The Office as Ecosystem approach has 3 key tenets:
- The well-being of one lifts the prospects of all
- Fostering connections between people is the primary function of the office
- Productivity is a by-product of belonging
When we think about and design for the office as an ecosystem, we’re essentially saying that if one area, department, or person is underserved, the workplace as a whole will suffer. Likewise, we acknowledge that moves toward inclusion, equity, and belonging benefit not just the person or people for whom they are taken, but everyone in the greater workplace community.
This kind of people-first thinking and design can manifest in small, easy-to-implement tactics, as well as larger, systemic shifts.
At a systemic level, there’s a paradigm shift from the office in service of a business function to an office in service of individuals, each of whom brings different needs as well as gifts to the ecosystem. This requires abandoning both the one-size-fits-all, as well as the set-it-and-forget-it mindsets. Instead, it requires companies to embrace custom solutions, curiosity, and continuous improvement.
Aspect, Portland, Oregon
📸: Christian Columbres
This can be as simple as inviting a wider array of people with a more diverse set of perspectives to the proverbial table when it comes to office planning and design, asking what they need and building solutions together. Truly ecosystem-focused companies might even go a step further and imagine the needs of future staff and visitors, envisioning a truly welcoming environment for people of all abilities and backgrounds. In this way, companies become attractive to a wider, more diverse, and more engaged talent pool, and avoid the need to react and retrofit with each new hire.
Tactically, there are new, people-first solutions emerging every day that allow workplaces to serve the needs of the individuals within their workforce. Straightforward but ingenious solutions, such as furnishings that support fidgeting or fit a variety of body types not only accommodate differences but celebrate them. Visual cuing systems for d/Deaf persons meet a specific need, but also raise the consciousness of everyone in the office about the myriad ways people receive and process information. Imagine the impact when that understanding gets translated to customer, client, or shareholder interactions. When people-centered design becomes the “norm,” everyone in the workplace community – and often well beyond it – benefits.
Want to learn more? Check out our full strategic roadmap here, or watch this space for our next installment, “The Commute-Worthy Workplace,” coming next week.
Bethanne Mikkelsen, Managing Principal, Interior Designer
Banner photo: Fox Tower Green Room, Portland, Oregon
📸: Shelsi Lindquist
The Office as Ecosystem
Our workplace design team has a unique window into the changing nature of work, and the challenges that companies have keeping up with it. Every client meeting we attend, and every new design request we field, gives us a view of what’s really going on in today’s offices.
Late last year, we started to see some patterns emerge in the conversations we were having with clients about their workplace needs. And those patterns lined up with some trends and tactics we’d been incorporating into our projects.
It just made sense, then, to turn those patterns into a strategic roadmap our colleagues and clients could use as they are all rethinking what the workplace looks like. It examines the ways we need to shift our thinking about the roles, both functional and emotional, that offices play in workers’ lives today, with lots of examples and ideas to get begin the journey of workplace transformation.
We call the overarching approach “The Office as Ecosystem,” because it acknowledges that the workplace is an interconnected environment, where the well-being of one lifts the prospects of all.
If you’ve been grappling, as so many companies have, with a changed workforce and a not-so-relevant workplace, maybe a shift to ecosystem-thinking is in order.
Archivist Capital, Portland, Oregon
📸: Josh Partee
Check out the full strategic roadmap here, or watch this space for each installment, starting next week:
Part 1: The Office Gets Personal
Part 2: The Commute-Worthy Workplace
Part 3: The Not-So-Office Office
Part 4: New Ways to Meet
Part 5: Culture First Employee Engagement
(each Part will be hyperlinked once the blog post launches)
Bethanne Mikkelsen, Managing Principal, Interior Designer
Michael Stueve, Principal, UX Strategy
Erica Buss, Senior Associate, Research & Information Services Manager
Banner photo: Buchalter, Portland, Oregon
📸: Magda Biernat
Living Our Hows Series
These are our Hows, the values by which we work and play. We created our Hows a few years ago through a decade-long process (stay tuned for a future post detailing that process!). We encourage everyone to show up in life and at work authentically, to seek connections and embrace the work we do with enthusiasm and flexibility. We’re a hybrid firm, and we work differently.
Our workplace design team has put together a six-part series that touches on our Hows and the way they come to life at AM. Click the links below to read each article in the series.
Jessica Kirshner, Interior Designer
Kaci Mespelt, Interior Designer
Roberta Pennington, Senior Associate Interior Designer
Aaren DeHaas, Associate Interior Designer
Rebecca Brock, Associate Interior Designer
Kerstyn Smith Olson, Content Coordinator
Connected Senior-Living
Holden of Bellevue has received an INaward from the IIDA Northern Pacific Chapter. This senior living center won in the category of “INhome” thanks to its community-focused design.
