RemiDeVos_Research_Contribution

RESEARCHCONTRIBUTION
ARTICLESYNTHESIS
1 // CREATING AND TESTING WORKSPACE STRATEGY
Kevin Kampschroer, Judith Heergaven, Kevin Powell
California Management Review, Vol.49, No.2, Winter 2007
University of California, Berkeley
Working together, in a corporate environment, drives more complex cognitive
processes, stronger team-based social skills are required, for lesser hierarchical overall
organization.
Those changes of behavior develop consequences on how the work is done in firms
and administration offices.
However, for companies, this evolution has little, if any, recognition in the management
and organizational fields on the value of space.
According to a study by MIT and the Gartner Group (M. Bell and M. Joroff, The Agile
Workplace: Supporting People and Their Work, 2000.), less than 5% of the U.S. based
corporations were linking both workplace design and corporate strategy, or “using the
workplace as a tool for improving organizational performance”, even after massive
evolution on firms organization such as cost-motivated migration toward open space
planning.
Although the demand for new space designs and concepts approaches reach sky
rocket high limits, there is little data on how these innovations work. Even if a lot of new
products, concepts and technologies are implemented in real-world work experiment,
almost no knowledge is gathered on their effective impact on work or organization.
In response to this situation, the U.S. General Service Administration’s Public Buildings
Service (PBS) assembled a research team and retained recognized academic and
private sector leaders to identify “best practice” of workplace strategies and the the
most promising research tools necessary for evaluating their effect.
Those methodologies are synthesized into a research program framework for
«evaluating the linkages among organizational performance (Business), the attributes of
the physical environment (Building), and the changes in work processes, perceptions,
attitudes that result from changes to this physical space (Behavior)».
A central focus of the WorkPlace 2020 program — a cooperative research effort among
Public Works and Government Services, five major universities and leaders in the design
field — is the development of a standardized process in the development and
evaluation of workspace potential.
RémiDeVos | MS M2C EN | Research Contribution

Through a framework dividing business goals into four domains (financial, business
process, customer, and human capital) to initiate discussion about each workplace
project, an interdisciplinary team of consultants, researchers and designers interacts
throughout the all process to develop a set of best practices. After spending time to
identify for each client company the organizational goals, internal and external drivers for
change, and envisioned way of developing specific working processes, a strategic brief
is issued to state the specific design solutions developed to bring success in all four
domains of the framework.
A continuous learning approach drives those projects, to identify key elements and
rapidly implement them, if applicable, in future projects.
Identify and create successful workplace strategies means to clearly analyze how
people do work and spend their time in the company environment. «People say they
spend 60% to 80% of their time in their own workspace, but behavioral observations
put that percent at closer to 40% and as low as 25%. Almost 25% of the time is spent
in internal mobility (e.g., going to meetings, getting coffee, talking to someone in the
hallway).»
More than declaration, behavioral observations of workers must be used to both initiate
discussion, or evaluate changes in use patterns.
2 // STRATEGIC WORK-SPACE DESIGN
Jacqueline C. Vischer
MIT Sloan, Fall 1995
«Space, buildings, and architecture are not the first things a company thinks about
when it is “transforming work”.»
Changes in society drives to evolving concepts on how work is conceived: employee
empowerment, rethinked work processes, organizational barriers. To help employees
thrive in the company’s environment, firms are examining new way to design their work
spaces.
There is a definite trend for corporations to consolidate all space design implications.
The goal is not a cosmetic one, but definitely how employees perform their tasks in a
physical space.Organizations transform themselves and the space they inhabit through
adaptation of their environmental conditions (lighting, noise, ventilation…). To give
‘white-collar workers’ the physical work environment they need to actively support and
help their task performance, companies are required to invest in information gathering,
tools and available technologies to solve uncomfortable space that may affect workers
productivity and satisfaction. By attending to the human aspect of space use, managers
can gain more from money spent on office accommodation.
Strategic workspace design «can potentially empower employees to take responsibility
and make cost-effective decisions about their own space», encourage teamwork, help
flatten hierarchies.

