Mix Interiors 193 - March 2019

Mix Interiors 192

March 2019

PUREIS3 READY. SIT. GO!

Design: B4K Andreas Krob + Joachim Brüske

THREE-DIMENSIONAL SEATING EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYBODY AND EVERY SITUATION: INTERSTUHL.COM/PURE

INSIDE

70 CASE STUDY – DELOITTE

26 UPFRONT 8 Insight 15 Perspective 16 Seven 18 Point of View 20 Material Matters 22 Deser t Island Desks 24

Comprising 15 floors across 280,000 sq ft , 5,500 people and 27,000 items of furniture, Deloitte's new London HQ at 1 New Street Square is ever y bit as impressive as it sounds.

24 64

PROPERT Y REPORT 26 SPOTLIGHT 41 Profile – Yorgo Lykouria 42 Product Designer Repor t 46

ROUNDTABLE 64 CASE ST UDIES 70 Deloitte 70 CarFinance 247 78

L AST WORD 88 Criteo's Mike Walley

78

41

Upfront | Welcome

A WORD FROM MICK THE COVER The logo Our inspiration was the relationship between the design industry in the UK and Europe.

Reflected against British cities are several European capitals, from where IA delivers its projects and draws its diverse mix of staff. Against a backdrop of political change, we wanted to celebrate the ongoing bonds we have with all our colleagues, suppliers, partners and clients. www.interiorarchitects.com

The cover Set to launch at CDW 2019, Grafton is KI’s newest UK designed and manufactured seating family for colleges and higher education environments. This 3D printed prototype of its distinctive backrest shows the injection-moulded ‘perforated’ design, which will enhance comfort, flexibility and ventilation.

As you’re no doubt aware, we do like to get ‘out and about’. When pounding the streets and soaking up all that gossip and info, we know there’s one question, above all others, that we’re likely to be asked – ‘How’s the market?’

This will, of course, be followed up with several supplementary questions – such as ‘Who’s busy right now?’ and ‘How are X getting on?’ – none of which we can answer for certain.

The reason for this uncertainty is that there’s more bluff and bluster out there than there is honesty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling anyone a liar, I’m just saying that the majority of businesses, from leading design practices through to dealers

GET IN TOUCH Editor Mick Jordan mick@wearemixgroup.com Sales director Gary Williams gary@wearemixgroup.com Group director David Smalley david@wearemixgroup.com

BACK ISSUES Contact us to buy back issues: natasha@wearemixgroup.com

Designer Tammi Bell tamzin@wearemixgroup.com Group managing director Marcie Incarico marcie@wearemixgroup.com Business development manager Kate Borastero kate@wearemixgroup.com Events Georgia Bone, Ellie Fox, Natasha Nelson, Hester Talbot Founding publisher Henry Pugh

2 | Mix 192 March 2019

and manufacturers, have their own ‘corporate lines’.

I have no problem with that – other than the fact that it’s therefore nigh on impossible to gauge exactly how the market is and how company X, Y or Z are doing.

We can repeat what we hear and what we’re told – although, ironically, if we are told anything of genuine interest you can almost guarantee that it will be followed by the line, ‘…but keep that to yourself’!

So, how’s the market? Well, according to our sources, X are doing well/going under any second, Y are in deep trouble/looking to expand into Manchester/Birmingham/Glasgow and Z have all sodded off to MIPIM!

Contributors Steve Gale, David Thame Mike Walley, Nathan Lonsdale, Gary Helm Address Mix Media Limited 2 Abito 85 Greengate Manchester M3 7NA Telephone 0161 946 6262

GET YOUR OWN! To ensure that a regular copy of Mix Interiors reaches you please call 0161 946 6262 or e-mail: natasha@wearemixgroup.com Annual subscription charges UK single £45.50 Europe £135 (airmail) Outside Europe £165 (airmail)

e-mail editorial@wearemixgroup.com Website www.mixinteriors.com Twitter @mixinteriors Instagram @mix.interiors

Printed by S&G Print ISSN 1757-2371

ray c o llec tio n

ray soft The softer side of ‘Ray Collection’, ‘Ray Soft’ utilises 3 shell heights across 5 frame options, thus providing huge versatility for a wide range of settings.

While the slim profile remains, the use of closed arms offers a warm and tactile seating comfort. Coupled with an optional complimentary piping detail, ‘Ray Soft’ blends modern design with classic styling seamlessly.

w w w.brunner-uk .com

Thursday 20 June 2019 Old Billingsgate London

Thursday 20 June 2019 Old Billingsgate London Visit the website at mixology-awards.com

GET YOUR TICKETS Don’t miss out on the summer party of the year Last few tables remaining To book your tickets: www.mixology-awards.com hester@wearemixgroup.com 0161 946 6262

Upfront |

BRIGHT PICTURE FOR MIDLANDS-BASED COMPANY Last year was successful for Company Image Commercial Interiors, the Leicestershire based office interior specialist, established in 2009. Working with Above: Jonathan organisations of all sizes, Smalley, Director from SMEs to blue-chip companies, Company Image recently announced that it doubled its turnover last year, continues to deliver a greater number of large projects across the East Midlands, and is currently in recruitment mode.

Director Jonathan Smalley said: ‘It’s been an amazing time for us recently here at Company Image and that is thanks to our focus on delivering quality solutions with outstanding service. We saw a 45% increase in clients and sales in 2018 and hope for similar, if not better, results in 2019. We have many clients across the Midlands and we’re now in a fantastic place to offer a more comprehensive range of competitively priced products and services.’

Company Image’s recent projects included work with Warwick Acoustics to design and build an acoustic test chamber with very demanding requirements. ‘Projects like Warwick Acoustics show how far we’ve come in recent months,’ Jonathan added. ‘There was a lot for us to consider and take into account, but the team worked closely with the client and used all their experience to great effect.

We’re in a great place to offer bespoke solutions to any business, on time and within budget.’w

DOMINO EFFECT Global real-time game engine, Unity, is behind half of the world’s computer games. In gaming, experience is everything. Unity wanted to create a flexible, community-driven hub for its global sales teams across Europe to showcase its products and solutions in a digitally immersive, virtual reality (VR) environment.

Bringing together partners, clients and industry professionals, the workspace takes visitors on a brand journey that starts and ends with technology.

A digital concierge greets entrants and a nod to the 900-year-old game, dominos, forms a bespoke artwork that welcomes them to ‘The Home of Unity’.

This residential look and feel continues into an expansive lounge, where the M Moser team relocated product demonstration from an isolated room to become the visual centrepiece. Placing the function of the space at its heart normalises the virtual reality experience and makes it a social activity.

The client/designer collaboration was an exciting part of the project as Unity continues to

8 | Mix 192 March 2019

SOUTHERN LIGHTS AT AURORA Following its relocation to Aurora, the £62 million mixed-use development in Bristol, software developer Amdaris was keen to reflect its new brand identity within the workplace.

Employing more than 200 people globally, Amdaris envisioned a workplace that would support existing employees and future growth.

The team was also keen to actively encourage its clients and partners to work from the new space.

Interaction’s successful design and project management has resulted in a light and bright environment – one that is the perfect home for the Amdaris team and its growing client base.

As well as making a great first impression for visitors, the agile workplace is designed to accommodate various day-to-day activities with traditional working spaces, ad-hoc meeting areas and a ‘focus’ zone. Key features include an open breakout space, a hot desk area for clients and those that aren’t always in the office, and design quirks such as an on-brand moss wall and manifestations.

grow into the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) industry, broadening its appeal to the next generation of BIM technologists.

This partnership involved creating a fully interactive virtual walkthrough of the London space to showcase M Moser’s design and build capabilities and Unity’s own High Definition Render Pipeline (HDPR).

Enabling users to engage with different elements, the walkthrough features the ability to switch between day/night scenes, change textures and materials, set lighting and access BIM information.

Commenting on working with Interaction, Andy Rogers, Co-CEO of Amdaris, said: ‘We developed a very detailed and insightful plan of the vision for our office space. Being situated in a brand-new development in an open plan space gave lots of flexibility to how the space could be designed according to our brief.

‘We wanted to create a collaborative working space and an agile working environment. This meant that the space has to be well connected from a technology perspective, so that the space would work around people, rather than people having to work according to the space.

As we had a set budget, the team at Interaction worked with this effectively to make a stunning working space, within budget, without compromising on style or design.

During every stage of the development, Interaction were very attentive, right down to the day we moved in and followed up on our progress of settling into our new space.’ w

Encouraging new ways of working, visitors can now enjoy Unity’s 3D Virtual Experience in a visible, comfortable setting. M Moser considered the security of the company’s sensitive products by incorporating crosshatch glass as a design feature for visual privacy and soft curtains over clear glass.w

cage storage. surf table. 2019 rawside.co

Upfront |

OFFICE FIT-OUT FIRMS TO PAY £7 MILLION FOR BREAKING COMPETITION LAW

THANK HUGH One of our good friends – and an early supporter of Mix Inspired – is hanging up his pencil at haa design. Here are his thoughts, delivered in his usual generous manner.

‘News of my imminent demise have been grossly exaggerated,’ Hugh Anderson, MD and Chairman of haa design, says. ‘Yes, it is true that, two years on from the merger of haa design with Space Solutions, it is now time for me to step aside and let others carry the torch. However, to think that I will disappear off the face of the earth is just that, wishful thinking.

‘While I will no longer be at the helm of the haa design workplace consultancy team, I am confident that the core team, supported by others who have years of project experience behind them, will continue to challenge clients, continue to provide creative and workable solutions and will carry on spreading the gospel first proposed by Frank Duffy all those years ago. In Phil Muir, the new head of the consultancy team, there is a direct link back to DEGW. ‘Given my background as an architect, I know that the haa design name will continue to be associated with inspiring buildings. Indeed, we are currently working on proposals for buildings that will follow on from our award-winning Venture Building. My co-director, David Crowe, will be fronting all architecture and major projects work. I know the work is in safe and very capable hands.

‘On the design front, as is evident by the news item on the recent review, haa design continue to place great stock in asking the difficult questions of ourselves. Every year, around this time, the BCO shortlisted projects start to be showcased on social media. Our designers know that the challenge is out there and are eager for the next project and the next client. In 12 months time, I’d like to see more haa design and Space projects being shortlisted for BCO awards. ‘haa design worked (and works) best when the team was integrated and remembered that buildings are for users. Long may this continue!’

Good luck for the future Hugh.w

10 | Mix 192 March 2019

We knew something was ‘breaking’ when, in the middle of a Monday morning editorial meeting, our phones started buzzing, signalling that messages of various kinds were flooding in. Taking a break from said meeting, we saw that the vast majority of the messages were from our ‘feet on the ground’ and ‘eyes in the sky’, telling us to take a look at a story on gov.uk.

The story stated that five fit-out companies – Fourfront, Loop, Coriolis, ThirdWay and Oakley – have agreed to pay fines totalling over £7 million after admitting being involved in cartel behaviour.

The gov.uk story went on to say that, following a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation, each company has admitted to breaking competition law at least once during the period of 2006-2017, in some cases on multiple occasions.

Each company has admitted to participating in ‘cover bidding’ in competitive tenders, colluding on the prices they would bid for contracts. Typically, cover bidding involves companies agreeing with each other to place bids that are deliberately intended to lose the contract, thereby reducing the intensity of competition. This type of illegal behaviour can lead to customers paying an artificially inflated price or receiving poorer quality services.

These cover bids affected 14 contracts with a variety of customers, ranging from a city law firm to a further education college.

The five companies have formally admitted that their actions constituted a breach of competition

law. They have therefore agreed to pay the following fines that reflect a number of factors including the companies’ size and financial position, and their role in the cartel behaviour: • Fourfront has agreed to pay £4,143,304 • Loop has agreed to pay £1,090,816 • Coriolis has agreed to pay £7,735 • ThirdWay has agreed to pay £1,780,703 • Oakley has agreed to pay £58,558 Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive, said: ‘The CMA is concerned it is seeing a lot of evidence of anti-competitive conduct in the construction industry, and we have already taken a number of cases in this sector. Today’s fines reinforce the message that the CMA will not tolerate competition law being broken.

‘The CMA runs a Leniency Programme to encourage businesses and individuals to come forward with information about their involvement in a cartel. ‘Businesses which come forward and co-operate with the CMA may be granted immunity from penalties or a significant reduction. In this case, JLL brought information about the conduct to the CMA’s attention and, in accordance with the CMA’s Leniency Programme, will therefore not receive a fine. Under the Leniency Programme, Loop will receive a 25% discount to its fine for coming forward with information about its participation in the cartel behaviour, and cooperating with the CMA.’ Hmmm, interesting stuff. Let’s hope this is little more than a blip. w

OFFICE PROPERTY IN 2017: THE TRENDS YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND You couldn’t make it to snow-bound Davos, and the MIPIM property convention in Cannes isn’t your tasse du thé? So Mix has the answer. In this first annual State of the Office Market report we provide up-close analysis by some of the industry’s top names: the kind of inside information you’d have to schmooze the Croisette at Cannes, or haunt the apres-ski in Davos, to get to hear.

And what is the inside track? The office market is tight, and getting tighter, and that means downstream costs like fit-outs and furniture could be under conflicting pressures.

To read the Property Report, see page 30.w

Landmark Office, Manchester

ACTIVE CHOICE. DYNAMIC CONTROL.

BOSSDESIGN.COM

PURE JOY Some of the Mix team were recently able to let their hair down and enjoy the Interstuhl PUREIS3 UK product launch at the seating leader’s Clerkenwell showroom.

The reason we say ‘some’ is that our events colleagues were still very much on duty at the Brewhouse Yard space, organising what proved to be a fantastic evening, with drinks flowing, delicious food served and cool tunes provided by the brilliant DJ Annie.

Speaking of brilliance, the innovative PUREIS3 swivel chair, which we first saw at last year’s Orgatec, supports the user's movements in all directions. This 360-degree manoeuvrability is

For a workstation that is surprisingly comfortable Complement your working environment with ergonomic accessories for computer workplaces. www.dataflex-int.com

all down to a new and unique material. The special composition of polyamide and glass fibre has been meticulously developed and extensively tested by Interstuhl. The outcome is that PUREIS3 is a dynamic and agile chair that adapts intuitively to anyone who sits on it. The chair’s absence of a mechanism and further adjustments, as well as its intelligent materiality, make it an all-rounder that is suitable for everyone and every situation.

Well done to our events colleagues for delivering such a slick, enjoyable event – and massive thanks to our friends at Interstuhl for their wonderful hospitality. It’s also a very good chair – pure and simple.w

FEELING INSPIRED? Panellists Mark Bott (Colliers), Katrina Larkin (Fora), Stewart Whiting (Storey) and Tim Yendell (RBS) joined us for a truly insightful MixInspired, sponsored by Arper and Milliken, at The Milliken Showroom in Clerkenwell on 20 March where we debated 'Coworking – are we at the beginning, middle or end?' Check out the next issue for the full write-up. Meanwhile, if you're in A&D, D&B or property, register for your free place at the forthcoming MixInspired sessions taking place Manchester on 3 July, London on 17 September and Manchester on 4 December at www.mixinspired.com w

Upfront |

BRUNTWOOD WORKS LAUNCHES CUSTOMER-FOCUSED TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME Refurb and renovation is the subject covered in most meetings with the Mix team and, to prove the point, here is more evidence in Manchester.

Rooftop gardens at Blackfriars and a stunning new art and exhibition space at 111 Piccadilly are among the inspirational new renovations being carried out by Bruntwood Works as part of a £50m transformation project.

The work is the first phase of a major programme of activity to transform a number of its buildings across the North and Midlands. The first three buildings to receive a major renovation include the aforementioned 111 Piccadilly and Blackfriars in Manchester, and Cornwall Buildings in Birmingham, with work scheduled to start in June.

The programme will then be rolled out on a wider basis across Bruntwood Works’ regional portfolio, which consists of £937 million of assets across Manchester, Cheshire, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham.

Focused on providing innovative environments with ‘wow’ factor, the programme centres on

enhancing six key themes across its buildings; from technology and sustainability, to biophilia, wellbeing, amenity and art.

