offices of the

Department of

Education,

Employment and

Workplace Relations

Smart companies are keeping the top talent and getting the most from them by making sure their workplaces incorporate the best in office design. Report: Kath Walters

46 December152011·January262012 l www.brw.com.au

• The corporate problem of the moment is productivity; the answer is office design. The problem is reducing staff turnover, disengagement, time wasting and poor communication; the answer is office design.

In this story, the cream of the crop in office design is on display. Each example is groundbreaking in its own way, through the design of individual and collaborative work spaces incorporating natural light, fresh air, a sense of open space and vistas and measures to encourage the development of a healthier workforce, such as internal stairs to discourage the use of lifts and encouraging short walks to coffee stations, meal rooms and printers.

The selected projects pass two tests. First, they are winners or short-listed contenders for the top professional awards for architecture and interior design in 2011. The second is the test of their tenants, the real people who inhabit them and get about their daily tasks with more ease, enthusiasm and ftm.

There are many studies today investigating the impact of office design on staff performance, but the debate has shifted. A recent research paper by architectural firm Woods Bagot says: "From

any perspective the need for a high-performance workplace is compelling [but] creativity, innovation and productivity are supplanting efficiency as the primary drivers of change as organisations seek a sustainable competitive advantage."

In the past, "efficiency" has come down to meaning desks per square metre, but that paradigm led to a backlash against the open­plan office. Woods Bagot encapsulates the dilemma in another paper, The Catch-22 of Open-Plan, which reveals that we work faster and harder when we have some people around us, but too many can inhibit our performance.

"What has occurred over the past few years is that there is more focus on support spaces around the open-plan areas," architect Fiona Dunin, a judge in the 2011 Victorian Architecture Awards, says. "This is so people car go somewhere to be isolated or to communicate with one or two people and they're not always within open plan. At somewhere like Google [offices], there's a diversity of support spaces allowing every personality to find a place somewhere in the office." Continued on page 49

FLEXIBLE SPACE ARCHITECT: BVN Architecture

CLIENT: Energex

LOCATION: Brisbane

SHORTLISTED: Australian Interior Design Awards,

2011 Corporate Design

More than 1700 Energex staff, formerly dispersed

throughout Brisbane, now work together in this open,

collaborative work environment. The move aspires

to encourage cultural change, improve productivity

and efficiency and create a new direction for the

organisation. The design of the six-level

headquarters on the edge of Brisbane's CBD

provides large, flexible workspaces, organised

around a lift that opens straight into the workplace.

There are three atriums within the building that

link all levels. Staff can see across the levels.

Communal spaces, such as casual and formal meeting rooms, are clustered around the edges of

the three atrium spaces close to sculptural

staircases connecting the floors. Modular

workstations can be moved and changed easily.

DESIGN INNOVATION ARCHITECT: Hassell

CLIENT: Department of Employment, Economic

Development and Innovation

LOCATION: Brisbane

WINNER: The Harry Seidler Award for Commercial

Architecture, Australian Institute of Architects WINNER: The Beatrice Hutton Award for Commercial

Architecture (Old), Australian Institute of Architects

A thousand scientists from four state agencies and

six CSIRO divisions work together in the

LIGHT AND BRIGHT ARCHITECT: Hassell

CLIENT: ANZ Banking Group

LOCATION: Melbourne COMMENDATION: Australian Interior Design Awards,

2011 Corporate Design

ANZ Centre was awarded a six-star Green Star Office

Design rating from the Green Building Council of

Ecosciences Precinct, a single collaborative research

centre, keeping costs down and encouraging

knowledge exchange and discovery. Offices, labs

and support zones accommodate a range of group

sizes and functions. The spaces and furnishings are

flexible and adaptable. An internal north-south street

of staff commons, library and meeting rooms is

linked vertically by atrium stairs and passenger lifts. This way of organising the office is a major

innovation. Scientists are co-located by scientific

outcome, not organisational boundary, and work in

flexible, stimulating, light, open and transparent

research areas.

Australia. Despite its large scale, ANZ Centre is

designed to encourage small-scale engagements

between the ANZ staff.

A public "common" on the ground f loor of the

building brings clients and the community into

the heart of the organisation. This space is

designed to allow daylight to penetrate deep

into the building and to accommodate a variety of

work styles.

OPEN INTERACTION ARCHITECT: Woodhead

CLIENT: Department of Education, Employment

and Workplace Relations

LOCATION: Canberra

SHORTLISTED: Australian Interior Design Awards,

2011 Corporate Design

The interior fitout for DEEWR's national office

accommodates 2500 staff over 11 levels. It is

designed to perform at a 5 Green Star/4.5 star

Australian Building Greenhouse rating level.

Consulting with DEEWR senior leaders, Woodhead

established guiding principles for the project,

resulting in a workplace that demonstrates

accessibility and visibility, both literal and

metaphorical. The environment engages human

emotions, a place where the boundaries of work

life and home life are blended. A connecting stair

intersects all11 floors to break down

departmental barriers and foster communication.

Community areas adjacent to the stairwell

alternate between large and small. These social

spaces promote a sense of activity and

movement, and encourage interaction and

collaboration between staff and visitors.

