Normally, I am not one to speculate on the future of the office. Too many self-acclaimed futurologists announce workplace trends in regular intervals, often with little scientific underpinning. When someone would have asked me in the past to comment on the future of the office, my standard reply would have been, sorry, my crystal ball…
We have lived through another rollercoaster year in 2021! Waves of the virus roll over us and then recede and then seem to come back once more – who knows what the future will hold. Optimistically, we hope that this round of the virus will be less severe than those before and that we can…
The importance of communication for healthcare workers within a hospital ward has always been huge. And, as a recent BBC TV News report about the night shift at the Royal London Hospital in the middle of the COVID pandemic peak shows, in times like this communication is even more important not only to exchange patient information, but also to show solidarity, to go to someone and say that they’ve done a great job. The aim…
brainybirdz are sometimes commissioned to write articles and blogs for other organisations. This is a re-post of a blog written for Milliken earlier this month, where we argue for a different approach towards campus design. In our last blog post we discussed lecture theatres and the need to rethink the spatial design of campuses to…
brainybirdz are sometimes commissioned to write articles and blogs for other organisations. This is a re-post of a blog written for Milliken earlier this month, where we argue for a different approach towards campus design. A university campus is not just a workplace for academic and professional services staff, but also the daily ‘workplace’ for…
So much has been said already about this challenging year. We started blogging back in April about the impact of the lack of informal face to face social contact with colleagues that working from home was bringing. We have worked with clients in these last months without meeting them, except via Zoom, and relying on…
I have always been almost pathologically averse to futurology. It’s that smug certainty about the way the world will be that often grates. And right now the ‘future of the office’ is drawing us all in to becoming another of those who claim special insight. However, I have taken heart from listening to Professor Lynda…
In my previous blog post of this two-part series, I talked about the importance of face-to-face communication in hospital wards for exchange of information and socialisation and the development of a new single measure – SCI (Spaces for Communication Index). SCI measures space effectiveness in the form of maximising communication opportunities which is crucial for…
While many people are currently working from home because of Covid-19, it seems an important time to remember the value of socialisation face to face in the physical workplace and how that relates to organisational performance. In this blog, I talk about how my PhD research into workplace effectiveness in hospital settings, led me to…
It is three months now that offices in the UK have been closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and we are slowly reaching the stage where lockdown restrictions are being eased and organisations are pondering and planning their return to the office. Throughout the past weeks, we have blogged about various Covid-19 related issues and…
Recently, Devi Sridhar, professor of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, said “The question of whether it is safe to open is clearly a political one and seems to be driven by economic and social imperatives rather than public health.” Leaving politics aside, what this statement highlights neatly is that the Government is…
Amongst all the comment that already exists out there about the impact of Covid-19 on office design and what office life will therefore be like in the future, I guess there hasn’t been so much written by those people who are actually having to make recommendations for their own organisations. I also guess that this…
In our last blog we reported on a webinar that considered what we had learnt from an enforced period of working without an office. In this blog we look forward to some of the variables that organisations will need to consider as Covid-19 lockdown restrictions are relaxed around the world. We have called the office…
COVID-19 lockdown week 8, working from home again and tuning in (is that what you do to a webinar?) to Workplace Trends: What will be the “new normal” for the workplace in 2021? with a panel of three world renowned industry speakers. So as to declare my interest up front, one of the panel members…
POE is a form of building evaluation that assesses the performance of a building in use, or ‘post’ occupancy, that means whenever planning, design and construction phases are completed and users have begun occupying the building. The recent publication of a new POE guide (by Interface, Oliver Heath and BRE) prompted me to reflect on…
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