Workplace designs focus on millennials
NEW ORLEANS — Millennials are driving the latest design trends in workplaces, many of which are offering such amenities as music rooms, technology-free zones and bicycle sharing.
“To baby boomers and the Gen X, the workplace was something you adapted to. Millennials are expecting the workplace to adapt to them,” Bryan Berthold, managing director for workplace strategies at Cushman & Wakefield, said this week in New Orleans at the National Association of Real Estate Editors annual meeting.
Employees want to have control over where they work, whether it’s at a traditional desk or under a tree on an outdoor terrace, Kim Rousseau, a principal of architecture firm Cooper Cary, said during a panel discussion about design trends and office space.
Creative spaces are becoming more common, even in traditional downtown skyscrapers.
But technology and other creative companies want their offices to be the aesthetic antithesis of the building’s formal lobby, said Manuel Navarro, a
designer at Ziegler Cooper Architects.
“We are deconstructing the office and making it look like a loft,” Navarro said about a client in Austin.
Software developer Atlassian allows its employees to bring their dogs to its Austin office. But there’s a limit: 12 dogs per floor, Navarro said.
At the Austin offices of Dropbox there’s a “jam room,” where employees meet to play music after 5 p.m.
There’s also a breakroom designed to look like a rustic lodge with a gas fireplace.
Some companies are putting in quiet rooms where no technology is allowed. Others have their own bicycle storage rooms and bikes to check out if an employee wants to run an errand.
For landlords, there can be a financial upside.
“We’ve experienced older, creative buildings getting higher rents than Class A buildings,” said Jane Page, CEO of Lionstone Investments.
The Houston-based firm invests in “places for productive people,” which it identifies through a series of metrics, including supply and demand, rental rate growth and industry sectors.
Berthold said the creative and flexible workspaces can be more expensive, but when employees have options on where to work, “the productivity is amazing.”
Yet among the new amenities, one has remained constant: good coffee.
“Coffee is king,” Navarro said.