Unoffice The Office

Unoffice Your Office

Just as objects in a home can tell the story of a family, objects in an office can tell the story of a company. By making our workplaces human-scale, embellishing them with hand-wrought objects made from natural materials, accenting them with pleasing sensory touches from scents to sounds to tastes, and encouraging employees to add their own personal touches, we create an environment where people feel cared for, engaged, and comfortable. In other words, where they feel at home.

 

Organization Scale:

Retreat and wellness principles

Humans were meant to live out of doors. We originally designed buildings simply to keep us safe from extreme weather conditions, but they have become the site of so many of our activities that the average American now spends a paltry twenty minutes per day outside. This shift has effectively “denatured” our lives and begun eliciting troubles ranging from depression to weakened attention spans to obesity to myopia. Add to this mix recent research on sustainability, which has advanced to include the specific and profound importance of workplaces being tailored to encourage wellness, and you have a recipe for the nature-infused office.

Workplaces are at their most useful when they can offer a chance to restore and refresh through amenities like proper ventilation, circadian rhythm lightning, and even cloud projections on the walls. The more we understand the many aspects of biophilic design that can help people feel refreshed and energized at work, the more we see companies blurring the lines between indoors and out. They’re adding plants (real as well as artificial, and printed on wallpaper as well as sitting in pots) to their design agendas, and scenting restrooms and lobbies with invigorating or calming natural aromas like citrus and lavender. They’re strategically placing work areas near windows: exposure to sunlight and a view of natural elements outdoors have been shown to increase job satisfaction and general well-being while decreasing workers’ likelihood of quitting.

The spaces we work in can make us healthier,
happier, and higher-performing—if we design them.

Even opting for reclaimed wood for a conference table top can be a powerful choice. Weathered wood fully expresses the material’s inherent grain and uniqueness, making it visually stimulating and undeniably reminiscent of nature. Whether literal (a bouquet of flowers) or abstract (a photo of flowers in a field), people are innately drawn to biophilic imagery—so much so that even representations of nature recall healthy associations, helping us to relax whether we’re indoors or out.
As our focus on building sustainably grows to include human as well as environmental wellness, reestablishing our connection to nature in our physical environment is key. The spaces we work in can make us healthier, happier, and higher-performing – if we design them with human factors at the fore. Whether it’s via a view of the atmosphere through a widened skylight, the sound of a babbling brook running down a hallway, or a beautifully designed wooden chair covered by comfortable cotton-blend upholstery, we now understand that a connection to nature in the workplace is a real driver of performance – as well as an amenity increasingly expected by employees today.