Office Space Design

Based on a personal interest in the design of environments and inspired by an in-efficient workspace, I took the opportunity in 2013 to present at UX Camp Brighton on ‘The design of your workspace’. The presentation explored how we have come to design our workspaces in the open plan approach, the effect it has on you and what some companies are starting to do to address it.

Following positive feedback, I approached our team leader, then director to deliver the presentation. I was invited to travel to the TUI head office in Luton to research their office space and setup. The concept was escalated to the board, resulting in a request for high level space planning and authorisation to improve the office layout. Despite more positive feedback, there wasn’t actually any budget available so I had to try and shape the space in Crawley using the furniture already available.

RSA

When I joined RSA I saw many of the same problems TUI had again. After I had settled at RSA I took an opportunity at a Digital team meeting and presented an amended, more concise version. Again, following positive feedback I tried to address what I could with no budget. As we were working in a basement at the time, I prototyped some breakout spaces to see how people would interact with them. Due to the lack of meeting rooms, they quickly became very popular. When the Facilities team finally came to redecorate the space, I volunteered to help drive the brief from just repainting the walls to trying to create an environment that supported the way people wanted to work and collaborate.

Following the success in the basement, I then gladly joined (and lead) the newly formed ‘Digital office space team’, made up of three of the team. With a small budget of £2000, we tried to create different spaces and bring some of the principles I had learnt to the Horsham office. When the Digital team had to move floors a year later, we continued to shape the space to try and challenge the ‘white collar factory’ culture embedded at RSA to reflect how a Digital team should work.

It’s a long way from the likes of Google, Facebook etc but I really enjoy bringing approaches that I usually when designing digital experiences to the real world.