when there is no face contact; it is evident through micromoments of design. For instance, all online profiles relate to this in that you really know the person behind the product or service that you’re providing. We’re now searching for information to figure out how we trust and select individuals not institutions, even in all the professional service marketplaces. So in the legal field marketplace, it’s not Clifford Chance you’re hiring; you’re hiring the exact attorney you need, so there’s a level humanness that we now expect. It’s also apparent through some really big gestures, such as Barclays bank in the UK where there are no barriers any more, there’s no glass, they’re just completely open. I think that’s a really big gesture in terms of bringing down the barriers that got in the way of relationships. So we’re seeing this relationship building from these big gestures all the way through the micro-moments of design that technology does so well where you get a real feeling of who that person is.
Why is this happening and why is it taking hold so deeply? First of all, it’s structural. This is naturally where technology wants to take us; technology naturally
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desensitises and blows up power and splits it. It changes the way value flows. I think what’s happened is that we’ve resisted against that for a while and now we’re realising this is just where it’s going. At the same time, we’re experiencing a transparency and an understanding of how things work and we’re experiencing being able to know who someone is, building trust and confidence with them. So that when we are dealing with a traditional company (say a bank or insurance firm) and it’s a completely faceless, complex, frustrating transaction, it just doesn’t make sense to us anymore. I think this is why this notion of service networking being the next thing on from social networking is true. This idea of understanding that we can use all these webs of human relationships to get things done in the real world. We’re moving out of this phase where connectivity is just for sharing photos and video and music; we can actually access all kinds of businesses and services in really different ways.
What do you think the implications are for the design of the spaces where people work – will there be any, or will we just work as and when? I think it’s going to happen in two big ways. The first is really bigger than the whole outsourcing way we saw ten or fifteen years ago. This is where traditional companies start to say: ‘Holy crap! Our biggest threat are these asset-light companies who don’t own big offices, they don’t have massive employee bases, they don’t even own the assets that they’re extracting value from, they’re creating access to assets that already
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CREDITS SPACES FOR INNOVATION The Design and Science of Inspiring Environments
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PRODUCTION
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ISBN: 978-94-91727-97-9
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© 2016 Frame Publishers, Amsterdam, 2016 2nd printing, 2017
Nesta
RESEARCH ASSISTANCE Catherine Pask Debra Gilman
Monica Fernandez, Tom Jenkins, Evelyn Lloyd-Roberts and Esin Yilmazbiek Carolyn Hall, Will Knight and Ashley Wilson
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SPACES FOR INNOVATION
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SPACES The case studies are the stories that bring the themes to life. They span many industries, sectors and geographies, so we have created an iconographic key to help you find your most relevant story. We have found that the interplay of the following elements has an influence on the type of innovation possible. SIZE
The scale of an organisation and the elastic relationship of people and space has a huge effect on innovation potential. We have examples across all sizes, from small (under 500 m2), medium (2000 m2), large (5000 m2) and extra large (+20,000 m2).
FLOOR
Whether taking up just a single floor or a whole building, visibility from the street, adjacencies and the flow throughout the space are important considerations.
ERA OF BUILD
Examples across three centuries are included throughout. Typologies of effective 19th century building include factories and small city-centre buildings, while 20th century typologies are often office blocks activated from within, and 21st century buildings can be purpose built making contemporary statements in form and skin.
TYPE OF BUILDING
We categorise new buildings versus renovations of existing buildings. The freedom of a brand new building is not often afforded for most spaces for innovation, while the constraints of an existing building can provide useful limits, prompting creative thinking in creation and use.
LAYOUT TYPE
Hub: A group of independents cohabiting a space with flexible, shared use of areas and shared ethos. Club: Fixed spaces with flexible use; areas enable people from the same organisation to drop-in. Lab: Experimental spaces that flex in terms of contents and inhabitants. Neighbourhood: Owned team spaces.
INNOVATION TYPE
Disruptive: New to the world ideas, often in opposition to the status quo. Sustaining: Improvement, everyday problem-solving. Systemic: Embedded in collective culture, for everyone. Isolated: Discrete focus, specific problems, not for everyone.
ENTRANCE SEQUENCE
The difference between public and private spaces has an impact on the entrance sequences: how to get from the ‘street to the seat’. Many buildings are private by default (due to corporate ethos, fear of IP theft) while some are open for all. The nuances of these considerations affect the potential for serendipitous meeting, collaboration and therefore innovation.
Spaces for Innovation breaks down the complexities of designing working environments for futurefocused organisations. Analysing the intricate relationships between innovation, creativity, workplace strategy and people-centred design, Kursty Groves and Oliver Marlow guide readers through the process of defining new workspaces with coherent narratives and identities to support creative behaviour. Stemming from research commissioned by innovation foundation Nesta, the book provides a framework for exploring the physical characteristics of spaces associated with a new generation of pioneering companies. The content centres on ten core themes and is brought to life with interviews and case studies from around the globe that cover various perspectives – from coworking networks and educational establishments to large corporations, such as Airbnb, Microsoft and Zappos.
‘A welcome addition to the literature that raises the argument about spaces for innovation off the office floor and into the upper echelons of people, leadership and strategy’ Jeremy Myerson Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design at the Royal College of Art and director of the Worktech Academy
‘Imagine what would happen if we could actually go somewhere to work and leave work feeling healthier, more energised and more inspired than when we arrived – wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?’ Despina Katsikakis Architect and globally-renowned workplace strategist