The programme will also evolve Bruntwood Works’ commitment to creating connected communities within its regions, by encouraging customers to access new facilities and collaborate with like-minded businesses across neighbouring buildings. This will support Bruntwood’s recent pledge to the Green Building Council’s Net Zero Carbon Commitment to make new buildings net zero carbon emitting by 2030 and old buildings the same by 2050.

111 Piccadilly will undergo a major transformation, co-ordinated by architect 3DReid.

A new café and lounge will be introduced on the ground floor, as well as exhibition and event space. A sculptured ‘gem’ working area will be incorporated, providing a stunning art and seating space for customers.

Exciting changes at Blackfriars include a rooftop restaurant and bar featuring panoramic

views across the city. Designed by MgMaStudio Architecture, the rooftop garden will be filled with flowing meadows and flowers, as well as uniquely designed seating, lighting and shelter incorporated.

Cornwall Buildings in Birmingham will also undergo a significant facelift, including a new reception with breakout areas and collaborative coworking spaces, in addition to an in-house barista coffee station at the centre to encourage colleagues to come together.

Ciara Keeling, CEO of Bruntwood Works, said: ‘This is just the start of an exciting period of growth for Bruntwood Works. We have a long history of developing inspirational workspaces and have always sought to disrupt the market through constant innovation of our customer proposition.

This investment will ensure our customers continue to have exciting, innovative and inspirational spaces in which to work and socialise – spaces that not only create incredible environments and communities for our customers to thrive in, but also support the attraction of talent, productivity and wellbeing..’w

HUMAN CENTRIC NoChintz was appointed by Cert Property to refresh the communal areas and exterior of a forgotten building in Liverpool’s business district. The Manchester firm was tasked with breathing new life into the space, enabling it to attract new tenants.

A premium and cohesive entrance to Centric House has been brought to life through a vibrant brand application, which plays off the existing architecture.

Modular furniture, a refined material palette and a playful

wayfinding strategy allow the building to become a bold platform for businesses to create a home within Centric House.

Challenging what is expected of a workplace reception by bringing hospitality and retail considerations forwards to reinvent the space, a relaxed atmosphere is created with modular furniture breaking down the relationship between receptionist and visitor.

This considered scheme has gone beyond the original brief.

An opportunity to cowork and relax adds a sense of community to the reception, enabling the beginnings of a new Centric House network.w

Above NoChintz – Centric House Interiors

Mix 192 March 2019 | 13

Upfront |

MARINE HABITAT

FINN TECH Office Blueprint will be introducing Naava’s revolutionary green walls to the UK market this Spring. Naava, the Finnish health technology company, are to partner with Office Blueprint to bring Naava Green Walls to the UK. Forward-thinking companies are looking for new solutions to create healthier environments for their employees, while wellbeing is at the forefront of workplace thinking. Air quality is often left at the bottom of the list of elements to improve, despite the fact that most central business districts suffer from extremely poor air quality.

Naava is a unique piece of smart furniture that combines nature and technology to naturalise indoor air, reducing harmful chemicals and optimising humidity. Following a series of tests and studies, the proven effect of working in the vicinity of a Naava Green Wall include a reduction in illness, less fatigue and improved cognitive performance.

Naava has designed an effective and stylish indoor vertical planter that houses beautiful green leaved plants, specified for their non-allergen properties and their high performance biophilic air purification.

However, Naava is not just another living wall – it is an intelligent piece of furniture, with functions driven by technology. A remote system monitors Naava around the clock, utilising AI to analyse the environment and directing the Green Wall’s functions accordingly, whilst communicating the precise condition of the plants with a service team, who intermittently visit to manage any needs. The in-built lighting system replicates natural daylight, providing the plants with a steady supply of light and fading out each evening to allow the plants to ‘sleep’ overnight.w

T: 0161 402 3340 W: www.opus-4.com E: hello@opus-4.com

14 | Mix 192 March 2019

The new headquarters for the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO), based in Taunton, provides a unique and inspiring office building for one of the world’s leading marine geospatial information agencies.

A design team, consisting of architects AHR, engineers Hydrock, cost consultant Mace and main contractor BAM, collaborated on the 11,000 sq m building, providing the organisation with a bespoke headquarters that includes high spec office space, staff restaurant, gym and meeting facilities.

The project represents a cultural shift within UKHO’s way of working, prioritising collaborative and agile workspaces for the 850 staff. The brief was for a building that cultivates collaboration and provides a modern way of working with the ability to accommodate future business needs.

Arranged around a dramatic 800 sq m atrium, the building accommodates 700 desks across flexible floorplates, which are broken down into 10 smaller neighbourhoods, with a range of work settings including team tables, scrum areas, height adjustable desks and quiet work zones.

Adam Spall, Regional Director at AHR, said: ‘The UKHO’s aspiration was for a ‘one team’ culture. Our design for the new headquarters has accomplished this through the use of generous staircases, open balconies and wide bridges, which create physical and visual connection between all parts of the building, resulting in an

Above UKHO Headquarters

impressive sense of openness for such a large facility.’

The design concept took inspiration from the hydrographic office’s work, following the theme of ‘Seabed to Surface’ with images of strata, contours and water currents influencing the aesthetic design throughout.

The UKHO’s Jo Funnell said: ‘I am delighted with the outcome of the project and the standard of the building. The collaboration between all parties has been the key to the project’s success.

The new environment will support smarter ways of working at the UKHO, using new technology and modern office practices, which is hugely exciting for our business. The design and quality of the building is something we can all be very proud of having delivered in Taunton..’w

SMART MOVE Benjamin Hubert of strategic design agency LAYER has designed Move, a prototype of a new concept for economy class seating for Airbus, driven by smart textiles. The use of smart textiles enables passengers to monitor and control various factors – including seat tension and temperature – using the Move app, also designed by LAYER. The concept encourages passengers to move throughout the flight, improving passenger comfort and safety. The lightweight, adaptable

seat structure reduces the on-board weight of the aircraft, resulting in significant fuel savings and a greener approach to flying. The Move concept was 18 months in development and is part of an ongoing relationship between LAYER and Airbus dedicated to rethinking the flying experience.

Move is designed to improve the experience of economy class short- to mid-haul flying. The prototype comprises a lightweight perforated composite frame with a knitted, one-piece sling seat suspended over it. This innovative seat cover is digitally knitted to form a smart textile with integrated conductive yarn and connected to a series of sensors and the Move app. This forms a holistic system that allows passengers to measure and control variables – including temperature, seat tension, pressure and movement – to enable users to easily and intuitively maintain their comfort. Clever stuff!w

Upfront | Insight

REDISCOVERING OUR PURPOSE - PART 1 In the first of a new series of insights, Spacelab Founding Partner Nathan Lonsdale takes a frank and honest look at how he and the team were working – and how he realised that a healthy bank balance wasn’t the be all and end all.

H

ow long do you usually spend at work each day and why? In 2016, we were in the office for 9.8 hours each day, on average. That’s a 49-hour working week as standard. And some of us were regularly smashing 60 hours, not including grafting away from the office or at home. That seemed normal.

We were a successful interior architecture practice in London with 65 designers, researchers and support team members. Work was pouring in, and the bank manager was happy.

I kept saying, ‘brilliant, another new client!’. I was so busy trying to control everything and hunting new clients that I couldn’t see what was happening around me. People were working long hours because they felt they had to, not because they wanted to. We were busy being busy, instead of being creative. Somewhere in the whirlwind, we’d lost our reason for being.

Getting back to our roots Some 16 years earlier, when my co-founder Andy (Budgen) and I talked about what we wanted to achieve (usually over a pint or two), it was always about changing the world. We knew how powerful a well-designed space could be and that if we got it right, we could improve people’s lives.

We wanted to be different, to shake things up.

To build from the inside out, putting people first. I remember peers looking at us like we were from another planet when we started talking about data and evidence-based design. Nevertheless, our approach has served us and, more importantly, the people are using our spaces very well.

Ironically, as we grew by creating space for others, we forgot to keep any for ourselves. Not physical space, but space for creativity, thinking and learning. We got caught up in the constant race to be the biggest, rather than the best. Focusing on profit, not on purpose.

I was mostly to blame for this, as Andy had been concentrating on UrbanLab, our development

We were busy being busy, instead of being creative.

Somewhere in the whirlwind, we’d lost our reason for being

company. This was painful to realise, but it made me open my eyes. We had to make a choice. Should we keep growing to 80, 90, 100 people, and concentrate on building a larger studio – or stop and re-think?

We asked the team what they wanted to get out of work and life. Just like Andy and I in the beginning, they spoke about creating amazing spaces that they were proud of, making a difference for communities and being part of something positive. No one mentioned money – but I’ve always believed that if you do things the right way in business, the rewards will follow.

Since we found these common goals, we’ve reinvigorated our work and our culture.

is helping us to create and collaborate like never before. Exploring and experiencing spaces in such an immersive way, as designs develop, has opened our minds and hugely increased stakeholder engagement. We’re able to challenge and stretch people’s imaginations with bold new ideas, which can be thoroughly tested in VR remotely from anywhere in the world!

We’ve invested even more in research, like looking at how personality type links to space preferences, so we can tailor designs even more specifically. We’ve also made everything we do completely transparent, using tools like Trello (a handy task management app), to keep everyone up to date and involved.

Yes, doing more to understand a client’s needs and collaborating every step of the way can take longer, but this has undoubtedly led to us designing even more amazing spaces. Isn’t that what it’s all about? We think it is, and now we only take on work where we can make a difference. w Look out for part 2 in the April issue of Mix.

Ripping up the rule book One day when I looked around the office and saw everyone working, on 2D plans, I suddenly asked myself ‘why?’. Because the industry dictated that we should still be working the way everyone always has done – back when there was no technology.

The whole RIBA process is archaic and doesn’t focus enough on how people will actually use space. It certainly doesn’t enable outstanding interior design in the 21st century. So, we’ve ripped up the rulebook and developed our own way.

Rather than deliberately keeping clients at arms’ length, we’ve made changes that help us to work even more closely and openly with the people we’re designing for. We’ve experimented with the latest technology and, as a result, Virtual Reality (VR)

Mix 192 March 2019 | 15

Upfront | Perspective

PERSPECTIVE Stewart Whiting is Head of Product at Storey, the flexible workspace brand from UK commercial property company, British Land. With 10 years’ experience creating flexible workplaces and coworking locations, Stewart makes sure Storey spaces and services work brilliantly for customers. Involved in several successful start-ups in London, he understands the fast-changing needs of growing businesses and their teams.

In simple terms, what is Storey?

Storey is a flexible workspace business designed for scale-up companies, special project teams and satellite offices. Launched in 2017 as British Land’s flexible workspace brand, Storey provides an innovative alternative to taking a conventional lease for businesses seeking their own space, on flexible terms, that is managed on their behalf. Storey operates within British Land’s existing London assets, which have a critical mass of office customers and offer the ideal environment for ambitious organisations looking to grow.

What is the ‘sweet spot’ in terms of size of business you are looking to attract? Storey appeals to a whole generation of scale-up businesses that have reached a point where they want to focus on building their own culture and identity while retaining flexibility to expand or contract.

Storey also attracts existing, larger office customers seeking shorter term space for special project teams (on top of their core requirements) and multi-nationals setting up satellite offices in London. A great example of how Storey has facilitated scale-up businesses is our ongoing work with WiredScore, the company behind Wired Certification, the international digital connectivity rating system for commercial office buildings, which moved to Storey in 2017. Since then we have worked with them to increase their workspace at British Land’s Broadgate campus, recently facilitating their expansion into another building within our portfolio.

16 | Mix 192 March 2019

We have also worked with connected vehicle technology innovator, Tantalum, building them space to help with a temporary expansion, and reducing their capacity after part of the business moved to a new market abroad.

What is your role at Storey?

As Head of Product at Storey, I’m responsible for creating a platform that enables our customers’ workplaces to be flexible to their needs while representing their different brands and cultures. This involves thinking about how the physical framework of our buildings facilitate growth and adaptability and how the services and technology can improve productivity and create a unique workplace experience.

What are the biggest challenges you and your team face? They key challenge is finding the optimum mix of flexibility and personalisation.

Storey is unique because we offer our customers both the flexibility and ease of the coworking model, with the sense of independence of a conventional lease. While we’ve learned from both worlds as well as from our customers, finding the right balance and achieving both is complex. The short feedback loop means we’re constantly learning and improving.

What skill or expertise have you been able to utilise from your previous role? I started in the flexible workspace industry in 2007, working for a leading

operator, heading up product and business development. Close relationships with customers helped me understand how companies needs change as they grow and the challenges they face when they naturally move on to conventional lease space. These insights were invaluable when we created Storey.

I also ran a furniture business, facilitating the reuse of original 20th century furniture in commercial projects. It became apparent just how much old, unused furniture had been discarded and was being stored in warehouses, despite some pieces still feeling and looking current. It made me think a lot about our responsibility to design durable, timeless spaces and to avoid unnecessary waste.

I also did a short stint working for a friend’s band as tour manager. I was always struck by how rewarding it felt to play a part in creating experiences that made people happy. We constantly challenge the team to bring this feeling into the workplace, where many of us spend most of our time.

What is the one thing that you would change when working with architects and designers?

Close collaboration with our team of architects and designers has been instrumental in Storey’s success to date. Working together has helped us champion innovation, creativity, sustainability and flexibility for businesses, all of which make the Storey offering so unique. Alongside the architects and designers, we have teams looking at service design, technology and experience. Due to

Above: Storey space at 338 Euston Road

the frameworks in which we work, these disciplines can sometimes become too siloed. Finding time and space to work together as one larger team would only have benefits.

Are clients becoming more knowledgeable and therefore more challenging? This is an exciting time.

We are seeing a whole generation of small businesses that have grown up in coworking spaces and are now becoming scale-up businesses with the potential to be a big business of the future. They are moving to Storey because they want their workplace to be more cohesive with their values but do not want to take on the admin and extra resource that is required when taking a conventional lease. British Land is responding to them with Storey. from within their existing London campuses, which already have a critical mass of office customers, has enabled us to cater for companies of all sizes and mindsets. w

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Upfront | Seven

1

2 SEVEN Birmingham

Classics

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In the month that one of the champions of Midlands manufacturing died, it seems apt to look back at some of the well-known brands to come out of Birmingham. Kumar Bhattacharyya is a prime example. He moved to Britain in 1961 and challenged the norm by helping bridge the gap between academia and manufacturing businesses. He founded the Warwick Manufacturing Group - now a world leader in cutting-edge manufacturing research. Birmingham furniture manufacturer Rigg is surrounded by a rich history of making design classics. Director Kevin White reminds us of a few here.

1. Mini Cooper This was the first car for many people of a certain generation. 2019 is a big year for the Mini and its followers as it celebrates turning 60 years young – and is marking this auspicious occasion with the release of the Mini 60 Years Edition. For now, just look at the picture, reminisce and enjoy.

2. PEL Chair The austere sounding name of Practical Equipment Ltd doesn’t do justice to some of the modernist designs to come out of this Oldbury manufacturer.

Known later simply as PEL, the company manufactured on a huge scale, some design classics such as the PEL stacking chair. The simple, functional bent tubular frame was durable and definitely 'practical'. Their products were ubiquitous, appearing in church halls to posh houses. Working with famous designers of the time, including Serge Chermayeff and Wells Coates, they had much success in the commercial market. Alas, the company is no more… but thanks to huge numbers being made, we can still enjoy them today.

3. Bird's Custard Partners often ask many things of us, but the desire for egg-free custard probably isn’t all that common.

Long before the recent vegan trend, a Mr Bird of

18 | Mix 192 March 2019

Birmingham found himself in this position. Keen to please his wife, he developed a recipe, which not only pleased her but also guests to their home.

Being a keen Victorian type of guy, he developed the recipe into the familiar product with its distinctive red, yellow and blue packaging. The factory is now home to the Custard Factory Arts and Business Centre in Birmingham.

