Workplace Health and Wellbeing: What designers and managers need to know

On Thursday 26th March 2015 Alexi Marmot will be speaking at the Workplace Trends Spring Summit, which will feature informative case studies, best practice recommendations and recent research findings on the very current subject of healthy workplaces. A host of factors can play a role in staff health and well-being, which not only impacts the individual, but also affects service delivery and costs. Alexi Marmot will be speaking on Workplace Health and Wellbeing: What designers and managers need to know.

Click here to find out more and to register

Venue: The Impact Hub Westminster, located on the 1st floor of New Zealand House, on the corner of Pall Mall and Haymarket, just off Trafalgar Square. Nearest tube stations are Piccadilly and Charing Cross. The exact address is: 1st Floor New Zealand House, 80 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4TE

CoreNet Global EMEA Summit, Berlin 2014

The CoreNet Global EMEA Summit, being held in Berlin in 2014, is expected to attract more than 550 attendees working in the corporate real estate space. This will focus on shifting the C-Suite conversation from efficiency and cost cutting to effectiveness and value creation.

Alexi Marmot, Professor of Facility and Environment Management and Head of the Bartlett School of Graduate Studies at University College London (UCL), has been invited as a guest speaker to this event. She will be discussing the topic Evolutionary Psychology Sparks Emerging Workplace, as part of a panel of 4 speakers including Neil Austin, Michael Creamer and Philip Quinn on Tuesday 16th September. If you would like to know more about the event, please click here.

"Office buildings tend to be very boring" - Richard Rogers

The Economist has reported that offices in the UK are getting ever-smaller (per worker, that is), meaning that many large city firms are consolidating their operations in fewer and fewer buildings. The professional services firm KPMG, for example, has reduced the number of the offices buildings it used in London from seven to two. This is a challenge for architects and designers. How are they responding to it? Not very well, according to Richard Rogers, who opines that "office buildings tend to be very boring" in this video about the Leadenhall building, the Rogers-designed new office building in the City.

The Leadenhall building © Creative Commons licence 

The Changing Nature of Academic Workspace

200,000 academic staff in UK universities typically work in office space that differs significantly from the rest of the country’s offices. Most academics work, surrounded by books and papers, in their own enclosed individual offices or in small group offices.  By contrast, the majority of office-based employees in the rest of the economy work in open offices shared with many other people, and very few books or files. Is this difference essentially due to the special nature of academic work? Do academics really need individual offices, or should they use shared offices like most other office workers?

This was hotly debated at a recent seminar hosted by AMA Alexi Marmot Associates attended by around 30 academics and estates professionals from sixteen UK universities, where issues of status, academics wish to personalise their workspace and to store many books and papers, the importance of a sense of belonging, the influence of changing student requirements, the role of interdisciplinary, and the importance of consultation when changing academic workspace were discussed, among several other topics. 

A report which summarises the discussion is now available here. 

AMA Involvement in new WWF HQ Featured in Architects' Journal

The new Hopkins-designed UK headquarters of the WWF-UK, celebrated for its green credentials, have just opened. AMA has been involved in the project at the outset.

Hattie Hartman, the Architects' Journals' Sustainability Editor, writes on the AJ website that "the brief for the office space was developed with Alexi Marmot Associates (AMA), which assisted the client with the move of its staff of 300 from its previous premises, a cellular 1960s building in Godalming. Surveys revealed that only 40 per cent of desks were occupied daily, increasing to 60 per cent at peak times."

"AMA developed three occupancy scenarios for the new building with varying degrees of hot desking. An underlying premise - and an important future-proofing strategy - was that the design should meet BCO guidelines. WWF-UK opted for maximum hot desking, which allows for 200 work stations, with an additional 30 spaces for sub-letting. Because people like to ‘belong’, team zones are retained, but staff are free to work anywhere in the building or remotely."

Read the full article here.

Photographer: © Richard Stonehouse 2014
Pictures used with kind permission from WWF-UK

Alexi Marmot chairs BIFM debate

AMA's Alexi Marmot chaired a BIFM Workplace Special Interest Group debate on 22 May at Haworth’s Clerkenwell showroom, entitled ‘Form & Function? Do you need office designers to create a great workplace environment?’  It was a lively discussion that challenged conventional wisdom about workplace design.

For more information click here.

Alexi Marmot interviewed for BBC article and radio broadcast

The BBC interviewed Alexi Marmot for this article featured in 28 March's magazine: 'The pleasures and perilsof the open plan office.'  You can also listen to the radio broadcast.

This article reflects the global interest in creating the right office space that AMA can support with our evidence-based approach.

AMA tweets haikus

On 21st September, we held our annual away day. We've also launched our new twitter account: @AMAtweetshaikus. Follow us to learn some concise advice on space use, design and change in the built environment.

Gates Foundation Headquarters featured in The New York Times

The New York Times featured an article titled 'In New Office Designs, Room to Roam and to Think' on 17/18 March 2012 about the new headquarters for The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. AMA served as the workplace consultants for this exciting project. Martha Choe from the Gates Foundation is really pleased about AMA's contribution to the campus, noting 'the incredible way the workspace serves our work.' Referring to this article, AMA director Alexi Marmot commented that 'the takeaway message is the power of workplace to express changing ways of work and organisation - while saving on overheads, promoting employee satisfaction and productivity.'
Learn more about the project here.

© Tim Hursley 2013