A community within a community.
Bellevue, Washington is remaking its identity from suburban and car-centric to dense and pedestrian-oriented, a shift that includes emphasizing light rail transit and walkability for people of all abilities and ages. More broadly, a growing trend in senior community design brings senior living back into urban centers from the suburbs while adding public programming to planning that, until recently, was exclusively private. Our design for Holden of Bellevue focuses squarely on these priorities.
Not only does Holden of Bellevue bring senior community living from the suburbs into the city, it exemplifies infill development. Where the site was once a low-rise, low-density medical building, Holden is now a seven-story, 136-unit community with a real presence.
A critical part of our development began with a new pedestrian connection, running through the site’s long city block. Before, it wasn’t possible to quickly walk from one side of this sprawling block to the other. But with Bellevue including through-blocks for pedestrians in their downtown zoning code, our design for Holden of Bellevue halves the superblock to a more walkable scale, places its parking and main entry in an internal lot, and lays the framework for future urban development.
Connection to the neighborhood.
Designed for seniors who need varying levels of care, and want ready access to downtown Bellevue’s amenities, Holden of Bellevue sits one block from Bellevue’s upcoming East Main light-rail station. Its contemporary design language, active street-facing retail, and pedestrian passageway contribute to the neighborhood’s street life, as does its location, easily reached by families who live and work in Bellevue.
The Salon and Bistro, located on the ground-floor, are open to the public which creates opportunities for community connection and engagement. We designed these spaces to have a bold look: sparkling gold, metallics, dramatic lighting, and plenty of options for varying experiences. This creates a contemporary feel that connects to the vibrant urban fabric of the community.
Connection amongst residents and families.
Inside, our interior design program promotes community building through connection. Luxurious, hospitality-influenced amenities prompt seniors to get together outside their individual residences for shared mealtimes, social events, and fitness.
Knowing that dining is an essential social anchor in people’s lives, we used it as an opportunity for connection amongst Holden of Bellevue’s residents.
To offer multiple dining experiences, we designed an open-plan dining room divided into two halves by a partial-height wall with patterned metal screens above. On one side, we designed a two-sided gas fireplace; on the other, an open kitchen with a large, pass-through window. Both halves offer two separate but related dining experiences.
Our calming memory-care amenity space, too, is open and centrally located. The living room opens to dining and an intimate residential kitchen that leads to other activity spaces. A covered courtyard gives Holden of Bellevue’s memory-care residents year-round access to the fresh air outside.
The main lobby opens to the living room, bringing a warm, residential feeling to this space. The two-sided gas fireplace, clad in onyx tile, is shared with the equally luxurious dining room. Stretched fabric acoustical ceilings reduce echoes and background noise, adding to this community’s sense of comfort and calm. And of course, our design includes wellness amenities for all residents, including, a well-appointed fitness room for yoga and chair exercises. When necessary, this opens to the adjacent activity room for large-group activities.
Every material, detail and layout was intentionally crafted to foster community by connecting residents to each other, to their families, and to their city.
_________
Consultants:
Landscape Architecture
Fazio Associates
Structural Engineering
Bykonen, Carter, Quinn
Envelope Consulting
Cross2 Design Group
MEP Design-Assist
Rushing
Civil Engineering
Bush, Roed, and Hitchings
by Mackenzie Gilstrap, Sr. Marketing Coordinator
Employee Spotlight: Jenna Mogstad
Last month Interior Designer Jenna Mogstad was named the 2022 Emerging Professional by IIDA’s Oregon Chapter. after being nominated by several of her AM coworkers.
Jenna, who has been with AM for 6 years, has excelled as a designer for many reasons. But perhaps her greatest strength is her passion. As her manager and mentor, Cindy Schaumberg, describes it, Jenna “puts her heart into each project.”
Jenna is fascinated by the psychology of interior design and she approaches her work with a sense of advocacy—taking great care to ensure that the end user will be positively impacted by her projects.
Driven by a desire to help people heal, she gravitates towards trauma-informed design and often applies her skills to affordable housing projects. Jenna enjoys this work because she recognizes that it has a significant impact on people’s lives. Her designs have the power to help the residents of affordable housing communities to feel a sense of safety and stability.
Jenna is particularly proud of her current project Meridian Gardens, an 85-unit supportive housing community designed to serve individuals who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness and are receiving substance use disorder treatment.
Jenna’s passion for design is apparent to everyone working alongside her, as the nominations will attest. They describe someone who “embodies curiosity, empathy, and the ability to innovate” with a “drive to improve herself and the field of interior design.”
Jenna is well-deserving of the title “Emerging Professional of the Year” and we’re incredibly proud to have her on our team.
by Mackenzie Gilstrap, Sr. Marketing Coordinator