4. Brooks Saddle When John Boultbee Brooks arrived in Birmingham in 1866, he was about to embark on a business that would eventually bring us this classic design.

High quality materials and a sound design won favour with buyers and firmly established the company as leading saddle makers. The aesthetic of the 'B66CH' from 1929 is still familiar to us today.

Brooks still manufacture high quality bicycle accessories in Smethwick.

5. Best & Lloyd 'Bestlite' It is very easy to think of a common design style or genre as being so 'obvious'. However, we should remember that perhaps the 'obviousness' only comes with familiarity. When Best & Lloyd of Birmingham first brought out their range of desk lamps, they were something fresh and exciting.

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6. Land Rover At the heart of UK car design and production, it was inevitable that more than one automotive great would come out of the Midlands. Simple in form, easy to maintain and very definite in purpose, the Land Rover became the workhorse of many an agricultural business. Like the Mini and other classic designs, you can imagine it in a wide variety of situations, from a modest farm to the rural transport of landed gentry.

7. The Mellotron Imagine that you wanted to make a musical sampler keyboard in the 1960s. With microelectronics in its infancy, how on earth would you do this?

The answer: use loads of strips of recording tape to store sounds, which are then played when you press a key. It sounds a bit bonkers nowadays, but that is just how this instrument works. Les Bradley of tape engineering company Bradmatic (genius name) improved on existing ideas and sold their machine to numerous bands of the day, including the Beatles. You can still get one of these beauties from Birmingham company Streetly Electronics.

Upfront |

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INTERWOVEN VINYL FLOORING Mix 192 March 2019 | 19

Upfront | Point of View

NUMEROPHOBIA This month, M Moser's Steve Gale makes the case for more maths.

It's really difficult, so we guess, and apply specious rules of thumb handed down in design standards with biblical reverence.

Steve Gale is Head of Business Intelligence at M Moser Associates. SteveG@mmoser.com

20 | Mix 192 March 2019

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he creative industry is light on people good with numbers. The two don’t seem to go together – you go one way or the other.

Why be an accountant when you could be having fun designing stuff? There is truth in designers not liking numbers.

Does this matter? Who cares if your architect can’t do long division? We are paid for ideas, images, synthesis and innovation. To hell with your engineering calculations – computers do that, right?

Wrong. But that’s not really the point. The understanding of numbers and what they say is central to every creative activity, it’s just that we can usually separate it into a separate discipline for others to do. The division of labour enables us to play to our strengths, so volumes, rates of change, distribution curves and binomials go into the engineering box.

I have recently been forced to face some demons in my number-light world, and the demons can be found in every brief that is written.

In any commercial building we calculate how many desks the business needs, the size and number of meeting rooms, the number of people actively using a building during the day, and the demand for simple hospitality, like coffee in the morning. This seems like simply adding up, it’s not real maths, it’s arithmetic – sums. God, I wish it were that simple.

The numbers needed to define a simple office scheme are riddled with problems, but they rarely get interrogated by our dear clients, or worse, by us, the number generators. Here’s some examples described in three orders of complexity.

First order is the deceptively straightforward issue of headcount. As a cornerstone of any commercial brief it is often hopelessly unreliable.

It wobbles around the numbers of employees, contractors and visitors, modified by secondments, travellers, absentees and job shares, and further fogged by its place in time, which oscillates

during the day, and needs to be placed in the unpredictable future – and quite a distant future, not just day one of occupation. This makes for big error bars – fuzziness, in other words.

The next order of complexity is the way we estimate things like the number of desks needed for this inaccurate number of people, especially a group of agile workers who are not around all the time. When we agree that a desk for every person is a waste of money and space, what is the right or optimum number?

This is a simple statistical challenge, but do we draw a distribution curve and calculate the standard deviation and report the result that satisfies 95% of events? Do we report degrees of confidence in our numbers? Obviously, we only do this very, very rarely, or in my experience, never.

Finally, a really difficult area is estimating things like meeting rooms for a business. These expensive, space-consuming, light-blocking blobs are vital, but the way we calculate their number and size is opaque. I have never heard a client say they have got it right, so it’s very fertile ground for improvement – but it’s really difficult, so we guess, and apply specious rules of thumb handed down in design standards with biblical reverence.

Well worn paths exist to resolve these problems.

Airlines predict flight frequencies and plane sizes, hotels calculate room numbers and prices, and they do not ever guess. They use mathematics and statistics for modelling, tweaking and testing over time, getting better each day, to stay in business.

Where is this rigour in our briefing routines? Is our guesswork so refined that it’s now 'good enough'? I do not believe it is anywhere near good enough.

This is not original thinking. Other industries build algorithms to test and improve their output, on a daily basis. Basic design needs a numerate heart transplant, or more people with a numerate heart to help make these core decisions. Find these people and keep them close.w

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Upfront | Material Matters

MATERIAL

MATTERS

In this month’s Material Matters, the team of experts at Material Lab explore sustainable materials inspired by nature. www.material-lab.co.uk

Surface designer Sam Lander creates unique furniture from recycled polystyrene Sourcing 100% waste polystyrene packaging from commercial outlets, Sam has discovered the amount of polystyrene that businesses discard on a day to day basis.

The material is melted down in a chemical, which splits up the long chain of molecules in polystyrene, causing a physical reaction to take place. This transforms the material’s state from an air packed solid into a dense liquid form, allowing for a kneading process, facilitating the chemical evaporation into the atmosphere.

As the material is very malleable in this altered state, it can be formed into various types of furniture but always reacts in different ways, creating a bespoke organic aesthetic.

Each layer goes through a process of evaporation/compression and the polystyrene is layered up like a ‘ply’ to create a stronger structural material.

Bonding the material is easy as it becomes almost like glue when its chain of molecules have been broken up. sam-lander@live.co.uk

22 | Mix 192 March 2019

Mayfair Granite introduce Calacatta Quartz White Calacatta Quartz is a stunning addition to the Mayfair Granite quartz collection. Ideal for worksurfaces in any environment, White Calacatta offers the natural beauty and sophistication of marble but with the durability of quartz.

Perfectly suited to modern living, quartz repels stains with ease and offers high resistance to scorches and scratches. This makes it an idea alternative for residential and commercial projects alike. www.mayfairgranite.co.uk/

Sourced from household waste, Megan Swancott explores the idea of Future Mining Fascinated by future materials, Megan has speculated on not only what these might look like, but what they will be composed of. Waste from Megan’s daily beauty routine and general household waste have been incorporated into her work to illustrate an idea of what the earth’s crust could look like in the future.

Following the trend of ‘Future Mining’ and the era of Anthropocene that we are entering into, Megan has created a collection that illustrates how our waste and heavy use of plastic-based objects could affect our earth’s future.

The collection is made up of layers of coloured concrete, resin and plastic waste. The waste is cast into the resin layer and then placed between layers of concrete. megans_design@outlook.com

modulyss draws inspiration from biophilia with Dawn Dawn, from carpet tile manufacturers, modulyss, embraces the shifting and muting atmospheres of our galaxy with a radiating biophilic design. The organic patterned carpet tile, composed of regenerated ECONYL yarns, evokes an organic marble effect that lifts any commercial space.

Dawn can be used in conjunction with sister range, Dusk, enabling designers to create a bespoke interior that is honed to the desired specification. www.modulyss.com

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Upfront | Desert Island Desks

DESERT ISLAND DESKS Jenny Hill, Founder, ingo interiors Previously a set designer for the hit soap Hollyoaks, Jenny is the Founder and Director of ingo interiors, a successful commercial interior design studio, specialising in agile and flexible working office schemes. Jenny's designs aim to improve the overall wellbeing of staff, with the added benefits of increasing the efficiency and productivity of the company involved. This approach recently won ingo interiors an award at December's Mixology North awards.

24 | Mix 192 March 2019

BUFFALO TRACE WHISKEY

1968 FORD MUSTANG

I was once lucky enough to go on a tour with Shaw Contact Group in America, where we had a pitstop in Tennessee. As a lifelong fan of Jack Daniel's, I decided to see what else was out there and embarked on a mission to find a new bourbon – and Buffalo Trace was IT! It could keep me warm in the evenings on the Island!!

I would go stir crazy sitting around on an island all the time, and I love driving for fun. I’ve done 120 mph in an open-top Aston Martin DB9 on a race track before. My grandad used to work for Ford and I’ve just always loved the design and look of this car – imagine exploring an island in one of these!

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Original late 1950’s onwards stories of Paddington Bear! Believe it or not, I am actually a big reader and have already read six (mostly crime fiction!) this year – an achievement with a 19-month-old daughter!

But my mum gave me typewritten copies of these when I was a teenager and they were surprisingly brilliant. Complete childish escapism!

My fiance asked me recently what I would eat if I could only have one meal for the rest of my life – and I instantly said it would be my version of Nigel Slater’s Thai Green Curry. I’m obsessed with it and everyone who has been for dinner at our house has had it! These plants and spices would be a luxury addition when I cook up all my foraged meals!

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NOTEBOOK AND PENS I adore stationary! Some may not consider stationary to be a luxury item, but the more decadent, quirky or pretty the notebooks or pens, the better to me!

I could not sit on a beautiful island and not sketch and write down what I see and my thoughts...all that time to draw and write – bliss!

DUVET I love sleep and totally embrace the whole concept of hygge! I couldn’t imagine trying to make do with anything scavenged off the island, even in the hottest of climates!

TRACKS FOR THE JUKEBOX: 1. Green Day – She. Green Day are ‘MY’ band! Any track really! I’ve followed them since I was 16 and seen them four times, once whilst pregnant...and yes, I was in the standing section!

2. Linkin Park – Bleed It Out. This is my ‘play and sing at the top of my lungs in my car’ songs...perfect for cruising in the Mustang with no one to frighten but the wildlife!

3. Metallica – Enter Sandman. Definitely going to be scaring that wildlife! Saw them live in Manchester in 2017 in our year of gigs (we did Iron Maiden in Liverpool too!).

4. Third Eye Blind – Semi Charmed Life. Lyrics are a little suspect but this was my go-to singalong song at 18!

5. The Who – Pinball Wizard. This is my dad’s song and I inherited a love for it!

6. Bryan Adams – Summer of 69. A curve ball of cheese for my last choice. This reminds me of my brother, sister and me on a dancefloor... and everyone needs a boogie on a tropical island, surely!

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Upfront | Property Report

THE PROPERTY

REPORT

T

he office property market is a huge, complex machine.

Money, lots of it, goes in one end. The office market accounts for the lion’s share of the £55-60 billion a year that goes into UK commercial real estate, and much of it is overseas. Out of the other end, the market extrudes new and refurbished office buildings. But the complex mechanism between money and office building is far from clear. Subtle shifts in the internal dynamics can lead to wild swings in the output of new and refurbished floorspace.

Our annual property report gives a unique and up-to-the-minute view from key protagonists, from right across the commercial property spectrum.

26 | Mix 192 March 2019

The Big Money Investor: Barings The Barings name is resonant: it suggests old money and big international interests. Today Barings Real Estate, part of Barings LLC, is one of the world’s largest diversified real estate investment managers. The overall Barings empire manages £250 billion or more – these people are serious players. In the UK office market, their holdings are more modest, but growing, valued at around £350 million, excluding the 180,000 sq ft Landmark speculative office scheme currently under construction in Manchester.

Ian Mayhew is Managing Director, Real Estate Asset Management at Barings. He says that, in common with many of the industry’s moneybags, they are thinking more closely than ever about office design.

‘We have always been selective in what we buy into, but on the other hand we are never not in the market – we are always looking for opportunities where schemes have been mispriced, or our skills can address issues that might have affected value,’ he says.

Those value issues centre on what Mayhew calls the ‘touchy-feely’ design agenda. More light, cool use of older buildings…these are what Barings likes to do. Roof terraces at 220 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, are a case in point. ‘It’s the kind of edge that occupiers want,’ he says.

Barings may have billions in reserve, but like all seriously monied operations they are very good at minding the pounds and pence: the Glasgow refit came in at £250,000, roughly equivalent to half a year’s rental income on the building, which in property investor terms makes them super-efficient.

But beware of making generalities about players like Barings. They act for a large number of funds and wealthy investors, some of them in-house funds, and not all of those funds are keen on risk.

‘What we do depends in the end on what the client we are acting for wants. Some want core office markets, stable but with lower returns and lower risk, others want value-adding opportunities with greater risk, like we have at the speculative Landmark development,’ says Ian.

Left Landmark Office, Manchester Below Landmark View, Manchester Bottom Landmark Reception, Manchester

Upfront | Property Report

The Canny Regional Investor: M7 M7 Real Estate is a pan-European investor and asset manager specialised in multi-let properties, whether these are office blocks or industrial parks. M7 manages a portfolio of c.1,400 assets, comprising 115 million sq ft of GLA, with a capital value of €8.1 billion. And in the UK they like to buy in the regions. Indeed, one of their main rules-ofthumb is not to buy in London, which they think is overpriced.

What they want is regional office blocks to buy – and that is exactly what they are not getting.

M7 Director and Head of UK Real Estate, John Murnaghan, explains: ‘Owners are not under any pressure to sell, because the banks are not enforcing loan covenants (which indicate that a loan ought to be a certain per cent of the value of the building) and institutions have no large queue of people wanting their money back. That’s because everyone is waiting for Brexit, so the normal churn of the market, the normal supply of buildings to buy, isn’t there.’

When they do buy, M7 have a very simple rule: pay less for the building than the cost of replacing it from scratch. Not only does it mean they have almost automatically made a profit, but it means nobody else is going to build new blocks, which would compete for tenants with their own (because it would make no financial sense).

Having bought, M7 refurbishes. ‘Regional office refurbishments have been getting more expensive. When the rent is £10-20 a sq ft, a decent refurbishment will cost £30 a sq ft, so you are basically sacrificing 18-24 months rent,’ says John.

That’s a big cost, relatively speaking, but John insists it is now necessary in the regional office markets. ‘The old adage used to be keep it as simple as possible, a clean bright space, whitewashed walls, which offend no one – but not any more in the UK’s regions, even with lower-cost floorspace. You need a more contemporary look, and amenities like showers, cycle storage, gyms – that’s a huge factor. It isn’t so much more expensive for us, but it does take more time thinking about what lighting we need, what kind of art we need on the walls,’ he says.

28 | Mix 192 March 2019

The International Investor: Ekistics Exchange Quay is one of the largest office developments in the North West: 3,000 people working from the six buildings in Salford Quays. But this little piece of Salford is controlled from Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, thanks to Ekistics and their partners.

Speaking exclusive to Mix, Ekistics analyst Mantvydas Janciauskas says cross-border investment is, more than ever, driven by the wellness and workplace trends that matter to occupiers. And that means amenity, fitout and styling.

Companies renting office space these days are

Above and below: ICE , Exchange Quay, Salford Quays

increasingly aware of the connection between location and business impact, particularly as it relates to their HR strategies

‘Today, an increased focus is being placed by companies on attracting and retaining talent within their work pool – particularly as we move increasingly towards a knowledgebased economy with a highly sought-after and, at the same time, increasingly flexible workforce,’ he says. ‘In this context we, as property owners, observe that the quality of both physical workspaces, as well as the environments in which these are located, are growing in significance. Companies renting office space these days are increasingly aware of the connection between location and business impact, particularly as it relates to their HR strategies.’

As a result, Ekistics’ strategy is focussed on delivering what occupiers need. ‘We want to help them by creating and providing attractive, cost-efficient office space that combines both a high physical quality and a high ‘feel-good factor’ in the shape of strong and attractive amenities, social activities and community building,’ Mantvydas says.

MAKING SPACES INTO CONNECTED PLACES www.forbo-flooring.co.uk/tesseranexus

creating better environments

Upfront | Property Report

The Regional Broker: OBI There is alchemy in the work of the regional office brokerage businesses. Thanks to their close relationship to local landowners, developers, funders and office occupiers, they are often best placed to bring together the ingredients that produce new office floorspace. They also know what has worked and what hasn’t worked in their market at the granular level of sites and streets – outsiders struggle to acquire that kind of textured grasp of what’s going on.