Space design turns to be more and more essential since companies are increasingly
concerned of remaining competitive, and employees are, alongside, more focused on
increasing the effectiveness and productivity of their work time.
Most of the time, companies are ill-informed about the development or increasing of
strategic work spaces design approaches for reducing costs while keeping productivity
at an optimal level.
A strategic approach includes: ergonomic workplaces, group and team work space,
non-territorial and shared workstations, telework and ‘hoteling’ (when employees who
work outside the office most of the time occupy share office space on a ‘reservation
only’ basis).
Companies must design their unique strategically tailored approach to provide better
work space conditions.
Typical misconceptions about corporate accommodation, based on an outdated and
traditionalist view of work space, can limit opportunities: e.g. space design and work
environment have only a limited effect on employee effectiveness and morale; or
employees do not need to participate in decision making on space design issues
because building professionals know what users need in their work environment.
The paper compare workspace design to information technology (IT): decisions have to
be made by CEOs without clearly enough measurable data or results. Therefore, to add
value through their workspace design and accommodation decisions, CEOs have to
manage space design as integral to the business, not as adjunct.
3 // IMPACT OF OFFICE LAYOUT ON COMMUNICATION IN A SCIENCE-DRIVEN BUSINESS
Roman Boutellier, Fredrik Ullman, Jürg Schreiber, Reto Naef
R&D Management, 38, 4, 2008
Information technologies are the main drivers to innovation and creativity, alongside with
human capital. Therefore, the organization of workspace in corporations has an impact
on communication patterns between employees.
The paper studied communication events and communication patterns, allowing the
authors to state that «people communicate three time more often in a multi-space area
than in a cell-space area», even if the average duration of communication events is
reduce by three. The study also found that in a shared workspace environment, most of
the communication events take place in the work dedicated areas, and not, if available
in companies, in the relaxation areas which purpose is to develop communication.
For innovation-driven companies, sharing information, or knowledge, is essential.
However, important factors have to be considered, such as the ease and the willingness
to share knowledge.
Office layout can drive positive communication and help generate creativity.
Organizational creativity is «a variety of activities in which new ideas and new ways of

solving problems emerge through a collaborative effort by promoting dialogues that
involve multiple domains of scientific knowledge to produce value for the organization’s
mission and market» (Styhre and Sundgren, 2005). Individuals, but also workspace
atmospherics are tacit sources of knowledge and creativity. Previous studies showed
that intensive communication and high performance in creative undertakings are
correlated (de Solla Price and Beaver, 1966, Wenger et al., 2002). The stronger ties are
between employees, the freer creative process is.
Communication and creativity are linked through a «connectivistic perspective» (Styhre
and Sungren, 2003).
Even if open spaces are a corporate trend for the four decades, there is still no scholars
consensus on their overall benefits or impacts on both professional environment and
employees behavior.
Two line of thoughts are diverging: one stream stating that physical proximity and low
barriers have a positive impact on communication and creativity; and the other stream
arguing that individuals are more comfortable to interact when they can control the
boundaries of their conversation.
Any change in communication patterns is due to change in office structure.
Multi-space concept should offer diverse space and places for working: spaces for
teamwork, quiet rooms, break areas and meeting rooms. Multi-space is different from
‘traditional’ open-space since it offers different atmospherics, depending on the activity.
This space organization is expected to facilitate communication and knowledge sharing,
as well as it offers possibility, for demanding employees, to provide privacy when
needed.
The authors hypothesis is that multi-space environment drives more informal face-to-
face communication events. The monitoring is done with both direct methods
(observations) and indirect methods (questionnaires).
4 // INNOVATION SPACES: WORKSPACE PLANNING AND INNOVATION IN U.S.
UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTERS
Umut Toker, Denis O. Gray
Research Policy, 37 (2008), 309-329
The importance of workspace characteristics for innovation process is discussed by
scholars for years. Meanwhile, workspace planning for innovative work patterns has
been the concern of designers and design researchers since the 1990s.
New work patterns require an original workspace environment planning approach,
different from the more traditional cellular offices or open-plan offices equipped with
cubicles.

Despite a manifest interest, there is only little empirical research done to help and guide
new work environments, such as, for knowledge-based organizations, spaces to
promote social interaction, idea generation and information exchange.
This paper findings showed that spatial differences are associated with differences in
both subjective and objective innovation outcomes. Therefore, the link between the
three circles of workspace planning, communication and innovation exists. Significant
face-to-face communication facilitates innovation. However, need for privacy for
concentrated work must not be neglected.
Mechanisms and effects are determined by a «complex interplay of the overall
workplace planning approach used», as well as by the configurational properties:
walking distance, shared rooms.

