By Neil Usher
Edition 8 – Winter 2016 Pages 06-11
Tags: office design • facilities management • human resources
It’s drummed into us from an early age that we can’t have it all, as a result we consider choices as being a binary either/or situation. The workplace design brief (where it’s actually undertaken, an entirely separate discussion) positions choices similarly – open or closed, focussed or collaborative, modern or traditional – the decision point existing along a sliding scale from one natural extreme to the other. Yet there is a way to consider workplace design as an attempt to achieve the “unity of opposites”, an idea proposed by the pre-Socratic aphoristic philosopher, Heraclitus, the original thinker on change.
This holds that the existence of an idea is entirely dependent on the existence of its opposite, that one cannot exist without the other. The framework is considered here in its application to the recently completed Sky Central in Osterley (West London), a newly constructed 38,000m2 NIA activity-based workplace over three floors that is home to 3,500 of the total 7,500 people on the Sky campus. It may be considered as tool for aiding workplace brief development, or for understanding how a workplace has been conceived and functions.
The campus has undergone considerable change since the completion of the new Sky Studios building in 2011. This has been underpinned by a move in Osterley – and a number of other locations throughout the UK and Europe – to an activity-based workplace for its corporate employees together with a recognition of the need to provide suitable space for its Agile (in the established sense, relating to software engineering and not to be confused with “agile” when applied to a flexible workspace) teams within striking architectural creations, knitted together by an extensive landscaping programme. Sky Central is the latest building to be completed on the campus, fully occupied during July and August of this year. Over 3,000 of the new occupants had previously been assigned their own desk or private office in ageing, mainly leased stock and so the move represented a significant change of environment. Sky consider the workplace, designed by HASSELL and Arup as an investment in its people, a key enabler to them undertaking the best work of their careers.
This is how Sky Central unifies a host of opposites. The labels may not immediately appear to be antonyms, yet the premise in each instance will reveal itself.
BEAUTIFUL – and WORKS
The form versus function debate is rarely far from the lips of an excluded FM disgruntled at the management burden imposed by architectural choices. However a building can be both beautiful and functionally efficient. Sky Central’s vast voids are criss-crossed by multiple staircases and ramps that offer countless vistas, journeys and moments in which to pause and absorb its scale. Yet from its systems to technological infrastructure, its eighteen neighbourhoods supporting around two hundred people each in keeping with “Dunbar’s number” of ideal community size, the “20m rule” akin to the ideal of Bürolandschaft whereby a break in sight lines, some solid, some permeable, is set up to twenty metres from wherever you stand that brings intimacy and a human dimension, it works beautifully. This is best illustrated by the presence of the huge glass box cantilevered over the main street that is the new Sky News studio, bringing content into the heart of the building.
CREATED – and GROWN
There is no question that a structure measuring 163 metres long, 100 metres wide and 25 metres tall – that rolled into a typical CBD towerblock would reach thirty one stories in height – hasbeen constructed, as over three million labour hours across two years will testify. Yet the rich external landscaping populated with mature planted treesand the extensiveand varied internal planting scheme, along with over 8km of glulam beams in the roof structure allude to an intrinsic connection between the inside and the outside, a space that exists in Gilles Deleuze’s “fold”. In this complex idea, in a universe that exists through the infinite folding to complexity, growth itself is a process of unfolding, of revealing. If we think of our buildings as needing to appear in as many instances as possible as grown, rooted, nurtured, we may at last overcome such commercially manipulated ideas as biophilia and start to genuinely embrace connectedness.
WORKPLACE – and CATEGORY
In many respects the brand that is the “workplace” has taken a battering in recent years, able to satisfy no-one in its lurching from panacea to panacea. In response it has tried to position itself as anything but – it’s a club, a hive, a home from home, a hotel, a retail outlet, a café – anything other than owning up the reason it’s here, anything that adds a dab of credibility. It’s yet another in a sea of identity crises. Yet when a workplace starts from the premise that a workplace is exactly what it is, it sheds a huge burden of expectation. From this point it can mash-up the contribution of those purposes as needed or appropriate, in creating a category of its own. If the blend is unique, it can be both workplace and [category]. The category here is the thing itself, not yet named. Sky Central draws on multiple influences, blending and blurring them, but still manages to look and feel like a workplace and support work in all of the expected ways, yet also those less expected.
PEOPLE – and DNA
It is an oft-heard refrain that space is “all about people”. It begs the question as to why it wouldn’t be, or hasn’t been. More than occasionally, the desire to stamp a branded identity on a space to an inhuman degree takes control of the design outcome. Occupants know who they work for, visitors know where they’ve landed. While occupants generally like to feel that their space characterises the organisation they work for, there is a balance to be struck. While Sky Central has been created for comfort, ease, simplicity and choice, it still attempts to capture the essence of the business in order to create a sense of belonging – openness, egalitarianism, and most of all a sense of possibility. On a broad scale it helps create the sense of a psychologically safe environment, a consistently proven key enabler of team success. It is what Kornberger and Clegg (2004) would call a “generative building”, in that it is not merely a passive container for events but an active contributor to organisational activity. It’s a subtle weave, and hard to achieve.
TIMELESS – and PLAYFUL
How does a scheme extract itself from a scale tipped at one end by the slides and climbing walls of the net generation and at the other by the creak of Italian leather and “don’t-touch” art collection of the legal profession? Sky Central aimed to be an adult space, applying natural materials in a modern way, and avoiding the ephemeral rush of gimmickry. Creating a playful spirit in a space is part design, part participation – from adding texture and tactile elements like the “rope house” meeting spaces, to making use of amenities like the 200-seat digital cinema for gatherings, events and film premieres, encouraging good neighbourliness through community events based around features naturally lending themselves to such like the Home Zones, and popping up showcase and promotional opportunities in public spaces like the Street, the east-west spine of the building.
CALCULATED – and INTUITIVE
Counter-intuitively, it takes a complex spreadsheet and calculation to create a space that is as intuitive and accessible as possible. Activity-based working isn’t about setting out a smorgasbord of furniture types till it resembles a dealer showroom, it’s a considered process of defining work activities, desired outcomes, building blocks and proportions. To accommodate its 3,500 people Sky Central has roughly 5,000 places to sit across all space types, of which 2,500 are “desks”, identifiable by virtue of their 27-inch monitor, single-USB docking station and peripherals. The spectrum of space types from the most focussed and quiet to the most interactive is as seamless as possible, and the proportional balance between primary and alternative settings is vital to enable each – and the whole – to function effectively. There are six different forms of desk in a variety of finishes, in a deliberate push away from the serriedwhite desks disappearing into oblivion that have characterised large corporate workspaces for a decade or more. All of this to create an environment that is simple, accessible, and non-prescriptive – soft visual clues hint at intended purpose, but “guerrilla architects” are welcome to re-define usage as suits, all within the spirit of good neighbourliness. The process of working with a “minimum unit of planning” (MUP) for each group in the building of a hundred people – instead of drilling down to the smallest non-divisible team – effectively handed space to the building’s occupants to use as they wish, and ensured everyone had access to the widest variety of space types in an area.
TECHNOLOGICAL – and ANALOGUE…