Mobile movement

Undeniably, the greatest influencer on modern corporate design is continuing technological improvement—such as the growing prevalence of Smartphones, virtual conferencing, and virtual private networks (VPNs)—which has allowed employees to push the limits of the office further into virtual realms. Now staying connected, even while away from the workplace, is easier than ever. But with the lines between the home and office blurred, companies are recognizing that there is less need to designate large amounts of private space to staffers.

“There’s a new realization (and research shows) that we’re only in our workstations about 35 to 40 percent of the day…and it’s not just the Intels and the IBMs of the world doing this kind of work,” says Steve Delfino vice president of corporate marketing and product management for Teknion, an international designer, manufacturer, and marketer of office furniture. “We must ask, ‘Why are we dedicating so much space to someone who isn’t in their office all that much?’”

As such, square footage and how much space is being allocated is now being scrutinized on every client project, according Mark C. Hirons, AIA, IIDA, LEED AP, principal and design leader of corporate interiors for OWPP/Cannon Design in Chicago. “The value and the functionality aspects [of workstations] are being challenged to make sure that the individual can be the most effective possible. Its looking at the aspects of what the person needs to do and how the workstation responds to what they need to do,” Hirons says.

Tight quarters

“Although there are no hard statistics on average workstation size, [we] have seen a downward shift in cubicle size over the past few years,” says Terry Carroll, market intelligence manager for Jasper, Ind.-based office furniture manufacturer Kimball® Office. According to research from the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), private office space has decreased steadily in size since 2002. Senior management offices shrank approximately 13 percent, while professional offices are up to 15 smaller. Carroll notes that the average cubicle size has been reduced from 8 ft. by 8 ft. two or three years ago to today’s more common 6 ft. by 6 ft. workstations.

Multipurpose is the now name of the game, and the challenge for designers, as workstation layouts now need to make the most out of every square inch of real estate, which includes, “filing cabinets we’ve added drawers to use space that you couldn’t in the past. We layer open workspace over cabinets so you’re able to stack and store things you couldn’t in the past. We’re adding things like heavy cushions that can function as a seat, as well,” Delfino says.

From tall to small

In addition to reduced size, workstation panels are also coming down in height, creating less privacy and more open space, at an exponential rate. “The migration of people from private, closed-door offices to workstations providing standing-height privacy took more than a decade. But in only a few short years, we have seen a shift from 66-in. height to 51- to 42-in. height workstations,” says Delfino.

Sustainability is a big contributor to this trend. Interior openness allows for more natural light to permeate through the space, resulting in increased energy-efficiency with a decreased need for harsh overhead lighting. Plus, according to, Hirons, studies have shown that people are more comfortable—and therefore more productive—with the presence of natural light.

Collaboration by design

But what’s now being realized is that smaller workstations with shorter panels, combined with more communal spaces, are also leading the way for increased communication in the office, meaning design is now the medium for not only where we work but how. “The smaller and more open a workstation, it seems, it encourages us to collaborate,” says Delfino. “Collaboration always happened by chance, and now it seems we are trying to make that happen by design.”

As a greater blending of generations in the workforce plays into the typical employee mix, a more team-based, collaborative mindset is evolving as the norm. “I’d say that openness is certainly a result of the socialization aspect of social networking, more so than any other previous generation, and that’s actually a driver too,” Hirons says. “Younger employees are making friends and connecting with people more…Firms are seeing that [openness] is a great way to promote retention and recruitment. It’s a huge opportunity for positive moral.”

Culture shock

Brigitte Preston, principal of Dallas-based Lauck Group feels that the shift is a positive one and sees a direct correlation between the shift from private space to public space and the shift from the status quo to the mobile worker. However, while she believes mobile worker support is what designers should be looking at when designing a workspace, Preston also notes not everyone may necessarily be ready to make the change.

“I’m not sure that people really understand it, and I’m not sure companies are really ready to go there now. The older generations are used to having their own territory and more private space,” she says. “Any worker with a laptop and a cell phone is technically a mobile worker, but whether that mobile work is properly supported by the company is the issue. There’s this culture shift that needs to take place that hasn’t fully yet.”

Despite Preston’s apprehensions, it seems the demand for improved, smaller workstations is in full swing. Organizations are increasingly opting for open floor plans in order to encourage and support collaboration and teamwork, and according to the 2005 study “Global Workplace Trends: A North American and European Comparison,” the ratio between individual and collaborative space should have increased from 80/20, respectively, in 2005 to 60/40 this year.

“For this reason, it’s extremely important, and challenging, for interior designers to understand workers needs, and design spaces to effectively meet the requests of the workers who will occupy the space,” says Carroll. There are pros and cons to both private offices and open-plan environments, but more and more companies seem to favor open, collaborative spaces.”

Going, going…gone?

Will the day ever come when workstations will be eliminated entirely? Preston doesn’t believe so, as she feels employees, even mobile ones, will always need some sort of office to come to. However, change is inevitable.

“I see the footprint shrinking, technology supported more, and solutions that can evolve over time so you can go from something more traditional to something more edgy like benching. The panel systems are definitely on the out,” says Preston, who dubs herself the biggest panel hater in the world. “There’s this paradigm with the furniture manufacturers where some time in the future you’ll see a shift toward more innovative materials and designs, such as fewer legs, more cantilevered and more unsupported spans of space.” Such innovations may be more sustainable, look better, and allow for better client branding.

Unfortunately, no one can tell for sure what the office of the future will finally look like when all is said and done, but designers and manufacturers agree that we’re are already on the cusp of a new era of style—one that incorporates sustainability, social interaction, and flexibility to ensure the workstation evolves into a long-standing viable solution for years to come.