OBI is one of the largest independent regional brokers in the UK, with its feet firmly planted in Manchester’s boom office market. Last year OBI was responsible for 42% of total workspace space transacted, which included 102 new lettings, equating to 726,943 sq ft, including Booking.com, who took 225,000 sq ft and was the largest letting in Manchester city centre for 16 years.

They also project manage office schemes, the latest being the phased refurbishment of Lancaster Buildings, Manchester, on behalf of BCL Legal.

Paul Mills, transactions and asset management specialist at OBI, says he expects a lot more flexible workspace to be delivered during 2019.

‘We expect this sector to grow further in the city in 2019 as operators look to capitalise on the workplace revolution taking place. These designled managed workspace schemes have become increasingly advanced,’ he says.

‘The challenge facing landlords and developers is how they adapt their conventional leasing and development/refurbishment approach of their assets to meet this new demand. A number of landlords within Manchester city centre have realised that the ability to provide a range of workspace solutions and increased amenities, to create an eco-system of occupiers throughout an asset, is an attractive solution.

‘Funds and property companies are also reacting to the threat of managed workspace, and we are seeing an acceleration in the merging of managed and conventional workspace, with landlords undertaking speculative fit-outs, providing space in an enhanced CAT A or CAT A+ specification.”’

Data from Savills Workthere supports the idea of hybrid offices, backed by venture capitalists

30 | Mix 192 March 2019

Above OBI Lancaster Buildings

who are chasing the growing businesses that nest in flexible workspace. According to the latest research from Workthere, major cities outside of London saw a sharp rise in venture capital investment in the final quarter of 2018, rising by 26% to £1.1 billion. A key accelerator of growth, including headcount and expansion, the flexible office specialist expects this increase in financial firepower to drive demand for flexible office space. Newcastle saw the biggest rise of 285%, followed by Oxford (131%), Cardiff (52%), Bristol (50%) and Cambridge (33%).

Workthere expects that those cities, such as Bristol, Manchester and Cambridge, that have seen increased VC investment and are already on the radar of major brand providers, will continue to see good levels of take-up from serviced office providers as they look to expand their presence and capitalise on the areas with fast growing companies that have seen investment flows. This will inevitably enlarge and develop the flexible office offering in those markets, they say.

The challenge facing landlords and developers is how they adapt their conventional leasing and development/refurbishment approach of their assets to meet this new demand

Scott Rutherford

The National Broker: Cushman & Wakefield Cushman & Wakefield are among the biggest rainmakers in the UK property business, although Head of Midlands Office Agency, Scott Rutherford, doesn’t particularly like the expression.

The Cushwake house view of the 2019 office market is that supply, which is short everywhere, is what determines the market.

‘Everywhere is impacted by generationally-low levels of supply of new office space. It is driving every market, from Edinburgh to Bristol. That is pushing rents up but, more importantly, it is also forcing occupiers to act now, quickly, before someone else takes the floorspace,’ he says.

Cushwake data shows that occupier horizons have now moved from 18-24 months to a mighty 4-5 years as they learn to plan ahead for their office needs. With such short supply, planning ahead is the only viable option.

‘We will see new office space developed – look at the 900,000 sq ft coming to Birmingham, and more to Edinburgh and Manchester – but in 2015-16, when the decisions were taken to build, there wasn’t so much confidence, so supply is not enormous and will stay tight,’ Scott explains.

Behind the shortage of supply is a funding market that means however gung-ho developers feel, the investors who put up the cash feel much less chipper. ‘The funders are still very careful. There are some out there, and more are entering the funding market in the regions, but it is still limited,’ Scott says.

For brokers like Cushman & Wakefield, success is more than ever about robust research and data analysis: that is what funders want to read, and developers want to believe. ‘More than ever, property brokerage is a numbers game,’ says Scott.

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Q

The Big Question

THE BIG

Wh a t k e y d ri v e rs a re h e l p i n g t ra n s f o r m t h e f u t u re o f re a l e s t a t e?

UESTION

CELINE BONNER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, FABRIC (EU) LTD

GRAHAM COLLIER, SENIOR ASSOCIATE, MILLS & REEVE LLP

LIMOR WOLFE, PARTNER, REAL ESTATE TEAM, HARPER MACLEOD LLP

Real estate is ever changing in this modern day living. Technology is constantly developing and encouraging new ways of working to boost productivity and increase wellbeing. If you are not up to date with what the current expectations are, you will surely be left behind. As interior designers and architects, it’s possible to create an entire scheme in virtual reality. This is a relatively economical way to help your client and investors visualise the finished product. Years ago, you would create an entire mock-up room of a single room to help visualise at high costs.

The rise of tech solutions is likely to have a substantial impact on the future of our city and town centres. Improvements in remote working means it is increasingly replacing office attendance, and highlighting commuter despair.

People value flexibility and value their time, and they have become a lot more conscious of their priorities. Shared workspaces, home-working and office remodelling are likely to remain high on agendas.

The real estate market is now greatly attuned to modern working practice, which is in turn influencing investment. Tenants and owners are now looking for communal, high-spec offices, with flexible space, often with luxury add-ons, such as gyms, breakout spaces and even free bars. At a time when many Scottish cities are currently struggling to meet demand for Grade A office space, landlords and investors have recognised an opportunity to provide bespoke developments designed to meet modern needs.

ALISON WRING, DIRECTOR, LONDON COMMERCIAL, AECOM

DEEPAK PARMAR, DESIGN DIRECTOR, MCM

IAIN MACDONALD, DIRECTOR, SCOTT BROWNRIGG

Spaces that have a definitive purpose are going to be at the forefront of real estate.

The most iconic buildings will no longer simply be monuments to ego but spaces which encourage community, innovation and wellbeing, such as 22 Bishopsgate. I’ve recognised a shift from real estate being a commodity to becoming an experience and this will aid not only tenants, but also define the most forward-thinking developers.

A key driver is ‘internationalisation’ – an example being the way that last mile logistics is a hot asset for the world’s largest cross-border investors. Another is the global demand for ‘digital real estate’ as we construct hyperscale data centers to service cloud computing and smart cities. I don’t think algorithms and AI alone will enable us to shape this new urban code.

Coworking is history, we need to focus on how to co-exist with machines.

Increases in migration and urbanisation, changing working patterns and the blending of the way we live, play and work, are all key elements that are driving changes in the real estate of tomorrow. Sitting alongside these, digital technologies are reshaping not only what we do, but also the ways in which our real estate Umbrella editorial banner Mix Interiors March 2019.pdf 1 07/03/2019 12:26:11 needs to be imagined, built and operated.

Umbrella editorial banner Mix Interiors January 2019.pdf 1 11/12/2018 19:36:00 C

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Mix 192 March 2019 | 33

Upfront | Property Report

Total investment return % 12 months to December 2018

20

Performance of Property Investment

15

Property has become a global asset class rather than purely local, and remains a good investment bet. Whilst London residential property may have reached a peak, commercial/industrial property out-performs most investments.

10

5

Japan Nikkei 225 Yen per $

Copper

Brent Crude Oil

0

-5

UK Industrial Property

Dollar Index City of London Office Property

UK Office Property

Gold

UK Retail Property

-10

-15

Data by Savills, February 2019

Comment LEIGH DIMELOW, PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR, TP BENNETT

ANGELA DAPPER, PRINCIPAL, GRIMSHAW

The key elements I believe are helping transform future real estate are: 1. Smart building technology and digital connectivity, which allow occupiers, residents and co-habiting tenants to better communicate with each other.

The future of real estate is about people-based design. We are seeing the rise of more vibrant spaces creating communities where people come together. The boundaries between external and internal are becoming blurred as buildings become more permeable, drawing people into previously private spaces. The design of office, hotel and residential lobbies are merging to become similar in design as they strive to all become places for people to work, meet, mingle and exchange ideas.

2. In-house customer services for both commercial and residential buildings, such as student residential, BTR, coworking and coliving. Elements such as wellbeing facilities and conciergestyle services, offering an enhanced experience for all types of end users.

34 | Mix 192 March 2019

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Upfront | Property Report

Office space shortage, attracting young talent and fueling future expansion Alexandra Murphy, Senior Associate in the Real Estate Team at Mills & Reeve

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nvestment in office building stock across the UK has boomed in recent years. Commercial landlords and developers have capitalised on the burgeoning economy, post-recession, and with business success you need more ‘bums on seats’ to fuel future growth.

This has created a massive driver for office space, and it is not limited to the London market. Manchester’s high-end developments, such as No.1 Spinningfields, and a renaissance in ‘north-shoring’ has meant that the capital isn’t the only contender in the market. The astronomic growth of the TMT and other sectors has only boosted demand in the city centre.

For companies to attract the best people, you not only need the best offices but also access to desirable leisure attractions, such as 20 Stories at No 1 Spinningfields. However, these buildings don’t come cheap and are also in high demand – presenting a conundrum to businesses.

The lack of available Grade A office space is not down to the fact that people aren’t building offices. You only need to look out of the window to see the amount of construction going on that certainly isn’t all PRS – but businesses need to be mindful of the time constraints in which new developments are brought to the market.

The increased demand has driven office rents up to their highest levels, inevitably pricing some tenants out of the city’s core market. Businesses are having to think of alternatives in order to keep afloat as rising rents are cantering ahead of business growth and profit.

So, what is the solution to the lack of space? We’re seeing more businesses moving towards agile and flexible working models as a way of freeing up desk space and preventing the need to expand into larger offices. These models are often more attractive to staff and potential recruits, such as millennials, who expect flexibility and have a different idea of a healthy work/life balance.

Take the example of some law firms, who have made the change in making staff work at least two days from home on a

36 | Mix 192 March 2019

rota system – enabling them to remain in existing office space that is too small for the head count.

Another option is refurbishment. If space is not your problem, a simple refresh to appease existing staff and attract new talent can be a good plan. Refurbishment can in turn create more space in using the floorplan more sensibly and creating the more modern spaces that millennials have come to expect. Tenants can agree with their landlords to do this and, in many cases, can procure contributions for works. For landlords it can be a useful way to procure direct investment into their asset to increase yields and stock values.

Another alternative is for businesses to move further out, where space is less at a premium and more affordable rents are available.

With city centre office space bursting at the seams, we’re already seeing a steady expansion of core areas – previously considered fringe. For example, Oxford Road and Ancoats in Manchester are becoming more desirable as an expansion of core areas, particularly with the development of related infrastructure.

Ancoats, previously a more undesirable occupier location, is now booming. Indeed, Ancoats has been recently named the 13th coolest neighbourhood in the world – which is a far cry from where it was, even five years ago.

But how far can the expansion of the core go – and should businesses look to move out of the city centre, especially as working practices become increasingly flexible and technological advances enable people to work from anywhere?

I believe that the problem lies with attracting young talent.

Young people want to be in the shiny new offices that are near bars and restaurants in CBDs and not necessarily out in the suburbs. Google was at the forefront of radical office space – and taking a tour of its New York space some six years ago, I was seriously impressed by the ping pong tables, modern breakout areas and free food and drink on tap. Now it’s becoming more commonplace, with young people attracted to the likes of WeWork in central locations, with their beer taps and leisure offerings – is that creating a new high bar in office space?

ADVANCED RESONANT CHARGING

*

Upfront | Property Report

Our view on a solution to the lack of Grade A office space Graham Shaw, Managing Director, Willmott Dixon Interiors

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he spotlight remains on what impact a shortage of Grade A office space is having in the market. However, by focusing on the lack of ‘new’ stock, we are considerably limiting our scope for solutions.

The Grade A office space is out there – if we do more to reinvigorate the buildings that could contain it. When you consider just how well older buildings can be adapted, the solution is literally staring us in the face every time we look at a town or city skyline.

A growing number of landlords are reassessing their stock, motivated by how much more the asset can work for them with a structural refurbishment, such as adding a floor or cutting and carving the space to enlarge the floorplate.

What’s more interesting is the trend by landlords to invest far beyond a Cat A fit-out so that the office space is extremely attractive to tenants. Higher capital investment is translating into higher yields and strong asset value. Yet this does not apply every time. Instead we see too much faith placed in a short-term fix, mend and make approach, which restricts the creation of new Grade A space that tenants want.

It’s not just in popular central locations where more imagination with older, sometimes unloved buildings can unlock Grade A space. The notion of ‘fringe’ areas in cities has disappeared, with office space feasible anywhere.

It wasn’t that long ago that London’s King's Cross and Shoreditch areas were considered on the ‘fringe’ and demand was low. That has completely reversed. The tenants of today are happy to be somewhere a bit different, and with working from home a very normal part of the week, proximity to train or underground stations is no longer top of the must-have list.

Older and existing buildings can be hugely appealing; they are individual, they lend themselves to the less traditional, more industrial look and feel that tenants want. They can have fantastic character features. And they frequently have a story to tell.

Walking in Paddington recently, I saw some lovely art-deco

38 | Mix 192 March 2019

buildings that now serve as thriving homes for many bluechip creative agencies. Another example is our renewal of the 1895-built Bridge House on 181 Queen Victoria Street to provide 2,339 sq m of open plan Grade A office space. This complex refit of the six-storey building also saw a full repair and repaint to the existing façade, rejuvenating the building back to its former glory.

Birmingham’s need for new space was answered recently by refurbishing the 1920s Lewis Building, originally a department store before becoming an office that needed updating to be viable in the 21st century. Owner LGIM Real Assets, in conjunction with Ediston Real Estate, invested in a full makeover across seven floors – including a new top floor extension – to provide Grade A offices.

Office owners must be brave – investing to create a sense of place by upgrading can reap rewards; tenant demand is there and the return will be higher yields. Partnerships between owner, consultants, contractors and supply chain also play a pivotal role in getting the most out of a building’s potential.

But what does Grade A mean to tenants? Well, different things compared to five years ago. Yes, a stylish, high quality fit-out, good air quality, natural light, a coffee shop in reception, showers and cycle racks remain attractive features. But for a newer generation of tenants, the priorities are flexible, less formal spaces that have a coworking feel and drive wellbeing. And where connectivity is excellent to allow agile working, so Grade A offices must be compatible with 5G communication.

We need to think beyond the ‘new’ box. The physical Grade A office space is out there but much is hidden behind grey facades and in buildings that are not necessarily in city centres. Giving these buildings some heavy-duty TLC, recognising that cities are now ‘fringeless’, with nowhere considered to be off the beaten track, plus making space fit for the needs of today’s workforce is part of the equator.

Demand is high and supply is limited, so solving this offers huge commercial opportunities.

Upfront | Property Report

Relocation and innovation: office moves as a vehicle for business transformation Andrew Mawson, Founder of Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA) and Creator of Workplace Week

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usinesses are moving offices with greater frequency than ever before. In many cases, greater economic and political volatility is forcing their hand, while booming trends like agile working are pushing many organisations to adopt ‘new age’ property strategies. In addition, the rising cost of prime office space in general is encouraging organisations to think deeper about the why and how of office relocation.

As a 2018 report by Knight Frank on the London real estate market states: 'The inherent uncertainty, together with the sheer scale and speed of change within the operating environment, means that business planning horizons are becoming ever shorter'. Perhaps this explains the increasing demand for real estate solutions that offer flexibility, adaptability and scope for innovation.

AWA has been providing support to organisations looking to make more efficient use of their real estate assets for over a quarter of a century. However, in recent years we’ve noticed an attitudinal shift. Now it seems the employer onus is on providing work ‘experiences’ that support the health and unleash the potential of the employees, and that also assist recruitment by depicting their unique personality, values and heritage – as opposed to focusing solely on cost-saving initiatives, especially for businesses that rely on the cognitive athleticism of their knowledge workers.

Where output used to be measured in the number of goods produced, for a vast number of organisations in the knowledge economy, productivity now hinges on the quality of the ideas shared and the conversion of these to commercial value. This also explains why office relocation is increasingly being treated as a vehicle for business transformation – a catalyst for a move to a more dynamic, fluid and adaptable work model that encourages social cohesion, information sharing and trust.

A move to agile working (change management in general, come to that) must be guided by a thorough understanding of an organisation’s unique business pressures and employee needs.