ABSTRACT
Brand story-telling through workspace design: a marketing and management tool for
innovation-driven companies.
ABSTRACTENGLISH
Though the design of retail stores’ atmospherics is considered for decades as a key
element of business to customer marketing, at the crossing lines between marketing,
psychology and interior architecture, this field is still a work in progress approach when
it is to take the design of corporate workspace into consideration.
For innovation driven companies — from start-ups and SMEs to world-wide firms —
reflect brand story-telling and self-made culture on their inner workspace architecture
and organization appears to be essential to differentiate and drive new customers, users
or even applicants.
Today, innovation leading organizations seem to recognize the possibilities and
opportunities in the spaces they create to communicate about their brand or corporate
culture.
From a management perspective, workspace design can also be perceived as way to
shape new behavior's frameworks.
Alongside the development of new work processes and typologies, the actual evolution
of work environments not only reflect on companies’ external offices architecture but
also on their interior design, in order to allow the creation of new management styles.
Those ways of organizing teamwork through an innovative interior design, a unique
furnishing style, design-based principles are today more than ever a way for companies
to communicate on their singularity, and attract customers and applicants, by sharing a
specific idea of what-it-is-to-work-at-our-place that people will associate to the brand,
products or services of the company.
This consciously cultivated social uniqueness is for companies a opportunity not only to
consider their customers but also to look at their own staff as the main ambassadors of
their brand.

ABSTRACTFRENCH
Alors que le design des boutiques d’une enseigne est considéré depuis des décennies
comme un élément clé du marketing client, à la croisée du marketing, de la psychologie
et de l’architecture d’intérieure, ce champ relève toujours d’une approche à l’état
d’ébauche lorsqu’on en vient à considérer le design de l’espace de travail au sein des
entreprises.
Pour les entreprises d’innovation — depuis la start-up ou la PME jusqu’aux entreprises
d’envergure mondiale — les valeurs et l’histoire de leur marque, leur culture doivent se
refléter sur l’architecture et l’organisation de leurs espaces de travail pour se différencier
de la concurrence et attirer de nouveaux clients, utilisateurs ou même recrues.
A l’heure actuelle, les entreprises leader en matière d’innovation semblent reconnaître
les possibilités et opportunités des espaces qu’elles créent pour communiquer autour
de leur marque et de leur culture d’entreprise.
D’un point de vue managérial, le design des espaces de travail peut être perçu comme
un moyen de développer de nouveaux comportements.
En parallèle du développement de nouveaux processus et typologies de travail,
l’actuelle évolution de l’environnement de travail ne se reflètent non plus uniquement sur
l’aspect architecture extérieur de leur locaux, mais également sur le design intérieur, et
ce, afin de permettre l’émergence de nouveaux styles de management.
Ces manières d’organiser le travail en équipe par un design intérieur novateur, un
ameublement atypique, des principes relatifs au design, sont à l’heure actuelle un
moyen pour les entreprises de communiquer sur leur singularité, et d’attirer clients et
recrues, en partageant une certaine idée de comment-est-ce-de-travailler-chez-nous
qui pourra être associé à la marque, produits ou services de l’entreprise.
Cette culture d’entreprise unique, consciemment cultivée, apparaît pour les entreprises
comme une opportunité non seulement de prendre en considération leurs clients, mais
également de faire de leur propre personnel les principaux ambassadeurs de leur
marque.
PURPOSE
Can innovation-driven companies efforts on story-telling their brand and corporate
identity through workspace design be identified as a marketing tool addressed to
applicants and a management tool for current employees?

