With Apple making major news this week that is likely to set off a wave of effects that will once again revolutionize mobility in the workplace, we take at where the modern office is headed.
While we’ve moved to first open and now flexible offices from cubicles, more private meeting rooms have been quietly taking over your office. They’re growing in importance and this is why.
Open Offices Need Meetings Rooms
Like it or not the open office has been around since the 1900’s when The Larkin Administration Building, the first modern office, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, opened in 1906. But it doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, private spaces are becoming more important than ever. Just ask Susan Cain, if you haven’t heard her TED talk. But private spaces don’t just mean more cubicles.
What leading designers have realized is that logistically, open spaces can’t be the only solution. They must be accompanied by functional components that allow the space to work. The best designed spaces today all embody the idea of choice and flexibility – the crucial components? Meeting Rooms.
We’ll often only see highlights of interesting meetings spaces and unique layouts when we look at award winning projects, but meeting spaces are at the heart of office productivity for a number of reasons.
Collaboration is good. Noise is bad.
The idea of an open office plan is to foster collaboration, casual interactions and more. There’s one problem with this – humans are most distracted by a specific type of noise. That noise is human conversation. We can’t help but eavesdrop.
Having these spaces available throughout your space is important because, if employees are simply putting on noise cancelling earbuds throughout the day to work, you’ve lost the collaborative aspect of the open office.
Why you didn’t notice it
JLL’s Aon Centre features meeting spaces that are unconventional like the pods above.
The importance of meeting rooms has continued to grow alongside the open office, but it’s likely that you just didn’t notice it. It’s because just like a traditional office space, where ping pong tables are not out of the norm, meeting rooms themselves have changed.
You won’t walk into as many massive boardrooms you would have in your cubicle farm type office or law firm. It’s because space planning, the real driver of a lot of design, is getting better.
Companies are realizing that the amount of people in a meeting varies. And that by having meeting spaces tailored to smaller types of meetings it a) wastes less space and b) frees up larger rooms for meetings that actually require more people. JLL applied this principle when renovating their Aon Centre HQ for example, tripling the amount of smaller meeting rooms in their space.
Meeting areas are also taking shape as less formalized collaborative areas. CBRE Furniture Advisory Services Director, Julie Deignan notes that, “Depending on the geographic region and the industry, today the ancillary spend on a furniture project can be anywhere between 30 percent to 80 percent of the total spend.”
Booths in office cafes or funky enclosures are being created that provide the acoustic barriers to limit distractions, but also provide functionality for more impromptu meetings between 2-4 people.
Where to Invest
With meeting rooms providing the lifeblood of many organizations, facilitating conversations that lead to decisions and serving as the spot that teams meet with each other, their superiors, their clients or even just get a quick respite from the open office, meeting rooms are essential for the success of any organization. If you’re investing in a space it’s important not to overlook your investment in these spaces.
Meeting Room Tech
Technology is making the use of these meeting room spaces easier. Again this is important when you consider how important they are.
Tech like ChargeSpot’s wireless charging, pictured above, is already being ramped up throughout meeting spaces
With Apple’s move to join the Wireless Power Consortium we are going to see meeting rooms and likely entire offices go wireless. Again it’s not something new and leading organizations from banks to even law firms like Lavery have adopted ChargeSpot in efforts to deliver world class meeting space.
Other devices can be used to allow connectivity to screens, in meeting rooms that boast them, easier. Companies like Ubiq provide wireless connectivity to these screen in meeting rooms. They aim to simply your meeting room AV setup, again focusing a better and more seamless experience.
Finally, other applications like meeting room booking software allow space managers to tap into valuable data and insights. For example usage data can be used to further increase real estate allocation and design rooms better in the future.
With flexibility being embedded in the open office, we’ll see the concept last longer. While real estate costs will dictate whether or not we see a move back to private offices, seeing a rise in meeting rooms will be a workplace feature that most employees will welcome.
Pictured Above: Breather’s Toronto Meeting Room Space