Property professionals need to think about how the design of the

new workplace will support the needs of the people. Ditching a rigid system of ‘fixed desks’ for agile working requires a new mix of workspaces, workstyles, technologies and attitudes that allow people to concentrate when they need to, be collaborative when they need to and socialise when they need to. Ultimately, relocating is a precious opportunity to drop bad habits and adopt new, effective practices.

It’s important to remember that a move to agile working is impossible without the right technology in place. Legacy IT systems and communications tools often can’t support the new way of working and increased mobility of staff. So, another crucial step is to appraise your organisation’s existing deployment of tech and then calculate which IT apps are necessary for the transition. Business messaging apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams will help people to communicate with each other as they jump between different locations and workstations, from hot desks to coffee shops.

Successfully relocating to an agile, digitally centred workplace takes more than just the right apps; it also requires a change to the culture of the organisation. The open, flexible and collaborative nature of agile working often demands a flatter organisational structure, so you’re not going to get anywhere without buy-in from the senior leadership team. These leaders can then help to embed the new philosophy and make sure the entire organisation is ready for the changes ahead.

Moving to the new office shouldn’t mark the end of the project.

After the relocation, leaders and their teams will need training to help them develop new understandings, practices and behaviours so that relationships, productivity and performance stay intact and improve.

People need time to get familiar with the new technology, settle into their new surroundings and adapt to the new way of working.

With the right strategy in place, a new workplace can be a tool for business transformation. Relocating, then, is the catalyst that brings this to life, giving your organisation the opportunity to think about its needs and how a new workplace can meet them.

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Spotlight | Product Designer Report

SPOTLIGHT

THE PRODUCT DESIGNER REPORT 38 Mix 192 March 2019 | 41

Yorgo Lykou Spotlight | Designer Profile

Here Comes the Rain...

W

hen we first sat down to discuss the format of this year’s product designer Spotlight (see following pages), we immediately decided that we needed something a little special to kick things off. We wanted to find a designer who worked and thought on a global level, someone whose designs were recognised as truly innovative and thought-provoking and someone who had something genuinely interesting to say.

It didn’t take very long at all for us to have that lightbulb moment and set the wheels in motion for a chat with Yorgo Lykouria – the founder of international product design studio, Rainlight.

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Based in London and Los Angeles (with Yorgo based in London and co-founder Susan Grossinger working out of LA), Rainlight recently reported an impressive number of collaborations and awards as it completes its first year of business.

Said collaborations include the likes of Scavolini, Allsteel, Okamura, USAI, Carnegie Fabrics, Clestra, Mannington Commercial and Tecno. For those that know their products, that is a truly global list of manufacturers.

Yorgo describes Rainlight as ‘part laboratory, part workshop, part studio’, combining design innovation with business acumen. The studio embraces aspirational thinking to create products that break the mold, yet seem as if they’ve been there all along.

This is clearly a formula for success – evident in the impressive number of industry accolades from some of the most prestigious award programmes around the world, including a couple of NeoCon Gold awards.

We begin our conversation by asking Yorgo how he describes his profession when introduced to people from outside the design world. ‘Hmmm,’ he considers. ‘I think about that every time I’m asked.

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Every time I do a project I have the

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pitch, so to speak, for that project – and then I stay there

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Spotlight | Designer Profile

Opposite: Yorgo Lykouria This Page: 1. Allsteel - Raw 2. Scavolini - Boxlife 3. Irys 4. Allsteel - Wedge 5. EGG

If I was talking to someone in the industry, I would say product designer – and then I don’t have to say anything more because they’d get it. Most people don’t really know what that means though – so I tend to have to explain.

‘My background is architecture and I also studied mechanical engineering and I’m also a film maker, so I don’t see myself as a classic product designer – I bring all these things into my work. The approach I have is very outward-looking, inward-looking, outward looking in terms of what’s happening in the world; understanding how society is changing and what we need to do to make it better. I’m conscious that, ultimately, what we’re doing is a very commercial thing – ultimately it has to make money, but that’s not the only goal. In other words, we’re not just looking at what sells and trying to do it again. We steer clients away from that thinking. We want them to look at what’s going to happen next and what’s going to be good for them. We want to help our clients make their own mark.

‘I think that with a lot of product design there tends to be a market-first mentality – which is fine. I see it differently though – I think about the people, I think about the culture, I think about how people want to work and live today. I really believe that – especially now that life and work is blurred as much as it is. You have to try to create that continuity, where people feel at home wherever they are.’

So what are the greatest challenges in this everevolving market? ‘I’d say that the hardest challenge for me is to find a way to tap into a universality – that will resonate with a lot of people,’ Yorgo tells us.

‘So I look to nature and I’m inspired by music, I’m inspired by film, I’m inspired by all kinds of things outside of the

5 Mix 192 March 2019 | 43

Spotlight | Designer Profile

6 profession – to learn from them, to connect and also to understand emotionally what people will respond to. Every time I do a project I have the orchestra tune in my head; I find my pitch, so to speak, for that project – and then I stay there. I try to remain consistent. That can be the hardest thing to do. You find that sometimes you can be pushed around by the project itself, by the client, by the person on the factory floor who tells you that you can’t do something, by marketing people who have a different point of view of how to sell something or how to talk about it – and then there’s myself! I’m always going to challenge myself; I’m not easily satisfied and I do keep questioning, keep questioning – and if something bothers me then I will change it. If we’re not far enough along the road and we can still change something, then we’ll change it or do it again – and I’ve done that before. I think it’s important that, when you’ve committed to build something, you strive for it to be the best it possibly can be. You have to consider tooling, which costs a lot of money, and then you’re going to build thousands of these things – if not more. So you have to get it right.’

This level of consideration can be seen throughout Rainlight’s portfolio. Box Life, for Scavolini, for example, is inspired by the trend for open-plan living and the blurring of boundaries between the kitchen and other areas – although Yorgo tells us that it started its conception as space-saving mini-kitchen.

Rainlight also collaborated with Kewaunee Scientific to create a new laboratory furniture benching system

44 | Mix 192 March 2019

that helps drive innovation. With its adjustable height surfaces, movable shelving and integrated lighting, CODA’s modular design can respond to each client’s distinct needs. Recent award-winning designs for Allsteel and Okamura, meanwhile, show an innate understanding of both the market and how people work today and will work tomorrow.

We end our conversation by talking about the start of the process. ‘We always begin our work open to all possibilities,’ Yorgo says. ‘We begin the process with a philosophical question, refraining from the immediate urge to design, giving space to formulate the approach with our clients to produce a truly collaborative experience and product.

‘The things we create embody thought. Our work today is a message to the future. A trend is already yesterday.’ w

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Upfront |

PRODUCT DESIGNER REPORT For this year's Spotlight we've handpicked a selection of leading product designers - each of whom has developed innovative and groundbreaking products for the workplace market. We've intentionally picked designers from both home and overseas, and asked them to tell us about their work, their philosophies and opinions on today's market and beyond.

LOOX Table Top

Martin Ballendat Company name: DESIGN BALLENDAT. How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? At the moment the three following important changes for the office are mostly influencing our products: a) The work in the office is moving from the classic workplace more and more to a softer, home-like meeting and regeneration area. b) The typical workplace has much higher ergonomic demands, especially the change between sitting and standing. c) Workplaces have to be more flexible to change, in order to pay tribute to the ever-changing teams.

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How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? I am a successful designer for offices for more than 30 years; my most beautiful experience is always to have direct contact to the CEO’s and leaders of a lot of important office brands and to be accepted by them as a dialogue partner. This insider dialogue is the best way of exchanging information.

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? The biggest challenge for our studio is our engineering experience and engineering facilities.

I believe that we have more than 1,000 sq m of the best equipped prototype and construction studios for furniture in Europe. This niche is responsible for our recent and future success.

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

I believe that we have more than 1,000 sq m of the best equipped prototype and construction studios for furniture in Europe.

Has the uncertainty of Brexit affected your business (if so how)? Brexit is an absolute shit for every international and cosmopolitan working UK company. Our German/Austrian design studio will be handicapped in the cooperation with clients from the UK in the case of a hard Brexit. By the way, at the moment we are working for clients in 15 countries around the world.

Favourite product you've created in the last 12 months? My most exciting office product of the last 12 months is the workplace LOOX – a tabletop bent in an innovative loop, enabling different height adjustments, with two work levels, both flexibly linked.

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Spotlight | Product Designer Report

This Spring will see BOB come to market through Bisley, and we can't wait to find out people's reaction BOB modular storage unit, made in collaboration with Bisley

Paul Kelley Company name: Paul Kelley Ltd. How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? I don’t really pay attention to current trends, but instead aim to produce work that will always be functional, easy to adapt and timeless.

How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? I have a really good relationship with Bisley, who keep me up to date with workplace news; they are very forthright about how they see the future and how they wish to shape it, through the use of high quality manufacturing, good design and the use of technology.

48 | Mix 192 March 2019

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? Apart from generating enough cash to keep it all going, I used to think that it was to come up with new designs/pieces all the time but, over the years, I feel that this is very media driven and we just don’t need endless new products. Now it’s much more focused on making those designs last forever, which means they have to adapt and grow as we do. I have no interest in bringing endless short-life products to the marketplace – instead the focus has to be on high quality, affordable design that lasts and lasts.

Favourite product you've created in the last 12 months? My latest launch is a collaboration with Bisley; BOB is a modular storage solution that keeps the core of the system the same but can be

reconfigured when and where needed - be it now or 10-20 years down the line. Seeing him finally realised is really exciting. This Spring will see him come to market and we can’t wait to find out people’s reaction.

Is the competitive nature of the market: more, less or about the same as 10 years ago? I think it’s probably more competitive, but perhaps for the wrong reasons; people seem to be more interested in price than quality – and they should be of equal concerns.

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Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Marcy Ewing Company name: Shaw Contract.

How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? We are always gathering input from our workplace customers. Our strategic accounts team leaders give us input as to how large global workplace companies are managing and utilising smaller workplace footprints, managing employees who are collaborating with different groups within each company – staff being more mobile within the workspace, for example. At Shaw Contract we also engage regularly with the large property companies to understand how they are fitting out spaces that attract workplace tenants. Our annual design awards competition also means we get to see each year how workplace design is evolving around the globe and last year we received 535 entries across all the categories, from 36 different countries.

cfcolour What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? The biggest challenge is speed to market.

In our visual, digital world you get to see what everybody is creating and our customers want to offer their clients something unique or different. So it is a fine balance between customers’ desires for new products, how quickly something can be created and then moving onto the next new product from a design perspective. We are offering a wider variety of flooring solutions as a result of this.

When you are creating a new product, how much do you think about the specifier? Gathering information is something we do all the time. Our design team travels and visits completed workplace projects to learn about/see how the design intent for each project works with the company culture/work environment. This helps us understand how people are working and influences how we can continually design purposeful flooring solutions to meet the changing workplace environments.

How often do you talk to those specifiers? You cannot just design something beautiful – it has to have meaning and purpose, in tandem with the finished flooring product. As a global company, we engage regularly with specifiers internationally to listen to and then discern what they really want. We then take that information and use it as an important ingredient for our ‘discover’ process in our design planning. In the UK we are also using this process, looking at technology needs and changes from a specifiers’ perspective too.

cfpops

Mix 192 March 2019 | 51

Harc.

20 Old Street Clerkenwell EC1V 9AB www.oceedesign.com @OceeDesign

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

i-workchair for Senator

Justus Kolberg

Company name: Kolbergdesign.

How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? The diversification and specialisation of office spaces and public areas, in combination with the increasing expectation in wellbeing, generates a big challenge for companies in terms of their product range.

This results directly in a very specified and varied development request.

How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? Being informed is all about keeping yourself interested and curious but also alive in the jungle of information that comes from travelling, fairs, networking and social media.

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? The biggest challenge is to create success for the client. That means a new product has to fit in all different aspects. This is only possible by working very close together with the client from the very beginning until the end.

Describe the perfect client: Open minded and critical, optimistic and careful, visionary but down to earth, respectful and good humoured.

How is the continual change in technology impacting on what you produce? The increasing quality of product development technology, combined with new materials, offers a wide range of possibilities for experiments in terms of forms, structures and functions.

V-Travel for Kusch

Mix 192 March 2019 | 53

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

NEXUS high-back armchair

Jason Brown Company name: Knightsbridge Furniture Productions.

How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? As the markets blend and head towards a domestic influenced aesthetic, it allows Knightsbridge to design and develop cross-marketable products that can be specified for workplace, hospitality, education or healthcare. It is our ability to adapt to these changes that is the reason we are still here after 80 years.

How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? Our main information streams will be very much like other people; quality industry publications, both printed and digital, and attending and exhibiting at trade exhibitions, which cover furniture, interiors, furnishing, components and machinery. We also have strong relationships with our client base, which provides feedback on how trends are working and if indeed they are working. There is also a responsibility on us to study and know our design history as, inevitably, design principles do repeat.

Describe the perfect client: I would say one that knows either what they do want or what they don’t want. Even in the loosest

terms, this is a great start to a brief. It is important to know your client and create a really good working relationship. We have a responsibility to possess the relevant schooling and skillsets to offer suggestions and alternatives where necessary, but it certainly helps if the finished design can be a result of ideas from all parties.

When you are creating a new product, how much do you think about the specifier? Most products have core values to fulfil, such as price, functionality, aesthetics, ergonomics, legislative constraints etc – and we have to consider how many of these subjects are important to specifiers. We run regular CPD’s with our current and prospective client base, which provides a vehicle for comment and knowledge sharing. These sessions prove to be really fruitful and I can only hope to increase the frequency of them.

How is the continual change in technology impacting on what you produce? We are a design and manufacture organisation, so changes to design and specification are a regular occurrence for us – and we are great at it. In terms of incorporating technology into our furniture, we have the skill and knowledge to do this and there are good quality organisations developing products that are easily integrated.

Coupe Armchair

54 | Mix 192 March 2019

ROK sofa

Mi Chair and Alto Table by Cambridge Park

We’ve been doing meeting tables for years at Cambridge Park. What we don’t know about designing and manufacturing amazing tables of all shapes and sizes, frankly isn’t worth knowing. So, what we’ve done is taken all that table knowledge and created a fantastic meeting room chair! Obvious really. It’s available in lots of options, from high-back four-star swivel base with adjustable height and auto return, to a medium-back version with a cantilever frame. We also offer an (almost) unlimited choice of upholstery and the ability to powder coat the arms and base. It’s also very comfortable. Which is handy, because it is a chair after all.

Designed by Bruce high

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info@newdesigngroup.co.uk

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A proud part of

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Barry Jenkins

Company name: BroomeJenkins Ltd. How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? The modern office still needs places for people to work effectively and comfortably. Space planning and headcount used to be key, but today we think about the user and ‘placemaking’. We design products to enable a range of settings, some of which remain conventional assigned workstations, while others are transitional, flexible and social.

How do you become informed about changes in workplace transformation? Due to commercial imperatives, we cannot ignore re-cycled ‘knowledge’ circulating the media. However, we find observing life, nature and technology is a good source of

insight. In addition, working with end users shifts the focus from the physical product to thinking about the workplace culture and environment.

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? Design consultancy is a competitive arena so, as a small company, it is important to become specialists. Although we have a broad range of experience, today we focus upon the workplace sector. Our challenge, therefore, is to leverage our expertise, knowledge and portfolio to develop opportunities and relationships with complementary clients.

Company name: David Fox Design Ltd What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? To future gaze and listen outside the design industry, Ted Talks etc, and look at new product development that suits current needs, in a rapidly changing environment. People are becoming insular, using technology to interact rather than face-toface, and this limits people sitting together on long benches in preference of more quiet personal space.

Describe the perfect client: A client that provides the commercial information about the sector they want to penetrate in a brief, and allows me to labour over design, refinement and product details, as opposed to changing things without consultation or consideration – sometimes resulting in something less elegant/timeless.

