A penthouse office with views of San Diego Bay can be impressive to clients. But not if that means the people who work there have difficulty working together on creative projects. For more than a decade, Gensler’s employees were dispersed across the top floors of an office tower in downtown San Diego. “The challenge with being up there was that we were very disconnected from each other,” says Scott Peterson, a principal at Gensler. “People would come into work, and we wouldn’t see them at all for days on end.”
When the first and second floors of the office tower became available for lease, the Gensler team welcomed the opportunity to relocate. It was a chance to make workplace changes that would better suit the highly interactive way the team wanted to work, broadcast the firm’s dedication to creating transformative designs for their clients and strengthen their ties to the local community.
As the team searched for partners for the redesign, they wanted a collaborator that shared their passion for human-centred design and a core belief that good design can improve lives. “Herman Miller’s ideas on work and the workplace made it easy for us to work together,” says Peterson.
High-top tables encourage impromptu chats and quick huddles to review work.
Find Your Focus
To give the Gensler team the necessary space to focus on individual tasks, and to do so comfortably, Herman Miller outfitted their work areas with sit-to-stand desks. These keep people moving during the day as they easily transition between postures and tasks.
“As a designer, the ability to lift your desk up and have a high-top table right there at your fingertips is a game changer,” says Gallegos. “When someone comes over, you can sketch out ideas and comfortably look at them together.”
“As a designer, the ability to lift your desk up and have a high-top table right there at your fingertips is a game changer. When someone comes over, you can sketch out ideas and comfortably look at them together.”
-Michelle Gallegos, Design Tech
Standing-height tables with stools also promote movement and make it easier for people to touch down and work for a few hours or put their heads together with colleagues to review plans. These flexible public workspaces are supplemented by a series of quiet, enclosed rooms that people can occupy for work sessions or private phone calls.
With access to a variety of new settings, people seem happier when they come to work each day. “It’s like a breath of fresh air,” says administrator Ashley Carman. “It was an absolute relief to not be so concerned about where certain meetings were going to be or if there was a room to work or collaborate.”
“When you factor in everything – the research, the quality of the product, the history of the organisation, how we both view the work environment – it just all added up to the perfect storm of what we needed for our office.”
-Scott Peterson, Principal
