“Design is the silent ambassador for your brand.”
Paul Rand

As we are reopening the economy, the challenges for businesses including startups, will be to take charge of their unique market position and competitive edge, while at the same time providing safe and healthy work environments. With fierce competition, those companies will thrive who best understand their customer’s needs, collaborate to identify solutions, prototypes and new ideas, and engage their talent most effectively.  A company’s culture will be increasingly important as companies leverage innovation, new products and risk. The company’s physical environment can be an important factor in supporting company culture and growth.

The following is not meant to be an exhaustive list of design guidelines, but rather some ideas to keep in mind as we design offices in the post-pandemic world.

New Working Models

The collective energy and atmosphere, where all employees pursue a common purpose, makes the office a unique place.  Sure, many tasks can be completed in a home office or via video conference, yet, generative team work that creates bold new ideas and solves complex problems has its limitations when working remotely. Social connections are the basis for trust and cohesion. In many cases working in the home office has been successful because people already had established relationships with their coworkers prior to the pandemic. Such relationships had been strengthened in many cases by working together in the office, but also through spontaneous, personal conversations over coffee in the kitchen.

Many people have grown tired of isolation and look forward to being able to directly engage with their colleagues and solve problems together, even if just a few days a week or on a flexible schedule.

Of course, given a diverse workforce, everyone also has a different level of comfort with where they feel safe to work. The future workplace will take into account a balance between the main office, home and possibly satellite office hubs located closer to employees’ homes, thereby allowing them to avoid the use of public transportation. In other words, the new way of working will be a hybrid model.

For that reason, the workplace needs to offer different kinds of work environments to support different types of ways of working. The boundaries between ‘life’ and ‘work’ are becoming fuzzier, and therefore the design of an office space must take in to account peoples’ intellectual, physical and emotional wellbeing.

While many people will continue to work from home, the office will remain an important part of a company. In the future, the office will be mainly a place for internal and client meetings, collaboration activities and act a flagship representation for the company culture.

Company Story and Culture

It is very important for your startup to establish a strong and sustainable culture and identity. Your unique story is most likely rooted in your community, a shared purpose and the various social connections with your teams, customers and investors.

Having a physical space that reflects your company’s culture can help to reinforce your strategy, help remind your teams of the long-term vision as well as attract new and diverse talent. It can support the first impression clients and guests receive when visiting your space.

Many successful startups value good and considered design and realize that it can be used as an important tool in online marketing and public relations.

For designers it is important to start by taking a deep dive into exploring your company’s culture and gaining a good understanding of your company’s past and as well as where it’s trying to go in the future. Once the analysis has been completed, the design team can create spaces that connect to your social, cultural, economic and functional needs, as well as account for future flexibility.

Safety

People need to not only be safe but also feel safe. Physically, mentally and emotionally. Communication and transparency with team members is key.

New cleaning guidelines per CDC guidelines include using EPA approved disinfectants. When selecting and specifying materials and fabrics, designers need to focus not only on design intent but also keep in mind the practical aspect that surfaces are durable and able to withstand deep cleaning and disinfecting.

Health and safety precautions also can include screening of people entering the space, behavioral signage for space usage and flow, as well as new protocols for the use of food areas.

Many tenants are demanding detailed information from their landlords on their building’s air filtration and HVAC systems. Air quality plays an important part in our overall health. Return to office strategy in many cases includes risk assessments and enhancements to existing mechanical systems. Buildings are being evaluated to see if higher rated filters can be retrofitted in addition to increasing fresh air intake and flushing out the building overnight or in the early morning prior to tenants arriving.

Flexibility

Humans have historically been bad at predicting the future. Just as most of us had no way to predict the Covid-19 pandemic, and certainly not the severity of its impact, we don’t know what the future holds. We live in times of social, political and environmental unrest. Organizations will need spaces that are flexible and can adjust to changing needs.

Already pre-pandemic, but even more so now, work spaces will have to find a balance between the growing need for teamwork with the needs of the individual. Open office plans and collaboration zones for video conferences will have to be balanced with closed offices, social distancing and an individual’s need for concentration, focus and quiet time. Space for quiet time will be especially important for those who cannot find quiet time for work at home.

In some cases, dual purpose spaces or rooms can be designed to save on space and money

Merging Physical and Virtual Space

Remote work and video conferencing from home have become the new normal. Yet as we begin to return to the office, the physical and virtual realms will need to merge in different ways to include employees at the office with those workers who feel more comfortable with distance work. With work travel taking place less frequently, offices will need to integrate enhanced virtual experiences to make up for not physically being in the same room together. Having flexible spaces that integrate smart and connected technology will be more important design considerations than ever.

Spatial Design & Layout

Common areas that support collaboration add a sense of comfort and energy to the workplace. We will continue to be attracted to environments that are livable and comfortable while supporting performance. Yet we now also have to combine this with various safely considerations.

CDC guidelines call for establishing a minimum distance of 6 ft between people, which includes open workstations, meeting rooms, cafes and lounges. This can be achieved fairly easily in most cases by removing desks, tables or seating. Setting up larger meetings in open spaces using flexible furniture with flexible whiteboards, and screens to create boundaries.

In open plan work spaces, furniture can be re-oriented or desks pulled apart to help prevent people form working directly across or too close to each other. Desk screen panels, floor partitions, storage elements or planters can also be added to establish barriers at workstations.

Open collaboration zones and meeting rooms, need to be safe, inspiring while fostering collective work. Ideally these zones will also include the ability for people to have some control over privacy, areas where people can retract and have some focused alone time. An important design factor to remember is controlling acoustics in a space.

In order to support different types of work (focus, collaboration, socialization, learning and rejuvenation) the workplace will have to be designed or adapted accordingly. There is no one-size -fits-all solution.

Successful workplaces feel much less corporate today and have more of a hospitality feel or even residential aesthetic. As we include new guidelines for distancing and layout in the office, we have to be careful not to make changes that weaken creativity, collaboration and productivity.

Outdoors & Biophilic Design

Some companies are implementing a range of unique ideas for safe workplaces. Some have even scheduled meetings in parks, parking lots or other outdoor spaces. Already pre-pandemic in 2019, LinkedIn started to test different ways to work outdoors at their headquarter in Sunnyvale, California. In an experimental outdoor space, they set up not just lounge areas but also tested employees working at actual work tables with no-glare monitors and retractable overhead shades. While most companies don’t have their own outdoor environments, such as terraces or patios, and while this is also not a realistic option for extreme hot or cold climates, there are alternatives that can be considered. One such alternative is bringing the outdoors in.

Biophilic design, or designing with plants, has been a trend for a few years now. The hypothesis is that people can be healthier, happier and more productive when exposed to nature. Plants not only help clean the air, but also have proven to help with stress and concentration problems at the workplace. This is a good option even for startups on a tight budget.