Uriah Lounge

David Fox

Has the uncertainty of Brexit affected your business (if so how)? With 50% of my business now coming from overseas it hasn’t – however I have been most disappointed that some UK manufacturers who have stepped off new product development in fear of what could possibly happen. They should be strong if it’s a hard Brexit – surely it would be more proactive to have new stuff to export.

Which product do you wish you had designed? Commercially, we all love a good screw! After all, it holds most things I design together, so I guess my answer to this would have to be that. I also wish someone would let me re-design the matchless G50 motorcycle. It’s hard to beat a true classic, but I would love the challenge.

56 | Mix 192 March 2019

Orvi dining chair

Hendrix XL chair

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Fourfold - Ocee International/Four Design

ACDC - Boss Design Group

Favourite product you created in the last 12 months? Although Fourfold is a ‘simple’ folding table, the challenge was to replace the conventional ‘T’ leg and cantilevered top with four legs. Providing greater support and stability, Fourfold had to be safe for one person to use, and mobile and compact when folded.

Having explored many frame geometries, we know that the result is the definitive and unmistakable solution.

How is the continual change in technology impacting on what you produce? With regards to the actual workplace, technology is the great liberating force that has changed the way we work, simplified furniture systems and untethered the user. In relation to R&D, new technology has been equally liberating, expanding possibilities, increasing design rigour and compressing time.

StudioSCAPE

a modular upholstered sofa system creating places in interior spaces

Showroom Gate House, 1 St John’s Square Clerkenwell, EC1M 4DH

www.markproduct.com enquiries@markproduct.com 020 7490 7718

COMFORTABLE CONCRETE 2.0 Rough, urban and raw. Refined and lovingly polished.

Unexpectedly plush, warm and ornate.

Three new designs, Laid Bare, Urban Drama and Urban Poetry, offered in tile and plank formats, bring elegance and simplicity to the floor plane. Strong rich tones, inspired by the natural environment, combine with nuanced hues to offer an unexpected luxurious and decorative interpretation of concrete.

T +44 (0)1942 612777 www.millikencarpet.com

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Craig Jones & Phidias Leonida Company name: Jones & Partners.

How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? The studio has lived through a great deal of change in the workplace but evolution is still relatively slow compared to some of the other markets we work in. We are always trying to interpret and even predict change and understand how it might make an impact on people’s environments.

Favourite product you've created in the last 12 months? Thinking Quietly, designed for Thinking Works; our first Red Dot, and great fun to design for a ‘perfect’ client.

How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? We keep our eyes, ears and minds open. Our learning comes from design and non-design literature, practitioners, specifiers, technologists, end users and ‘expert’ reports. And of course Mix!

Is the competitive nature of the market: more, less or about the same as 10 years ago? The market for design has altered in its small details but what remains unchanged is that experience and knowledge are worth more than a nice sketch, render or 3D print.

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? Learning how to present ourselves to the market in the best possible way. Whilst we feel confident researching, conceptualising and designing for manufacture, how to sell ourselves remains a bit of a mystery.

How is the continual change in technology impacting on what you produce? Technological change has given us new possibilities but the promise of the new and shiny can be misleading. We like to keep in touch with the established and the new, cross-pollinating when appropriate and viewing the modern under a microscope and not through rose-tinted spectacles.

Describe the perfect client: Perfection only exists in the head of the dreamer. I’m a realist.

When you are creating a new product, how much do you think about the specifier? As a studio we are doing more designing to meet the needs of specifiers and end users than ever. We have taken on more direct client work, which helps give us insights into specific problems and requirements as yet unanswered within the wider market.

Which product do you wish you had designed?

The wooden dowel – hidden but beautiful in its simplicity and effectiveness.

Kinetica for Hugo Light Design

Are European workplace product designers more advanced than their American counterparts? No, we are just faced with different problems and work within the constraints of our local possibilities and barriers.

Thinking Quietly for Thinking Works

Pots for Nes & Ners

How often do you talk to those specifiers? We are in regular dialogue with the market, at exhibitions, during our day-to-day work and often with a cup of tea or a beer.

Has the uncertainty of Brexit affected your business (if so how)? Uncertainty affects any business but because we have a global client base we feel a bit more secure. We ‘remain’ philosophical and realistic about the situation and are ready for the changes ahead.

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Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Barber & Osgerby Ecco for Glas Italia

Who is responding to this?

Edward Barber Company name: Barber & Osgerby How is the continual change in workplace trends impacting on what you produce? Our job as designers is to be protagonists. Our job is to see what’s happening around us and offer solutions and improvements for the continuously changing world we live in.

The workplace is one of the fastest changing areas of both design and social interaction. With the proliferation of portable devices over the last decade, the workplace has expanded from the office to the home, plane, bus, café and hotel lobby. Combined with the huge increase of freelance workers, the coworking office is now becoming the norm. We saw these changes as the starting point for our Soft Work system for Vitra. We strongly believe that the conventional chair and desk are dying and that Soft Work could replace that.

How do you become informed about the changes in workplace transformation? The idea for a work-focused sofa system came after observation of the lobby area at the Ace Hotel London. After designing the space, we noted that, for 12 hours a day, every single seat – not just those around the long worktable – was taken with people tapping away at laptops, tablets and phones. Coupled with the fact that we spend a lot of our time travelling, where much of it is spent working in different locations and environments, we started thinking that there are just so many people that work this way, we need to design the appropriate system for it.

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Our job as designers is to be protagonists. Our job is to see what’s happening around us and offer solutions and improvements for the continuously changing world we live in

BREA for DEDON

Spotlight | Product Designer Report

Tabletop Bellhop lamp for Flos Soft Work for Vitra

What is your biggest challenge as a business and why? Managing the amount of time we travel versus the time we spend in the studio. Travel is an essential part of what we do as we are continuously reviewing prototypes and visiting factories all over the world. But studio time with our team is equally important to be able to develop the new projects we are working on.

Favourite product you've created in the last 12 months? The Bellhop portable light for Flos. It’s such a friendly and satisfying object to live with, which works in any situation. The battery powered LED light can be carried around the home like a modern day candle. The advent of long-life rechargeable batteries and low energy bulbs has enabled products such as this to exist, which was previously impossible.

Describe the perfect client: Someone who employs you for the right reasons; who appreciates your work, who wants to be challenged, who is ambitious, who doesn’t already know what they want and who has a sensible budget!

Bellhop Bollard for Flos

© Tommaso Sartori

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0800 651 0001 | rigg.uk

Neurodiversity

NEURODIVERSITY IN THE WORKPLACE We are not all born equal – we are surrounded by people with invisible powers, says obo’s Gary Helm. Here is his take on Neurodiversity which introduces this month's Roundtable focused on desiging for mental wellbeing

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round 10% percent of the UK population is said to be neurodiverse. This term refers to people with genetic differences such as Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, ADHD, Tourettes and various forms of Autism, such as Aspergers.

People who are neurodiverse are wired differently, and often their differences are an extraordinary strength in the workplace.

For instance, Dyslexia and Autism are associated with advanced memory, mathematical and pattern recognition skills. A skillset that would get you very far in, say, economics. And entrepreneurs are very often dyslexic – one of the most famous examples is Richard Branson, who said in an interview in The Independent …’(after school) my dyslexia became my massive advantage: it helped me to think creatively and laterally, and see solutions where others saw problems’.

But in a poll by CIPD only one in 10 say that consideration of neurodivergent people is included in their management strategies. It follows then that consideration in the interior design and spatial design of a workplace is not a priority. But creating solutions to allow neurodivergent people to flourish at work can be simple and affordable. For instance, software that can convert text to speech, or speech to text, allows dyslexics to get on with their meaningful work without losing time to frustrating battles with spelling and concentration. And dualscreens totally eradicate issues with memory.

But what of the physical design of a workplace?

Can those of us responsible for the space planning,

the interior design and the furniture specification create spaces in which a neurodivergent person can excel, without sacrificing aesthetic design and inflating design budgets?

The answer is yes – and designing spaces inclusive of people on as many spectrums as possible will inevitably benefit us all: largely, the key is to make spaces that are calming. Creating places to work where noise need not be a distraction, where colour is used to calm, where lighting supports rather than challenges the senses. Who doesn’t want to work in an environment that incorporates all of these things?

Acoustics are easily dealt with through the specification of products that are designed to absorb and interrupt the soundwaves travelling through a space. The array of products now available range from high-back sofas and breakout seating for making quiet phone calls, through to tables for informal, private meetings.

Adjustable or movable desk dividers, upholstered in fabric, double up as acoustic baffling and also provide much needed privacy for those who struggle with concentration.

Storage is incredibly important to some neurodivergent people, who need the security and order that good storage provides to feel safe and stress-free. Under-desk storage is good, but moveable and lockable storage is great if the workplace is open plan and non-territorial.

Using low-arousal colours on walls and furnishings, and avoiding pattern can help mitigate stress. Alison Standish, founder of colour experts The Colour Ministry, recommends calming tones of cream and avoiding mixing colours. ‘Giving consideration to colour is more than thinking about aesthetics. Colour has psychological and emotional impact. For many people a mix of complementary colours creates a soothing and comforting environment, but, for neurodiverse people, avoiding pattern and choosing a flat colour is the best choice for concentration and to avoid triggering anxieties,’ she says.

People who are neurodiverse are wired differently, and often their differences are an extraordinary strength in the workplace.

When it comes to lighting, it’s about managing glare and flickering. So avoiding fluorescent lighting and poor-quality LED is essential. ‘Investing in the correct lighting design for any space is wise,’ says David Clements, CEO of architectural lighting experts FUTURE Designs. ‘People perform at their best when you give them the healthiest environment and what we can achieve with the latest LED technology is as close to perfection as we’ve ever been. We can create lighting landscapes that support neurodivergency in its many forms, and the running costs are so much lower than old fluorescent technology. It’s a win/win.’

Additional considerations could be given, of course.

People who are neurodivergent often need routine and structure. Spatial layouts can help here – having zones with territorial desking, for instance. And as stretching helps those with Tourettes or Autism improve focus, a designated quiet area for this could be beneficial (stretching is also shown to help improve focus in people generally as well, so another win/win).

There are many platforms providing practical advice for designing inclusive spaces. The National Autistic Society [https://www.autism.org.uk/ environment] recommends making spaces that eliminate distractions. BRE Group (responsible for BREEAM certifications) highlights the issues caused by some fluorescent and LED lighting to those with Autism. And CIPD has created a comprehensive guide to neurodiversity and the workplace.w

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Roundtable

Designing for Mental Health

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great deal of work has already been done (and continues to be done, of course) on the physical wellbeing of people in the workplace – but what about designing for the mind? Fantastic work is now being done on wellbeing and how that is designed into buildings. So how important is emotional wellbeing and what does the designer really need to understand before work begins? How do you get the right message across to your clients?

We brought a brilliant panel of industry experts together to discuss this increasingly prevalent subject – and found that we learnt far more about mental health and wellbeing than we ever could have expected. Here’s just a snippet of what was a genuinely fascinating discussion.

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Roundtable

THE DISCUSSION

You need that corner with the fantastic views to go to all the employees – that’s when it really starts to become part of the culture.

We started by getting our guests in the right frame of mind, asking them, quite simply, what makes them happy? Responses ranged from free pens (kindly supplied by our sponsors, TMJ), through to choice, space and freedom. With these very much at the forefront of the mental wellbeing agenda (not the free pens!), we ask whether this is the direction in which we need to travel in terms of workplace transformation that aids mental wellbeing?

Melanie: I would say that we’re definitely seeing these things coming to the fore – although a lot of clients do still talk the talk and don’t necessarily walk the walk. I’ve been working with a client recently who appears to have completely backtracked and is not even going to provide free tea and coffee! Then you look at other organisations, such as GlaxoSmithKline, who are actually saying, ‘We’re going to provide really good quality coffee – we don’t care about the price’.

This is real tip-of-the-iceberg, simple little wellbeing stuff. It’s going to be interesting to see whether organisations really do embrace these ideas – after all, this is about supporting mental health – or it is about just ticking a box and saying to people, ‘You’re stressed – go home’.

Elaine: That point really resonates with me. Just ticking the boxes and not solving the problem is not the answer – it should be the culture of the organisation. There’s no point in having all these spaces when nobody feels as though they can actually use them! We’ve found that this really comes from the top down. The age of directors getting the best office has gone. You need that corner with the fantastic views to go to all the employees – that’s when it really starts to become part of the culture.

Simon: What we have seen a lot with our clients is that it is the culture that is the most important part of the puzzle – that’s what we have to get right.

Upper management often buy into this concept. We find that the biggest obstruction comes from middle management. It’s not the employees at a

In Association with

Roundtable

‘lower level’ – they really want to embrace this and want to have the choice and the ability to work most effectively. It’s that middle management level – the guy who sits within his team and is nervous about seeing his team away from their desks because they’ve taken time to go and clear their heads and play table tennis. They then become frustrated because they feel that the team isn’t getting on with the work that they need them to do. Meanwhile, the guys at the top seem to be embracing all this.

Petr: What we are seeing is that employees are naturally becoming more nomadic – they make choices for themselves and are far more content to move to the right place to work. Therefore it’s part of the reaction by employers to encourage this, which helps improve their retention rates and also helps them develop their wellbeing strategy – which in turn helps them attract the best people. So there is a purely commercial reasoning behind a lot of this.

I think this is a big part of why we’re seeing more flexibility.

Helen: It’s a real challenge for those middle managers – they’re in the middle of the sandwich.

They’ve been given this remit by people who have time to dream and be strategic. Middle management has to make things happen in terms of the strategy – and equally they’ve probably got families and mortgages and commitments. So they’re having to keep things together at home as well as at work – and then they’ve got this younger generation, generally, who they’re trying to send in one direction or another. I think they get it from both sides.

Petr: They’re caught in the middle with stress from both sides.

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Justine: I think it can be difficult sometimes and part of the problem is, for companies to find the incentive to invest in health and wellbeing, there isn’t the measurement to quantify the value and benefits this will bring to their business. It can be really difficult to convince the client to spend the money on actually trying to improve things.

Petr: There are tools that can measure those metrics – but I think it’s really about creating that narrative so that they can actually go to their board and say that, by implementing this design and spending an extra £10 per sq ft…

Helen: In a way, in terms of the terminology, it’s actually the other way around – how much it’s saving you, rather than how much you’re spending.

In some ways, if you’re looking at the WELL Standard, in some respects you can be slightly cynical about it because it is an American import that’s designed and manufactured by health services for insurance purposes to ensure that they

reduce the costs of illness and make more money out of it. On the positive side of that, it does mean that there are now metrics that say that healthier people mean more money for an organisation.

Lauren: I do a lot of work on the WELL Standard – and I think it’s opening up a lot of different discussions with different groups of people. So, on projects we work on, working alongside engineers and architects, we talk about the design but we are also now able to open up discussions and engage with HR and talk about mental health and how important it is for a company to be supportive to their staff.

Helen: To be realistic, WELL is driven by commerciality – which is fine because we live in a capitalist society. The really good thing that has come from the WELL Standard is that corporate businesses now see it, like they did with sustainability a few years ago, as the level they need to achieve in order to compete.

Roundtable

Simon: That’s the advantage that wellbeing has over the sustainability movement. Ultimately, that’s not achieved what everyone wanted it to. Clearly it’s a massive issue that needs to be addressed – but it’s much harder to assess how that’s beneficial for your business. When it comes to these large corporates, they often realise that they have a responsibility to fully embrace the sustainability piece. When it comes to smaller businesses, however, you can go and talk to them about sustainability and why it’s important to spend the money to get it right – and they simply don’t see the payback. With the wellness piece, they do. You can start to show them the metrics and to understand the effects of absenteeism etc.

Lauren: Pretty much everybody understands wellness and it would be very difficult for them to simply say, ‘I don’t care’.

Pretty much everybody understands wellness and it would be very difficult for them to simply say, ‘I don’t care’

Sarah: As a joinery company we heavily support main contractors in achieving wellbeing standards.

This can be deemed as more of a tick box exercise rather than true consideration for wellbeing. We need there to be wider recognition in the marketplace regarding how to achieve these standards and the true benefits of them.

Is it a challenge to talk to clients specifically about mental health?