DESIGN / METHODOLOGY / APPROACH
— Reviewing the published literature to analyze the role of workspace as an enabling
resource and address the concepts of space planning, management and hiring process
in corporate organizations.
— Focusing on the design best practice and performance for office workplace planning.
RESEARCH LIMITATIONS / IMPLICATIONS
Literature essentially focus on retail atmospherics. When addressing the question of
sustainable and innovating workspace design, the focus is usually centered on
ergonomics and economical impacts of such design.
Difficulty to get access to first source information.
ORIGINALITY / VALUE
Focus on the design of workspaces for innovation-driven companies as a way to story-
tell about their brand, products and corporate cultures.
Influence of such space design as a hiring argument for future recruitment or an
embassy argument for current employees.
KEYWORDS
innovative work - workspace design - space atmospherics - behavioral response -
corporate culture - collaborative work - co-creation - brand construction - story-telling

INTRODUCTION
Influence of factors such as space planning and workspace design can be assessed by
innovation-driven companies as a way for those firms to translate, into palpable
elements, their corporate culture and their innovative work processes.
High-tech companies need to analyze and define sustainable and innovating planning of
office workspace design and to review the resulting improvement or implications on
economic performance, employees’ well-being and self-achievement.
Recent trends are affecting office workplace design and overall organization, led by
innovation-driven companies in the different high-tech clusters worldwide. Those trends
have emphasized the requirement of a renovated support of the hierarchical
management structure.
Work environment settings, the definition of space planning methodologies, associated
with creative and innovative ways of operating, working and living in the workspace
environment are key drivers for innovation-based companies story-telling approach.
OFFICE SPACE AS AN POSSIBILITY-ENABLING RESOURCE
Successfully designed office workspace has the potential to «facilitate positive change
in the organization and provide competitive advantage» (Langston and Lauge-
Kristensen, 2002).
Conventionally, space management was initially thought of as a set of skills able to
«maximize the value of existing space and minimizing the need for new
space» (Langston and Lauge-Kristensen, 2002).
The primary focus of space management is not solely limited to the definition of areas
and the use of existing space. It also contains a projection on future space
requirements, both for uses and for users. Good space management need to identify
deficiencies within the already defined space; and help employees solve space issues,
that could generate undesired interpersonal issues.
Therefore, «space management may be viewed as the application of management
principles to an inventory of spaces and buildings to ensure that space use is
maximized, and that space is distributed fairly where needed» (Brauer, 1992).

INFLUENTIAL OFFICE WORKPLACE PLANNING AND DESIGN
Factors that affect the way space is perceived in a corporate environment may be
divided according to three families of factors: functional factors, technical factors and
financial factors. Those factors translate the way an organization’s building will fit its
users’ day to day operations and activities.
A significant aspect of workplace planning when related to this objective states in the
development of workplace solutions to offer a proper solution to the multitude of work
types and ways of working: «touchdown areas that allow staff to access information
quickly; bookable offices; and group collaborative workspaces such as board rooms
equipped with technology to provide teleconferencing capabilities» (Pitt and Bennett,
2008).
Hot-desking is nowadays a trendsetter approach that refers to the way of «compelling
employees to share workstations through providing fewer workstations» (Fawcett and
Rigby, 2009). By providing fewer workstations than the actual number of employees,
the aim is to achieve the objective of «attaining higher workstation utilization and
reducing costs» (Fawcett and Rigby, 2009). When opting for a hot-desking system of
workplace sharing, workplaces an desks are assigned to employees upon arrival at the
office building, adapting the employees’ disposition according to the daily needs, the
ongoing and upcoming projects of the company.
Then, in a corporate environment, in order to achieve professional performance and
balance, functional requirements include elements such as workspace layout and
organization, size of the personal workspace allocated to employees, «personal work
surface area, furniture, workspace storage, shared equipment and social
spaces» (Schwede et al., 2008).
Shared offices are a membership-based workplace within a managed facility that
typically offers a variety of non-territorial working environments. Its overall intended
objective is to facilitate interaction and networking among co-workers.
Sustainable planning of the office workplace
With the worldwide rise of environment preservation and global warming concerns,
workspace planners and managers find themselves in the front lines for energy
preservation, minimal waste generation, and CO2 emissions control. Those aspects
have to be taken into consideration by both planners and professionals if they expect to
provide added value to their organizations, internally among employees and externally
among their customers.
TRANSLATE A BRAND CULTURE

