Corner Office ≠ Corner Store: Urban Planning & The Workplace
Monday October 22nd, in the year of our lord 2007Recently Alex (Gilbert) rediscovered this article by Malcolm Gladwell that Geoff had read when it was published in 2000. It recontextualizes the meat of Jane Jacobs’s seminal 1961 book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” within today’s office architecture. When the neighborhood is “oriented toward the street” and the office is oriented toward the public space there is an intermingling of talents and ideas.
The Junto hosted this Thursday passed had a prerequisite reading assignment of the aforementioned article. After a brief overview of Gladwell’s tenets the group split in two— one championing the open workplace and one flouting it. After deliberating each chose a speaker and delivered a five minute argument then a three minute rebuttal.
Team Open Plan sang the praises of freedom and congregation for workers, that tearing down the cube liberates and energizes people, allowing for open collaboration, cutting hierarchical red tape, so on and so forth. Team Corner Office maintained the strength of structure, the scalability of a hierarchical pyramid. As a business grows the open plan becomes more chaotic and the larger-picture structure again becomes more traditional.
In synthesis these diametrics fall happily in love. As Gladwell Illustrates, ad giant TBWA\Chiat\Day recently moved into a staggering office compound near LAX basing its layout roughly on New York City. There is a main street, a central park, valuable employees and creative directors sit in hubs with their support staff radiating around them. This system solves issues of scale. As both Alex’s admitted, they sacrifice some of the productivity of seclusion for the warmth of socializing each and every day.
This discussion remains open, we encourage your perspectives and experiences in various workplace manifestations.
Further reading:
Business Week: Enabling Innovation Through Office Design
Also, member Vanja Buvac asked us to pass along the following:
- Here is some background information about the Patent Reform Act of 2007 for the Junto list. Here are the links to contact forms to our senators. I would encourage Junto members to write to our senators asking for their position on the Patent Reform Act of 2007. This is an important bill that could change the innovation landscape significantly.
Arlen Specter, Bob Casey
October 22nd, 2007 at 3:41 pm
This was the best Junto yet! The debate-style discussion forced me to put my head in a completely different place than it spends nearly all of its time: on the pro side of open workspaces. Examining some of the “pros” of closed and structured work places ultimately helped me solidify some of my arguments for the side I actually sympathize with, so the exercise was all around successful. Both groups did a great job of presenting and arguing their points, and great passion was brought to the conversation! Well done, team!
October 23rd, 2007 at 8:14 am
Was bummed I missed this!
I would’ve had a hard time supporting the pro side of a closed office also. I actually hadn’t put too much though into the issue before reading the article, but afterwards I realized how it was affecting my work place. At my day job, two separate departments that work closely together are located on separate sides of the office building. Not only does this limit collaboration, it actually breeds animosity between the two. I can only imagine if the office was reorganized so that the people in the two departments worked in the same space together.
October 29th, 2007 at 12:53 am
This was my first Junto and I was very impressed. The article we discussed was also a great read. It got a lot of my coworkers thinking about the state of our office. The group discussions that took place were awesome and the debate got everyone involved. I look forward to the next meeting that takes place. Thanks for providing a great space for creative individuals to get together.
When will the video from this one be available for us to view and was there anything we needed to read for the next Junto?
December 20th, 2007 at 1:16 am
I would like to see a continuation of the topic
February 15th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
[...] For those unfamiliar, Junto is a “club of mutual improvement” inspired by Benjamin Franklin that meets once a month at Punk’d Ave. Experts are invited from a certian industry to lead a discussion on how to improve and change that industry for the better. In the past, the topics have ranged from health care to urban planning. [...]