December 15 2011 -January 26 2012 I ww1v.brw.com.au

SIMPLY RATIONAL ARCHITECT: Bates Smart

CLIENT: Lease Infrastructure Services Business LOCATION: Sydney

WINNER: Australian Institute of Architects Award for

Interior Architecture (NSW)

Lend Lease Infrastructure Services Business

(formerly Conneq) is a fast-growing engineering

division specialising in infrastructure.

The design of the new office is intended to generate

a culture of transparency, equity, flexibility and

forward thinking.

The Infrastructure Services division occupies

three levels, with a dramatic central void and stair.

The levels are inverted so that staff areas are on the

top floor with prime views over adjacent bushland.

The stair features 12-metre steel tubes, inspired by

and reflecting the engineering industry. Cladding

panels made from simple site shed sidings have

been refinished in warm metallic tones. Planning is

simple and rational; enclosed spaces are away from

the perimeter. The mood is elegant and restrained,

merging hospitality and corporate design.

Sustainability is addressed by using materials of low

"embodied energy", which are also recyclable, and

by making an effort to minimise the amount of

material used.

Continued from page 46 Yet Google's approach might be meaningless

in, say, an accounting company. "You have to understand the culture of the company," Dunin says. "They have to understand who they are, who their staff are and how they want to work."

The best interiors are a result of high-quality building design. A building's architects control the penetration of natural light, fresh air and access to stairs. In buildings such as the ANZ Centre in Melbourne's Docklands, by architects Hassell (see page 47), the design also affords vistas across the large space, a horizon that makes the building seem to be its own city.

Even in poorly designed buildings a creative interior design can transform the dynamics of a space. US medical researcher and author of the book Healing Spaces, Esther Sternberg, puts a compelling argument that the best-designed spaces have the power to heal, to calm and to lessen illness and absenteeism. A study of office workers showed that when they were transported from old, dingy and dark offices to a space filled with light and fresh air, there was a decrease in stress - even after they left the office to go home at night, Sternberg says.

If there is no opportunity for such views, however, a picture of nature works almost as well. A plant, even a fake one, or a picture of a beautiful tree or landscape, is almost as likely to boost the happy hormones, Sternberg found. "The best thing to have in your office is something that reminds you of a happy, wonderful, comfortable place, a favourite place you have visited," she says.

English academic Craig Knight found productivity improves by 16 per cent when plants and pictures are introduced into an office. And we are our own best friends when it comes to workplace design: giving the plants to staff to arrange according to their own preferences consistently produces an average 32 per cent rise in productivity. "Job satisfaction is easy to measure," Knight says. "But we also noticed a fall in sick-office syndrome, which is when people say they are too hot or cold, or the lights are too bright or dark, or they have headaches."

Knight, a psychologist, has car ried out studies with more than 2200 office workers since 2006.

Associate interior designer for John Wardle Architects, Kirrilly Wilson, says the big change to office design in recent years has been the move to green star ratings, which has improved use of natural amenities (light and air) for heating and cooling and natural materials for building.

Managers Jove open-plan offices; persuading their staff of the benefits takes education and time, Wilson says. "We still need to do a bit of educating, especially in Australia," she says. "We do a lot of institutional projects. It's hard to get academics into open-plan when universities are used to cellular offices. It's all about education and engaging the end-users with consultation and workshops in the design process." JRV.

CREATIVE HUB ARCHITECT: Breathe Architecture

CLIENT: City Of Melbourne, Arts Victoria and

building owner

LOCATION: West Melbourne

WINNER: The Australian Institute of Architects Award

for Small Project Architecture (Vic), Australian

Institute of Architects

Melbourne's art and design culture has a rich history

of enlivening rundown urban buildings and precincts.

In an abandoned warehouse on the banks of the

Maribyrnong, the process of rehabilitation began with

DESIGNED TO WORK ARCHITECT: Wilson Architects

CLIENT: Wilson Architects

LOCATION, Brisbane

WINNER: Australian Interior Design Awards, 2011

Corporate Design

Jury Citation: This small-scale project makes a huge

contribution to corporate interior design practice by

suggesting a new direction for workplace design.

The project ignores trend-driven influences and

shaping the interior of the untouched concrete shell

to create River Studios. Over three levels and

2000 square metres, 70 studios of varying size and

enclosure are strung between informal gathering

areas: a kitchenette, service spaces and bicycle

parking. Studio partitions are assembled from a

variety of alternative, recycled and rudimentary

materials. Collaborating with artists and students led

to novel and inventive solutions, reflecting the core

intentions of the brief. The tight budget restricted the

scope of the design, but kept the project affordable

($1 00/ sqm) and accessible to the target tenants. The

design gets tenants talking to each other and fosters

a community that is resilient and inclusive.

instead focuses on the qualities inherent in the site

to achieve a sensitive and sophisticated work

environment. The thoroughly researched project has

been guided by the concept of "living" in an interior to

create spaces for work. The design heightens the

meaning of elements and maximizes the possibilities

of spaces in between. The workplace design

simultaneously retains the site's heritage and gives it

relevance. The interior designer has skilfully

exercised restraint to create a human workplace that

is timeless and beautiful yet, at the same time,

humble and endearing.