Innovation-driven companies are keen to translate their own brand culture in the
architecture of their offices. Tech giants’ flagships are architectural monuments, whose
objectives tend to translate into the physical world the economic miracle of those digital
companies, born start-ups and turned into worldwide companies in a matter of years.
To get access to a world recognition, and to be sure to attract the very best of world
professional profiles, companies of innovation need to be sure that future employees fit
with the corporate culture, values and expectations. Furthermore, innovation clusters
are developing all around the world, from the Silicon Valley, to Tel Aviv, from Seoul and
Japan to the United States East Coast (New York City, Boston), and even Paris. With
this increase in innovation clusters, a shortage of talents and IT graduates, the
competition cannot only be on the company’s name, but also on how different. Some of
those clusters have also to try to motivate employees and candidates to relocate.
Square, a mobile payment company created by Jack Dorsey (Twitter), but which
broader objective is to rethink buying and selling experience as a whole, designed its
newest San Francisco office was the purpose of influencing employee attitudes and
work habits. Office design is here used to create positive outcomes for both staff and
company.
SPARK CREATIVITY
Create vibrant and welcoming spaces. Inspire through architecture. Allocate diverse
areas in order to creation communication landscapes, give Different areas have to be
allocated to create communication landscapes, to give numerous opportunities to
employees to collaborate and exchange ideas with others, in a diverse environment that
will serve all different corporate requirements and needs.
The will to imagine and implement such places has allowed the creation of many
companies and architecture studios specialized in the design of such innovative working
environments.
Managers are consulting workplace solutions companies to help create:
• effective,
• efficient,
• and cost-saving workplaces
The architectural features of those innovation-driven companies reflect the very nature
and culture of those companies: from the perfect ring Apple is building in Cupertino,
Google’s new flagship in Mountain View is a mix of curved rectangles which aim at
generating occasional collisions between employees, creating serendipitous ideas co-
generation from people who were not necessarily supposed to meet.
Such a different physical manifestation is the translation of a totally different corporate
culture, and users/customers perceptions .

Flagships therefore represents a reassuring marketing approach in the way they
physically embodied those innovation-driven tech giants in the real world, for any
potential user/customer or employee to get to learn about their specific brand culture.
STYLE AS A RECRUITING POOL
«Google’s business is somewhat sprawling and disheveled. They started off with search,
and now they are getting into hardware, like Pixel and Google Glass. Similarly, their next
campus is a thicket of ideas and places to be.» (Brian Schermer, licensed architect and
associate professor of architecture at the university of Wisconsin-Milwaukee).
Tech giants are engaged in a worldwide competition to recruit the brightest of the
engineer and designer graduates. Therefore, one can consider that architectural design
choices are made with the intention of attracting different kinds of employees, able to
match with the company’s culture and the corporate specificities.
«The Google vision is to recruit people who are attracted to the serendipity of
messiness.
Apple is tightly controlled. Maybe the Apple employee is somebody who’s attracted to
that pure, shared vision: the Jony Ive1 aesthetic» (Brian Schemer).
The workplace perception, the health and well-being of its daily users, the overall and
external image the organization might be some of the non-professional related elements
that could be taken into consideration for future employees as an application
motivation. Such elements are able to provide an organization overview for external
people, that can be mastered by the corporate story-telling in order to draw a positive
and unique positioning for the company.
This consciously designed image of the company will impact the perception its very
culture and unique approach will generate:
• Public image of the company might have improved since relocated to
its offices?
• Organization hires better professional profiles since relocated?
• Employees who have a job in the company — and especially in well
designed offices — drive a positive image?
• Building design affects the desire for employees to stay with the
organization?
• Employees become ambassadors of the brand and its work approach,
and believe that all buildings should be designed according the same
innovative principles?
• Organization reputation as an environment conscious organization
improved since relocated to new offices?
1 Jonathan Ive is Apple Senior Vice-President of Design.