Helen: It is. We recently did a talk in Glasgow where we were on panel with someone from Scottish Autism – and the first thing they said was, ‘Could we please define the difference between mental health and Neurodiversity?’ When we talk about mental health we’re talking about depression – about those things that come over you, that can be treated and that you can hopefully get over. Neurodiversity is something that you are born with. We’re in the design profession – and one in 25 of the population is Neurodiverse and we’ve probably got a lot of Neurodiverse people in our profession. There’s lots of dyslexia amongst the design fraternity, for example – and that’s considered Neurodiverse – and then there’s other things such as autism that

In Association with

Roundtable

become more extreme along the spectrum. There’s a huge opportunity to support, encourage and engage with a variety of Neurodiverse people and help them work in their environments – and we should absolutely not think of them as people with mental health issues. We almost need to broaden our view on what Neurodiversity is.

CONCLUSION

Elaine: The term mental health has got stigma around it. People do think autism, they think depression, they think something is wrong with someone. This is what the client often thinks – and they are not experts. They are coming to you because you’re the expert. I almost feel that using a term like mental wellbeing is much more userfriendly – talking about light, sound, perception of space, stress factors within the workplace and how you relate to your colleagues.

The understanding of mental wellbeing in the workplace has moved a long, long way very quickly – although we’ve only just scratched the surface.

As our panel (and obo’s Gary Helm) have pointed out, the design industry’s leading lights are now setting a great example by starting to understand not just the ‘conditions’ of people, but the people themselves. Small changes can make a huge difference to an awful lot of people.w

Justine: I think we’ve come to a certain point – but we still really need to take the next few steps so that we have a proper understanding of the issues.

As we’ve already pointed out, there are still terms that we don’t even understand – and we really need to understand that before we can actually take it forward and implement it into workplace strategy.

We need to remember that it is the inanimate space that is the problem – and not the person.

Helen: We’ve been very privileged in that we work with organisations such as the BBC, who are currently championing Neurodiversity. They found that they had a number of people who were struggling in the environment of a normal office and one of their senior leadership members saw that something was wrong with one of their team – and realised that there was a stress there. Instead of thinking, ‘Oh, there’s a bit of a problem here’, they asked why that person was feeling this way. They realised that they were getting some great work from this person – but they were still suffering. By investigating, they not only helped this person but also started to really champion Neurodiversity.

Elaine: I think that, a lot of the time, people realise that there is something wrong and that the space doesn’t necessarily fit, but they don’t necessarily know how to put that into words – how to communicate what’s wrong. Some people are light sensitive, others are noise sensitive and others are touch sensitive – and understanding how people perform in different environments, quiet spaces or collaborative spaces, already goes some way to help solve that puzzle.

Helen: The space should support the people. We need to remember that it is the inanimate space that is the problem – and not the person.

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Roundtable

OUR GUESTS

Petr Esposito. Director, ThirdWay Architecture

Melanie Woolcott, Workplace Director, Orbit Architects

Helen Berresford, Partner Head, Sheppard Robson

Elaine du Preez, Interior Designer, Cushman & Wakefield

Petr is a Founding Director of ThirdWay Architecture, a progressive studio embedded within The ThirdWay Group, aligning the benefits of a traditional architectural practice with the pace, flexibility and market knowledge of a creative multi-disciplinary studio. TWA are committed to developing and building ideas that reflect contemporary thinking, working and living.

Melanie is an expert in the field of workplace consultancy and design, with over 30 years’ experience.

She is responsible for introducing innovative flexible workplace environments in both the public and private sectors. Melanie utilises current thinking and future trends to develop new and innovative environments ‘tailor made’ to match her clients’ requirements.

Helen is Partner and Head of ID:SR, Sheppard Robson’s award-winning interior design group. Helen is a recognised industry leader and, through her creative leadership, ID:SR has developed an activitydriven design approach that puts people at the heart of the design process and is helping to overturn the traditional concept of the office environment.

Elaine recently joined Cushman & Wakefield as an Associate, to work as a part of the design department.

She brings 10 years’ experience within various sectors of interior design, including exhibition design and corporate interiors, as well as architecture. Elaine has a keen interest in psychology in the workplace, and how design can affect the lives of those who inhabit it.

Justine Mason, Interior Designer, BDP

Lauren Williams, Associate Director, AECOM UK

Simon Hart, Head of Design, AIS

Sarah Warren, Pre-Contracts Director, TMJ Interiors

Justine is an interior designer who has been working with the BDP ID family for almost four years. She specialises in workplace interiors, with a keen interest in the future of design. Aside from the obvious, she loves music – mixing Drum & Bass is one of her favourite pastimes and she has been heavily influential in her approach to design through the visual interpretation of sound and space.

Lauren, Associate Director within AECOM UK’s Sustainable Development Group, has over 11 years’ experience of acting as a sustainability champion and undertaking building environmental rating schemes on projects throughout London and Europe. She is an accredited professional in all major environmental assessment schemes and is on several steering committees looking at the future of these schemes and their synergies.

A proper design nerd devoted to producing workplace designs that progress people, Simon founded the AIS design team and has pushed forward its development, ensuring people-centric outputs that go beyond the brief. Simon is a constant driver of innovation, recently implementing emerging technologies including VR and augmented reality.

TMJ Interiors is one of the UK’s leading bespoke joinery companies, working on prestigious and exciting projects in the commercial, residential and specialist sectors.

Sarah leads the front end of the business, including business development, estimating and winning work. Having worked for TMJ for ten years, Sarah is very proud of being promoted to the board of directors as the first female board member in TMJ’s history.

In Association with

Case Study |

This page ‘The Orchard’ client meeting room Opposite Ground floor informal café area for staff and clients

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Case Study | Deloitte

Square Route We do love a stat. Regular readers will also be all too aware that we love an innovative, exciting project story. So, when our friends at Sheppard Robson and Sketch started revealing a number of astonishing statistics regarding the latest major project they’d undertaken for Deloitte, we were already clearing our diaries and hot-footing it into the City.

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New Street Square now forms the central hub of Deloitte’s new City of London campus.

The 270,000 sq ft UK and North West Europe headquarters is the culmination of a four-year programme. This amazing building comprises 15 floors, with some 5,500 people sharing 3,500 working positions – including 2,000 core positions and 1,500 flex positions. Eight working floors are allocated to Deloitte’s business units, four are given to client spaces and two shared floors with unallocated workspace are available for anyone in the business to use.

Furthermore, there are 10 client environment choices, including client meeting rooms, event spaces such as The Greenhouse, The Orchard, The Observatory and The Academy, plus a choice of dining options.

‘There were five key principles that guided the design here,’ Devinder Bhogal, Senior Manager for

Workplace Services & Real Estate at Deloitte, tells us as we make our way up from the stylish reception space to the new client-facing spaces at the top of 1 New Street Square. ‘Our space needed to be unique, connected, simple, relevant and inspiring. We needed an environment that better met the evolving and diverse needs of our people and clients.

‘We’ve done this by providing more suitable, varied and flexible space, maximising efficiency and choice.

From connecting us together through to enhancing our wellbeing, inspiring our people and welcoming our clients – this new space has completely changed the way our people are able to work.’

‘We have actually been able to accommodate 30% more people in less space,’ Devinder reveals.

‘We’ve also reduced on-floor storage by more than 60% and have removed partner offices, instead introducing a far greater range of both formal and informal work settings.’

In fact, as Devinder explains, the business has developed and delivered a strategy that encourages its people to choose appropriate locations or work settings for the activity of the day. This strategy means that people can now choose from no less than 10 different types of work settings – compared to the pretty standard choice of three (desk, breakout, meeting room) formerly.

‘This is a big thing for us – and it’s worked really well,’ Devinder continues. ‘In fact, we’re currently connecting 1 New Street Square with 2 New Street Square via a series of bridges – to further enhance that connectivity and interaction.

‘This is very much why we wanted two of the floors here to not be assigned to anybody, which is something we’ve never really done before. We knew we could add even more amenities here and really open it up to the rest of the campus – we knew we were going to have people working throughout the

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Case Study | Deloitte

Below Working floor. Bottom Client space, 13th floor

Project Team Client Deloitte 1NSS Architect & Interior Designer Sheppard Robson (ID:SR) Contractor Overbury Furniture Provider Sketch Studios Flooring Suppliers Milliken, Interface, Altro Floors, Tarkett Floors, Element 7 Furniture Suppliers B&B Italia, Bisley, Bla Station, Boss, CMD, CMS Industries, Davison Highley, Forza, Gloster, Hitch Mylius, HK Design, Inform, Interstuhl, Isomi, Knoll, Kusch, MA Design, Ocee Design, Opus Magnum, Steelcase, Vitra, Walter Knoll Storage Suppliers Bisley, Rapid Racking, Treston Other Suppliers Clerkenwell Screws, Evoline, Hoare Lea, GIA Equation, Sefton Horn Winch, OE Electrics, PTS Consulting Group Plc, Screwfix, Workstories, Presco

72 | Mix 192 March 2019

three buildings, but we also wanted them to feel a part of this new building. So these floors have restaurants, auditoria and flexible work settings. We also wanted to take internal meetings away from the client spaces.

‘We always knew we were going to do something quite special for our client spaces. We had fine dining in our old building, and we’ve now brought that into here. You can now get breakfast, lunch and dinner five days a week – in a really nice environment with great views. We used to say that we were taking clients out – now we want to say that we’re bringing our clients in. This is radically different in terms of the look and feel. It’s an amazing facility.

‘We also have four different terraces. Some are given to clients, while the 12th floor terrace – which is the largest terrace – is given over to our people.

It’s open all day and can be booked for events in the afternoon and evening, but is primarily for people to just get out there and enjoy the sunshine.’

While admiring the views, we ask Devinder about the origins of this forward-thinking project. ‘We had one lease end and one lease break coming together at the same time, ‘ she explains. ‘Then it was a case of looking at what was on the market – and actually it was a no-brainer to take this building because it meant that we could bring all our buildings here together. We had the opportunity to create a real campus – and that just made perfect sense.

‘We’ve seen a real change in how people work – and that’s fundamentally what came out of the surveys and engagement that we did. They wanted to choose how they wanted to work – and we wanted to give them those choices.’

Sustainability and wellbeing were at the core of this fantastic project. Deloitte’s sustainability strategy for 1 New Street Square was to challenge traditional

‘green building’ thinking and deliver a workplace that would truly benefit its people and the planet.

By putting these considerations at the heart of the workplace vision, the fit-out attained both BREEAM Outstanding certification – and with a score of 94%, became the highest scoring BREEAM 2014 Refurbishment & Fit-out project in the world at the time of occupation – and WELL Certified Gold, becoming the largest ‘New and Existing Interiors’ project in the world to achieve the standard – and the first to achieve BREEAM Outstanding/WELL Gold dual-certification. Great stats!

They wanted to choose how they wanted to work – and we wanted to give them those choices

Case Study | Deloitte

This Page, Clockwise From Left: Example of internal collaboration space. Stairs connecting working floors. Unassigned working space – available for any Deloitte people to use. Chef’s table client fine dining space Opposite, Top to Bottom: 1New Street Square reception. 7th floor unassigned space – adjacent to The Bridge restaurant and HEJ café

Deloitte worked closely with ID:SR (Sheppard Robson’s interior design team) and Sketch, developing a variety of solutions that could provide the wide range of work settings desired.

With over 27,000 items of furniture and a 50% ratio of height adjustable desking, the programme has achieved an exceptional end user experience, with the integration of tech into furniture elements helping maintain a clean and fluid aesthetic. Sketch worked closely with suppliers and in many cases developed pioneering solutions to meet the project objectives – not least those sustainability criteria

74 | Mix 192 March 2019

that BREEAM and WELL require. ‘You’ll find a lot of biophilia and ‘well’ throughout the building,’ Devinder considers. ‘We didn’t originally know whether we were going to go for the WELL Gold – and from the project team’s perspective it was a lot of hard work – but we always aspired to put in all the principles because, from a wellbeing point of view, why wouldn’t we? It’s our people who are at the heart of what we’re doing here. So whether it’s through the food, the stairs we’ve put in to connect people in a different way, the lighting, the air quality or how we procured our furniture…all of this just came together.

‘We were learning as we went along – nobody had done this before. We were able to push the team and they pushed us back. If we were going to do this, we were going to do it properly. It challenged us in terms of our offering and also how we engage with our people.’

Here are some more incredible stats for you: over 750 purchase orders to the supply chain, 300 design drawings, over 1,000 pages of product presentations, 404 deliveries and 32,000 hours to install the project.

Ellen Garrod, Account Manager at Sketch, tells us: 'On this scale of project, having a great relationship

Leading UK furniture manufacturer

The Client Deloitte is one of the ‘Big Four’ accounting organisations and the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees.

The company provides audit, tax, consulting, enterprise risk and financial advisory services with more than 286,200 employees globally.

Founded in 1845 by William Welch Deloitte, Deloitte operates across the world in more than 100 locations including Hong Kong, China and India, with its HQ being in London, UK.

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Case Study | Deloitte

The project has been a truly inspiring experience for the entire team, and I am proud of what we have collectively achieved

with all the manufacturers involved made a huge difference. They really exceeded our expectations – their attention to detail and support was phenomenal.'

‘The project has been a truly inspiring experience for the entire team, and I am proud of what we have collectively achieved,’ Fritha Selwyn-Jones, Deloitte Project Director at Sketch Studios, now on full-time secondment to Deloitte as Workplace Design Manager, tells us. ‘The sheer scale and varied workplaces at 1 New Street Square are exceptional and every time I walk through the building, I am delighted to have been a part of this project and witness to the space being fully utilised and enjoyed.

‘What’s more, in collaboration with Hoare Lea and ID:SR we have completed groundbreaking work as we targeted WELL Gold and BREEAM Outstanding accreditations, which we are delighted to confirm, has been achieved. Deloitte has been a fantastic partner and it’s a privilege to have been part of such an amazing scheme.’

It really is an amazing scheme. Heading down to the assigned floors, we see an incredible number of settings, from open informal meeting space through to private booths. Importantly, each and every one of these settings and facilities is being used. Walking into one of the generous, bright neighbourhoods, we can instantly count no less than eight different (genuine) work settings being adopted.

The attention to detail throughout is also well worth mentioning. From the smart, intuitive wayfinding and the elegant client floors, through to the furniture and product selection, every element has been carefully considered. Even the oft-forgotten stairwells are immaculately dressed!

When you consider the scale of this project and the numbers involved, it really is a testament to everyone involved here that such consideration has been put into every element. There’s a real buzz to the place as well – from the Benugo café on the ground floor, through to the energetic working floors above. The stats can tell you an awful lot – but not that! w

76 | Mix 192 March 2019

Top: 12th floor terrace for all Deloitte people 2nd Top: Breakout space on a typical working floor Above & Left: Working floor – a perfect example of one of the 10 working styles Above: ‘The Mezzanine’ – a collaborative mixed-use space, which can be converted to auditorium client space Left: Biophilic quiet breakout space

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Case Study |

ABOVE: 1st Floor Sales meeting and collaboration touchdown space

The Right Road One of the intriguing things about living and working in large towns and cities is how you’re constantly learning about how places and spaces connect. How often have you walked down a street for the first time only to realise you’re somewhere you already know but didn’t expect to find?

78 | Mix 192 March 2019

Case Study | CarFinance 247

Photography: Mike Dinsdale from MidiPhotography

W

hen we recently visited the new working home of CarFinance 247, we were grateful that our taxi driver knew exactly where we meant when we asked for Universal Square.

On reaching our destination, on the outskirts of central Manchester, we had a strange feeling that we’d seen the impressively remodeled, colourful building in front of us before. It was only two days later, on the train heading down to London, that we realised exactly where we knew it from. We just hadn’t connected the dots!

The new CarFinance 247 space has been designed by Spatial Office Environments – and we’re met by the company’s Workspace & ICT Consultant, Addam Giffard, who can give us the tour and tell us more about this latest chapter in

the CarFinance story – one of Manchester’s great success stories of recent times.

