On November 3, I had the great opportunity to participate in Design Museum Foundation’s first annual Workplace Innovation Summit. The event took place at the Innovation and Design Building, and was attended by designers and architects, manufacturers, real estate professionals, educators, and anyone with a shared interest in the workplace of the future. STA was proud to sponsor this event – and David, Josh, Tom, Hannah, and Andy attended as well!
The day included presentations from keynotes, short stories and panels, covering the hottest topics in workplace innovation – the changing way we work, the importance of workplace culture and authenticity, the impact of technology, health issues including stress, nutrition, movement and sleep, organizational design, and co-working / shared workspaces.
I was privileged to participate on a panel about co-working and shared workspaces. Joined by Sidi Gomes of the Cambridge Innovation Center, and Andrew Thorpe of Staples Workbar, I brought my experience from STA’s design of Greentown Labs, the largest clean tech incubator in the country. We shared our experience and design solutions for these very different models of co-working spaces, and learned that there is definitely not a “once size fits all” for these types of spaces. It also became apparent that a lot of the strategies around culture and innovation in co-working spaces are influencing traditional workspace as well.
One of the highlights of the day was the field trips – participants were given the unique opportunity to visit one of a range of exciting workspaces, including Autodesk, Creative Office Pavilion (an STA design!), Artaic (another STA design!), Red Thread, Continuum and others. The STA team visited the Autodesk BUILD Space, and all agreed that this was an inspiring opportunity to see a unique collaborative environment. The space is an industrial workshop and innovation studio / maker space for the creation of the built environment, and offers digital fabrication equipment and design robotics for design and building innovation. It was fascinating to see the space in action!
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After the Summit, the conversations continued back at our office. Ideas about how technology will impact office design and use (“smart spaces”) sparked debate among our team (does smart technology create more of a disconnect between people?). Concepts about comfort led to the thought – if an office is too comfortable, you’ll never leave and will work too much! And the discussion about health and welfare hit home – we all talked about the questions presented by Leigh Stringer regarding exercise, stress and balance, and ways to improve our own lives (we all learned that we need to sleep more!) We continue to draw parallels to the ideas shared at the summit, and think about our work in a new way! Looking forward to next year’s Summit!
For a full recap of the day, please read on Design Museum Foundation’s website:
http://designmuseumfoundation.org/boston/blog/2016/11/10/recap-workplace-innovation-summit/