STATE OF CHANGE
Current trends tend to demonstrate that the long-established model of one worker per
desk, working from nine to five, is not longer appropriate anymore.
Evolution and changes, in the recent years, in the organizational and management
aspects of workplaces, emergence of new technologies. need of new requirements for
space standards and type of equipment also move forward.
Flexible working — as associated to co-working spaces, telecommuting and remote
work —, an aging population, extended working lives (as correlated to ever longer life
expectancy) drive to the emergence of a multi-generational work environment. This
multi-generational workspace, mixing newly recruited graduates with elderly, is also
rising in parallel with a multi-cultural environment. Those rapidly developing elements
represent an unprecedented transformation of the workforce in the 21st century.
STIMULATING AND SUPPORTIVE WORKPLACE
In innovation-driven companies, the innovation also appear through new management
methods. Innovative leadership, adapted workspaces, encompassed vision, all those
elements concord to develop an dedicated management process able to accept and
integrate the rising Gen. Y, whose main motivation — according to psychologists — do
not reside into their amount of earnings but on the feeling of self-achievement and
balance private/professional life they can grab from their company.
Such changes, if correctly and smartly implemented, can generate direct and beneficial
impact on staff productivity, well-being and creativity: key elements for a successful and
thriving company whose added value depend on the energy its employees will fully
dedicate to their task.
As patterns of work and professional life are changing, emerging new technologies are
leading to even more flexible working lives.
Many people are assessing the way they use their time and energy. They want to be
able to keep a better balance between their working life and personal life. More more
workers leave their job — even in a difficult and tensed economical context — to search
and respond to the will of a simpler and more fulfilling way of life.
Many are looking for other options including self-employment, more relaxed work
environments (telecommuting or teleworking), or any other flexible situations.
True leadership involves looking at ways to retain the best employees and to provide
flexible working environments that actually make people look forward at to coming to
work.
For tech giants, and other innovation-driven companies, workplace is often considered
to be considered as an extension of the personal life, since lot of them include in their

corporate offices additional services (transportation, healthy food, fitness,
kindergarten…). «Innovation is more than just a series of great ideas: it has to be a
concept that is thoroughly thought through, cleverly structured and entirely practical,
creating spaces and environments that imaginatively reflect the life that goes on within
the business.» (Deidre Corser, Jaine Magowan, Manager: British Journal of
Administrative Management, spring 2010).
The emergence of mobile and digital technologies, always more integrated in our daily
lives, are providing individuals with a greater flexibility as they are more and more
encourage to structure and organize their working environment. Subsequently, the
knowledge-based economy is growing stronger, based on ideas generated through a
collaboration process. Working patterns are changing, evolving, responding to the
demand of a physical and virtual environments.
«At the individual scale, working environments are appropriated ad hoc and adapted to
meet personal needs. New office environments are providing more services and building
a sense of community through open, shared spaces. Entire live/work/play
neighborhoods are emerging as a place for interaction and the development and testing
of new technologies» (Whitney Jade Foutz, Patterns for working and living in the 21st
Century: the real estate development for the new workplace, 2005).
Managers and developers of these new working environments are advised to take into
consideration key performance elements:
• Provide a greater focus on both accessibility to information and
partnerships development among employees
• Develop mixed used of workspaces as a potential model for
development
• Encourage the hybridization of both the home and the workplace
• Encourage the alliance of technology with the environment to provide a
better use of space and time
It is important to notice that new work and lifestyle patterns are emerging and
increasing with the recent spread of digital technologies, though they have been fully
developed for a professional purpose, or if they involuntarily and unexpectedly impact
the professional life.
«Changes in the demand for working environments point to a recombination of living,
working, and urban spaces, and the need for a larger variety of office products to suit
different needs» (Foutz). Today, over 50 percent of the working population in western
nations work in offices, as opposed to 5 percent in 1900 (Francis Duffy, The New Office
(London: Conran Octopus Ltd., 1997). «Whereas the industrial revolution force the
separation of home and workplace, the digital revolution is bringing them back
together» (William J. Mitchell).