LOOK around, they’re everywhere: hunched shoulders, angled necks and wrists, hands twisted like claws. As people harness their bodies to use more electronic devices in more places, they may unknowingly be putting themselves at a greater risk of injury: read more here http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/jobs/11work.html?_r=1#

Thanks to Marty of Assured Systems for pictures of another productivity clean up.

Not only is this nice and tidy, Marty is now more productive.

BEFORE                                                AFTER

We are not designed to sit for long hours in one place! Yet many people work in jobs requiring them to sit all day, usually in front of a computer. If this sounds like you, consider how much stress you are placing on your body. Unless you’re sitting in an appropriately aligned position, at a correct ergonomic workstation, you run the risk of injury, pain and discomfort.

Throughout my many years working with people as a corrective exercise specialist, I have seen, heard and dealt with their pain on a daily basis. Often their problem stems from poor body alignment while sitting, working long hours. Many come to me as a last resort after spending countless hours and dollars seeing various doctors, therapists and specialists to no avail.

Often clients ask me if they should sit on a Swiss ball or some sort of fancy chair to help with the improvement of their body position at work. The truth is it doesn’t matter what you are sitting on, no special chair will resolve things if you don’t know where your body should be to take the stress of the neck, upper or lower back. You can’t even start to improve the pain/discomfort without: Knowing well where the body should be aligned, Appropriate stretching and strengthening to hold it in this position.

As postural muscles gravitate to the wrong position for many hours on a daily basis, they become chronically overworked. This causes them to shorten and tighten which then alters our spinal curvature. Where there are short or tight muscles there have to be weak muscles opposing. (Muscle imbalance) This extremely common muscle imbalance causes nasty things to happen to our bodies. Things like degeneration in the upper and lower spine, prolapsed discs and thoracic (mid back) vertebra that get stuck in flexion causing other vertebra to become too mobile. Trapped nerves, repetitive strain injuries, overuse syndrome, carpel tunnel, nasty headaches, breathing dysfunction; the list goes on! It can also cause Dowagers Hump. (A condition fast becoming a common sight to my trained eye.) This is a fatty deposit (hump) that builds up just below the neck to try and stabilise or do the job of postural muscles that are not working. Visually unpleasant and extremely painful, it zaps our energy! If you already have bad posture and pain, you need more than a correct ergonomic station to rectify it. Your body has become used to being in the wrong position. It now identifies it as the position of strength and normality.

The right position feels almost bizarre to it! As soon as your mind veers off to your work, your body pulls back to your position of strength. To correct this long term, you need to do the associated mobilizations, stretching, and strengthening work alongside having correct ergonomics in place. All must go hand in hand. One without the other is not powerful enough. (See a chek practitioner in your area.)

“to some, ergonomics is considered a lengthy “four-letter word,” as their efforts yielded little sustainable effect on their companies’ injury/illness rates and costs

http://www.pulseit.co.nz/_blog/Computer_Services_Auckland_Blog_-_Pulse_IT_Blog/post/Efficiency_in_the_work_place_-_Single_Monitor_vs_Dual_Monitors_vs_larger_Screens/

Were you part of Saturday in Design with Integ?

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We live in the Age of Information.

Alternatively described as the Age of Distraction.

In the middle of writing a crucial email you’re distracted by your mobile; part way through the call you’re distracted by an instant message; part way through the message you’re distracted by the TV; somehow it’s half an later – and you’ve still not finished that email!

Finally, you return to the email, just about to finish it when someone shouts, Fancy a coffee?

Gloria Mark from the University of California has concluded that once distracted the average office workers takes up to 25 minutes to return to the original task. This constant distraction can bring office productivity to a virtual standstill.

And the reason for it is as simply as the solution.

Years ago people worked in a completely different environment. The tools of the day were neatly divided across a spacious desktop: phone on the right, calculator on the left, paper and diary in the centre, a filing system with IN and OUT trays, and a newspaper to keep you up-to-date with the issues of the day.

Today these tools are united into one tiny over-crowded screen where you flick through thousands of files, calculate complex equations, send hundreds of emails, confirm thousands of diary appointments, and dip in and out of the infinite information vortex that is the internet.

New York Times journalist, Clive Thompson, points out that multitasking on one screen is an inefficient method as the, “computer screen offers very little visual real estate.”

The large desktop which once offered ample room for files and paper and equipment has been shrunk and squeezed into a tiny square as little as 15 inches wide.

To illustrate this point Gloria Mark conducted an experiment in which she timed workers enacting a simple task on two different sized screens. One a 15 inch monitor, the other a 42 inch monitor. The results were startling. Mark’s concluded that productivity was increased as much as 44% by those working on larger screens.

There are extreme cases where the display of information has to be painstakingly presented for optimal efficiency and safety, such as cockpits for fighter pilots or astronauts. But even in a modern office environment the way that information is displayed can play a crucial role in the war against distraction.

And it is the presentation of this information, all the way down to the detail of whether information is split between two screens or not, that can make the difference between effective productive workers and frustrated and ineffective workers.

It is for this reason that Modtec specialises in increasing the “visual real estate” of the modern worker. Modtec Industries Ltd is a New Zealand company which specialises in designing & manufacturing Integ Modular monitor arms which offer a flexible method of holding screens at the optimal placement and angle, and office equipment at just the right height for a comfortable and effective work environment. They system also works in simple ‘Lego-like’ modular blocks to ensure that any additional screens can easily be added to the structure. For more information please visit: http://www.integinternational.com/

On Friday we had a staff meeting with a little difference.