.jpg)
Meet some of the people who contributed information and ideas to this issue.
Jim Keane has observed firsthand how business has grown increasingly interconnected, mobile, global and complex. He’s president of the Steelcase Group, which includes Steelcase, Turnstone, PolyVision and Details brands.
“We know business today is more challenging and business leaders are always looking for ways to gain a competitive advantage. Yet we often overlook how real estate can be used as a lever to help organizations innovate and drive growth. Space shapes behavior, so if you want people to share information, collaborate better and innovate more, you have to invest in the kinds of spaces that help them do that. It is possible to leverage real estate and better utilize it by providing workers with choice and control – these are the new status symbols for knowledge workers.”
Based on these insights Steelcase prototyped two new environments at their Global Headquarters building that give workers more of what they need: stronger connections with their colleagues, better ways to collaborate, and shared access to technology and tools.
Cherie Johnson & Barbara Goodspeed
The editor of a major design publication had just toured the new WorkCafé at Steelcase’s Global Headquarters. “You know what this is? The culmination of what Steelcase has been talking about for the last few years: the blurring of professional and personal lives. New products. New ways of working. Technology integration. Living your brand. Now I understand what you’re talking about.” Music to the ears of Johnson and Goodspeed, designers who reclaimed a corporate cafeteria to create the multifunctional dining/meeting/working/socializing WorkCafé. Goodspeed is a senior interior designer. Johnson is design manager in the company’s North American industrial design studio.
Joey Shimoda & Susan Chang, Shimoda Design Group
“I don’t think any corporation in the U.S. has an entry like this,” says Joey Shimoda of the dramatic entrance into the new WorkCafé. His architecture firm, Shimoda Design Group, has worked for many innovative companies: Rolex, Harwood International, Mikimoto, Malin and Goetz, MTV Networks. He credits his associate partner, Susan Chang, for hatching the idea of “blowing out the space to the second floor for a big entrance and to tie it in with the rest of the building.” The Los Angeles-based architect says the WorkCafé architectural concepts “came from thinking about how our personal and professional lives have meshed. This environment blends spaces for both.” Shimoda has also designed Steelcase WorkLife spaces in Chicago, Illinois, and Santa Monica, California.
Melanie Redman
The senior design researcher with Steelcase’s WorkSpace Futures Explorations group co-led the in-depth study of small companies with Sudhakar Lahade (pictured below). She also has conducted extensive research in the healthcare industry for Nurture, the Steelcase healthcare brand, work which led to an innovative line of infusion treatment furniture. She’s also studied workplace issues ranging from collaboration to Gen Y workers in Asia.
Sudhakar Lahade
For more than 15 years, Lahade has worked to discover the hidden needs of users in North America, Asia and Europe as a design researcher for Steelcase. Now manager of growth initiatives for the company, he has been studying the emergence of coworking spaces around the world. “As businesses become more global and the world more interconnected, “one size fits all” workplaces won’t do. “Understanding the differences between cultures is more important than ever.”
Tags: Global, How People Work, Interconnected Workplace
Filed under: 360 Magazine, Featured Articles