In 2006, Reg and Louis Rix started CarFinance 247 whilst running a successful online car classified business, netcars.com (which was later acquired by RAC). They spotted one big gap in the market; that people were finding it hard to get honest advice on car finance.

Using new technology, they came up with a new, efficient way of working; a way to give customers access to a panel of trusted lenders and a huge range of financial products to suit, whatever their situation. As a result, CarFinance 247 is now the number one car finance broker in the UK. Their move to occupy three floors of Universal Square is, at once, the result of that success and a statement that this is a business still very much on

the up after expanding to nearly 500 personnel in a relatively short time.

Addam takes us through the complex, where we pass an impressive ‘universal’ café space (Spatial also provided the furniture here, incidentally) before heading up to the top of the building.

We’re immediately faced with bold and brilliant large-scale graphics, which signify that we’re now entering the world of CarFinance 247. ‘This is the 6th floor – and this is very much the customer journey,’ Addam tells us. ‘They proudly have Aubee – one of the Manchester bees – displayed here as you arrive. 'They are Manchester born and bred and they are very proud of that heritage,' Addam continues, 'as can be witnessed by how much they give back to the local community. ‘CarFinance are spread over three floors here – ground, 1st and 6th.

Mix 192 March 2019 | 79

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Case Study | CarFinance 247

ABOVE: 6th Floor Kitchen Diner

They are primarily a finance technology (FinTech) company, so the core work is provided by their inhouse teams of developers and programmers, who create the infrastructure that gives them the edge over their competitors. They built their own bespoke system many years ago – and constantly develop it. They pretty much own the real estate in software when it comes to car finance – and this is what gives them the advantage and is why they have grown so astronomically over the past few years. This 6th floor is dedicated to that software development.

'The majority of people here, however, are actually call centre staff who occupy the ground and 1st floors and are instrumental in providing the friction-free customer experience CarFinance are known for. In a typical call centre environment you tend to have high staff churn and burn-out due to the inherent stressful conditions, training issues and major noise pollution, so we’ve spent a lot of time, thought and attention to ensure that the space is as quiet and as comfortable as possible. Louis and Reg were very keen to do what it takes to create a working environment that best supports every team member – be it developers, telesales, admin or cleaning crew. Together with our Head of Design, Christina Belkacem, we devised a multitude of areas and facilities to meet this goal – no expense spared.

‘For the call centre areas, we developed really smart sound-proofing solutions, which absolutely

deaden the noise. Just listen – you wouldn't guess there are hundreds of people here.

'We developed a series of bespoke storage units so that everyone has their own personal locker. We used long runs of planters to add biophilia and also to help break up what is quite a large, open space.

The attention to detail that Christina introduced is quite incredible – and all of this was for the benefit of the 247 people, to make everyone feel as though this is their space. Something they could be proud of. A space where they belonged and felt valued.

‘Christina and Reg went so far as mapping out the kitchens to make things as easy as possible for the 247 people to use – so, as you walk into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, you’ll see that you start at one end and simply move along the counter efficiently with next to zero cognitive load. There’s no searching for things or opening cupboards. They spent hours thinking about this. It’s incredibly intuitive.

‘The meeting rooms have flip-top tables for flexibility and have integrated display screens and state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities.

They also have a lot of writable surfaces because they are big believers in people having no holds barred thinking, so you’ll see writable surfaces everywhere. They’re really keen that staff are free to express their ideas.

‘People here work in neighbourhoods, so we have developed a variety of settings to encourage

The Client

Founded in 2006, CarFinance 247 is the number one car finance broker in the UK. CarFinance 247 has recently launched a 247 People Fund, a new charitable fund, which will see the company donate over £150,000 and 4,000 manhours to to those projects that make a real difference to the lives of people in need across Manchester.

Mix 192 March 2019 | 81

Case Study | CarFinance 247

Right: Boardroom

ABOVE: Ground Floor Customer Support Suite

collaboration, scrum sessions and brainstorming.

They also have individual workstations for their focused programming work. Depending on what they are working on, they can choose how and where they work in their neighbourhood.

‘In saying that, people can pretty much work wherever they want to – the only thing people need to do is ensure that the desks are clear at the end of the day.’

Looking around the Dev Space, we find a dramatic central video wall, which shows a whole load of data we can’t make head nor tail of, which also doubles as a presentation and training facility.

Seriously impressive stuff.

‘If a group of people get a spark of inspiration, they can also gather together in the 'Ideas Sanctuary' – which is visually separated from the rest of the floor and provides a relaxing space where they can really start to develop those ideas, freely’ Addam reveals.’

82 | Mix 189 November 2018

The smart, glazed, kitchens provide an escape when people need a break, while a bespoke pool table (which can also double as an impromptu meeting table) offers further downtime opportunity.

‘The manifestations throughout are a subtle nod to the CarFinance logo,’ Addam points out. ‘We introduced some brand colours, while the yellow – which isn’t a brand colour – signifies breakout space. Christina has done a lot of subtle cues to the colours and logo, but they didn’t want a lot of CarFinance branding. In fact, the only place you’re likely to see the brand up here is on the water bottles – which every member of staff is presented with.’

Not only do we admire the variety of work settings and environments provided here, we also like the selection of furniture and products, from high-back seating through to pods, which has clearly been carefully curated to fit the different tasks undertaken by the CarFinance teams. Addam tells us that, in

CarFinance were an amazing client to work with – they went full-throttle and really believed in the design and what we were trying to achieve on their behalf

BELOW: 6th Floor Breakout and Kitchen

Case Study | CarFinance 247

Left: 6th floor library and professional development.

Project Team Client CarFinance 247 Interior Design Christina Belkacem (Spatial Office Environments) Furniture Provider Spatial Office Environments Flooring Interface, Desso, Mandarin Stone, Forbo Furniture Sven, Boss Design, Orangebox, Koleksyion, Gresham, Muuto, Connection, Senator, Allermuir, Nomique, Buzzispace, sixteen3,

Modus, Hitch Mylius, Ocee Design, Pledge, New Design Group, Spacestor, Join Design Direction (JDD), Humanscale, Luxury Pool Tables Storage Abox, Lignify Surfaces Johnsons Tiles, Tektura, Muraspec, Gravity Graphics, Camira, Kadavrat, Yarwood Leather, Crest Others In Leaf, Mount Lighting, Creatif, Commercial Blinds & Glazing, Heatrae Sadia, Benchmarks, Sharp, Bowl Fish, Paxrton, OE Electrics, Screentek, Frem Group

ABOVE: DevOps Collaboration

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Case Study | CarFinance 247

TOP TO BOTTOM: 6th floor brainstorming area. One of many meeting and collaboration booths.

Collaboration and customer timeline development

They are Manchester born and bred and they are very proud of that heritage.

84 | Mix 192 March 2019

total, products from well over 50 manufacturers have been brought together for this project.

Moving down to the 1st floor, we’re greeted by an audible buzz – as you’d expect with a call centre environment. As Addam alluded to earlier, the acoustic solutions used here are clearly doing their job – there’s a buzz, but no more than that. ‘This floor is split into two halves,’ Addam points out.

‘We have touchdown meeting facilities for visitors and external sales with these soundproof pods at the front centre of the floor, a large multifunctional training and video presentation room with moveable walls, and long runs of locker storage with top planters to break up the space and noise reverberations – along with the spring-loaded sound bafflers above. The colours are subtle and calm, designed to help reduce stress. There are tea points and breakout spaces throughout and along the central core is a series of double-space divisional meeting rooms with integrated booking systems.’

Towards the far end of the space, which is a naturally quieter part of the floor, there is a smart training and teaching zone, where there are facilities that simulate the real call centre environment for new members of staff. The kitchen/tea point/breakout facilities mirror those we saw upstairs, while we also can’t help noticing that there are a lot of smiles on faces as we wander through the floor – something that, in our experience, isn’t always the case when it come to call centre environments.

‘Christina did a fantastic job here. I’m amazed by how she was able to put these three floors together. CarFinance were an amazing client to work with – they went full-throttle and really believed in the design and what we were trying to achieve on their behalf. They came in with an open mind – and I think that’s really paid off here.

‘They really want to provide the best they could for the 247 people. They take wellbeing and the wellfare of their staff really seriously and so a lot of thought and effort has been put into those small details, such as the healthy snack machines, free hot drinks, fresh fruit and fresh bread, which are all provided daily.’

Those small touches go a long way – as does an incredibly well-considered workplace that puts people first. CarFinance 247 clearly have both here.w

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SELECTIONS

Antron carpet fibre underlines its worth at Workplace House Workplace House, a new collaborative showroom in the heart of London’s Clerkenwell district, recently opened its doors with INVISTA Antron carpet fibre keeping textile flooring from Christy Carpets ‘showroom ready’ on a daily basis.

Carpet tiles made with Antron Lumena carpet fibre welcome visitors to Workplace House at the street-level reception and coffee bar. Chosen in pastel shades, Stressed Out (Hyper & Weary) and Relax (Soothed & Sublime) designs by Christy Carpets combine to demonstrate how flooring texture can work together to add interest. www.antron.eu

Make hotels more Instagrammable with UNILIN division panels A recent British survey suggests that more than 40% of millennials choose their holiday destination based on its Instragammability, so what can you do to make hotel interiors more instagrammable? A simple yet amusing slogan on the wall of the entrance outside the washrooms at The Hotel’s restaurant in Brussels reads, ‘Men to the left because women are always right’, and became one of its most Instagrammed spots. Designers can use UNILIN Evola panels to such effect, choosing from 168 designs as the perfect backdrop to a ‘grammable’ slogan, or even creating a unique ‘selfie spot'. www.unilinpanels.com

Granorte launches budget-driven collection at Domotex Innovator in cork, Granorte, used the Domotex trade fair to unveil a new concept in cork flooring with the global introduction of the TRENDcollection, a budget-driven collection that possesses all the benefits of the sustainable and natural material. Presented on a striking stand, designed by renowned interior designer, Marco Carini, which gave an immersive voyage into a box-like cork shelter, TRENDcollection sees cork’s quiet and comfortable, water-resistant, wear-resistant and ecological benefits in a range of economical and easy to install floors. www.granorte.co.uk

Milliken makes concrete comfortable Milliken has introduces a new carpet tile collection – Comfortable concrete.

Inspired by the enduring popularity of the concrete aesthetic, Milliken designer Helen Lloyd wanted the collection to also reference the extreme elements of our environment; sunsets and stormy skies, embracing the effects of nature through organic forms, colours, shapes and textures.

Milliken’s patented digtial colour patterning technology, Millitron, enabled this biophilic element to be added to the story, with layered patterning, natural colours and visual texture. www.millikencarpet.com

86 | Mix 192 March 2019

Review |

SELECTIONS

Brick by Brick at the Netherlands' University of Technology Inspired by a city skyline, Bricks furniture by Casala gives a clean, architectonic aesthetic with it's clean horizontal lines and angular appearance. Made up of a FSC certified wooden structure, with flat steel no-sag springs and eco cold foam, Bricks has a warm upholstered look, which creates a pleasant atmosphere for study, work and informal consultations. Bricks can be upholstered in a wide range of colours and fabrics. In the University of Technology, the colours were selected to match the general scheme of the building. www.casala.com

Two sustainable additions to Quadrant’s flooring range Both of Quadrant’s newest collections, Cork and Scape, combine organic textures with eco-friendly materials – but they’re unique in look, feel and function. Cork offers stunning modern aesthetics with all the natural properties of a remarkably sustainable material. Scape uses ECONYL, a nylon made from waste recovered from the ocean and is designed to mimic elements in nature. The two collections reflect Quadrant’s increased focus on biophilic design and sustainability. www.quadmod.com

Self-contained living wall units bring biophilia to Manchester Office plants specialist, Inleaf, installed (and now maintains) this unique living wall installation for a client in Manchester as part of a wider designer planting scheme. The living wall area is made up of multiple individual living wall units, arranged in random pattern. Each one includes tanks that automatically water the plants, providing the benefits of a living wall without the need for expensive plumbing works. www.inleaf.co.uk/living-walls/

Clear the air with Desso Desert AirMaster Tarkett has extended its acclaimed Desso Desert AirMaster collection with the addition of six new shades to its colour palette. Inspired by nature, the design boasts a diffused, marble-effect pattern, created through pairing an irregular motif with one of two background tones. This combination affords carpet tiles a unique outcome every time, offering endless creative possibilities. The versatile range can be used to set either a calming or stimulating ambience in workplace interior spaces through the offer of nine neutral shades and three accent hues. www.tarkett.co.uk

Mix 192 March 2019 | 87

The Last Word | Opinion

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FOOD MILES? Criteo’s Head of Workplace Experience EMEA, Mike Walley, like the vast majority of us, is thinking about food – and, more specifically, where it comes from. And we don't mean Pret or Subway!

I

Mike Walley is Criteo’s Head of Workplace Experience EMEA

88 | Mix 192 March 2019

was thinking about workplace food offerings the other day and musing on what is currently de rigeur. At the moment the main keywords are 'choice, healthy and fresh'. People want food that meets the needs of all the main choice groups – carnivore, vegetarian, vegan etc, and they want it to be good for them. They still want chocolate in the snacks offering though!

The breakfast of choice is, of course, the crushed avocado on sourdough toast. The avocado meets all the requirements of healthy while the sourdough fills you up and stops you looking for the chocolate before lunchtime. They are usually piled up in a fruit bowl that is full of the other great workplace staple...the banana.

This, of course, just reflects the greater understanding we now have with regards to healthy eating in general. It also means workplace managers can no longer take the easy option of a coin operated snack machine full of fats and sugars and call it a food offering.

The other benefit of fresh food is that it does reduce the waste generated by packaging and wrappings and, in this world of Corporate Social Responsibility, waste reduction is a good thing. This is another element of the modern workplace that is of concern to people. We have eco programmes, waste reduction drives, energy efficiency drives and constantly look to reduce the impact that business has on the environment.

So, whatever happened to food miles?

'Food miles' was a term coined in the 1990s to highlight the environmental impact of moving produce around the world to ensure we can have fresh strawberries on our Christmas pavlova. It looked at the global impact of transport and the local impact of production, ie. container ships ploughing across the world's oceans belching fumes from their smokestacks and acres of southern Spain covered in plastic to grow out-of-season strawberries.

It is curious (at least to an old fart like me) that as businesses get more aware and accountable for the impact they have on the environment, we seem to have forgotten about the impact the food we serve can have socially and environmentally, and not just on our health. In a previous life, I was a chef and it was

all we discussed at the time. Menus were built around the food miles, we strove to get the lowest mileage into our recipes.

Then it slowly shifted to be about 'seasonal produce' and that morphed into 'local produce' and we then forgot all about the environment and tried to serve Norfolk carrots with our Aylesbury duck and Kent apples in the tart tatin.

Funny, but nobody ever called them Honduran bananas.

Let us look at the banana. That’s the one that vanishes most quickly from the office fruit basket.

• More bananas are exported from Latin America than any other fruit from any other location.

• The banana industry uses more agrochemicals than any other industry, with the exception of the cotton industry.

• The ships that bring them to Europe are one of the most polluting forms of transport on the planet.

What about avocados?

Not only do they have the same food mile issues, but they have the added problem that many of the farms are being seized by the drug cartels to allow them to launder money.

Now that’s quite a list, and there’s me thinking they were both good for you!

Now, before I get written off as an unrealistic environmentalist, I am not suggesting for a moment that we should boycott bananas and avocados. The situation is far more complex than the simple points I raise here and needs a more complex response. I just wanted to highlight the selective thinking that occasionally occurs when we forget to look at the big picture. Can we really claim to be green if we don’t at least acknowledge these issues? Can we be healthy at the expense of the planet? Big questions, I admit.

I honestly don’t have the answers. All I want to do here is to get us all reflecting on the issues at those moments when we place orders, or react to fads and fashions in food. Maybe we too should push local produce to our customers? Really, what is nicer than a piece of sharp cheddar, topped with a slice or two of Bramley apple? Put it on toast, and there is breakfast!

As someone once said when it comes to food, 'Every little helps'!w

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