Therefore, digital revolution provides workers with options of where to live and work,
how to combine both or refuse this marriage, and even define the right mix of those to
elements that best suits their needs.
This new and redefined economy is characterized by an increased virtualization of
processes, organizations and interpersonal relationships within the corporate
environment. Efficient work production no longer requires people to work together in the
same physical space to access the tools, softwares and resources they need to
accomplish their tasks.
Production can be spatially decentralized in multiple areas or locations and reintegrated
back into other aspects of life (personal life, interpersonal communication situations):
«once work and life are no longer rigidly separated in space, the temporal boundaries
between them can be refashioned according to different imperatives. If the demarcation
between work and leisure is no longer a lengthy period of commuting, a much finer
granularity of interplay between work and leisure becomes possible.» (Andrew
Harrisson, Paul Wheeler, and Carolyn Whiteheard, eds., The Distributed Workplace
(London: Spon Press, 2004)
Otherwise, social interactions occupy the role of an innovation driver. emphasizes the
importance of face-to-face meetings, serendipitous encounters and non-predicted
collaborative co-creation. The working environment is turning to «a place able to
reiterate and strengthen the ties and bounds between virtual and interpersonal
communication» (Foutz).
Nowadays, workers are easily technology-savvy oriented, easily mastering innovation.
They tend to be mobile and schedule-wise self-programmable, as being able to
structure and hierarchize their own tasks and modus operanti. Their days most likely
include a combination of autonomous and collaborative activities, office work becoming
itself more varied and creative. However, in the «corporate outsourcing strategies, less
desirable or essential activities are shipped out to people and economies willing to do
them for less, so the key workforce can focus more on idea generation and creative
work» (Duffy).
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NEW WORKPLACE
Individual workers have more freedom and more choice in the places they can
accomplish their work. Companies are creating their own unique environments to
encourage innovation, developing a thriving interpersonal set of positive relations among
employees.
Successful, and paradoxically sui generis, approach in workspace design for
innovation-driven companies are organized around key et visible architectural elements:
• Open office design and layout organized to create a flexible,
evolutionary, non-hierarchical environment.

• High ceilings are generally implemented, to provide a true sense of
openness.
• Reversed organization, placing circulation path all along exterior wall to
allow everyone in the company to share windows and enjoy the
benefits of natural light.
• Communal spaces, spread all around the corporate office to encourage
informal social interactions, key elements for companies which depend
from serendipitous encounters, ideas and projects.
• Emphasis is put on shared space and storage to increase mobility and
sense of community.
• The space is generally filled with abundant art, experiential elements
providing a creative atmosphere able to maintain and develop the
employees’ curiosity.
(adapted from Tim Allen, Adryan Bell, Richard, Graham, Bridget Hardy, and Felicity
Swaffer, Working Without Walls: An Insight into the transforming government workplace
(London: DEGW/OGC, 2004)
EMPLOYEES AS BRAND AMBASSADORS
Though workload can now essentially take place anywhere, companies require to focus
on specific factors to convince employees to go to the office.
To achieve this objective, corporate management have to search the right balance
between accessibility, mobility and suitability for the task at end.
The old office was about hierarchy: doors and corner offices created a clear separation
between executives, managers, and clerks. However, this environment was neither the
most efficient nor the most effective. […] A work environment which includes a variety of
zones, including quiet, private areas, allows employees to match the appropriate space
to their taste.» (Foutz).
Innovation-driven companies offices combine and recombine physical space,
technology, communications, and associated services into an all-in-one unique solution,
allowing those companies to think of their working environment as an integrated
solution, providing both products, services and corporate culture.
Furthermore, this kind of workplaces is `translating evolving work practices, which
effects or habits may be partly unpredictable since the tech-oriented companies are
challenged by rapidly changing and moving forward competitive environments.
«With building lifetimes calculated at thirty to a hundred years and even interiors
considered to change only every seven to ten years, architecture’s challenge to address
the rapidity of organizational change is apparent» (Melissa Marsh, Design for Achieving

Strategic Business Objectives, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of
Architecture, 2004).
CONCLUSION
The conception of a coherent external identity, when associated to a performing
branding are the way innovation-oriented businesses are strengthening their corporate
identity, while providing, in parallel, true differentiating beneﬁts to both their users/
customers or their employees as considered as brand ambassadors.
For those companies, the internal identity — through space organization, enhanced
interpersonal relationship with the implementation of dedicated areas, the presence of
art to spark creativity — is consciously designed to drive employees’ attraction. Design
is used to attract the right individuals to the right company, to the one they will share
common expectations. Design is used help them discover and experiment a way of
functioning in a particular environment, «through an explicit denotation of corporate
goals and agenda, to strengthen and promote a broad corporate culture» (Marsh) and
to increase employees’ satisfaction.
More than that, retention of key employees and best proﬁles attraction are an on-going
objective for innovation-driven companies.
Design occupies a cross-functional communication place, since design is used to
orchestrate interactions, serendipitous encounters and co-creation between individuals
who must work together for the company to accomplish its mission.

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