APQC recently remodeled our Houston, Texas office space! Much of the remodeling focused on updating the current space to ensure employees were comfortable in their work environment so they could do their best work. In a recent report on Work Environment Redesign, authors at Deloitte University Press found that redesigning the work environment is key to achieving successful yet sustainable business results.
During APQC’s remodeling process, the original notes to the architect were found. These notes were written to the architect and builders to ensure that the founders’ ideas were translated to the physical building space. Some of these original statements included:
- Don’t think of this building as just steel, cement, square feet, or a fixed inanimate structure. Think of it as ALIVE.
- When you walk in you feel the humanity. You’re excited – something cool is happening here – FUN. CREATIVITY. UNEXPECTED.
- It excites everyone who comes here. It helps humanity. It inspires humanity. It’s the past and the future.
- It’s alive, has blood flowing through it, has a pulse and makes you feel part of a whole and the whole is part of you.
- It’s open, not closed. Not walled in. It has birth, has death, and helps you create the future for yourself and for humanity.
- It thrives on beauty. Speaks with a language of art, suspense, whimsy, beauty. Surprise.
- Pushes you to your own renewal, it challenges you.
- Facilitates teams, communication, involvement, collaboration.
- It wants you to realize your dreams; it wants you to own your life.
- It doesn’t like walls; they wall you in and wall others out.
- It’s global, it’s local.
- It’s about freedom. Freedom of spirit, freedom from ignorance, arrogance, authority, bias, poverty. Freedom to be what you can be.
To help inspire and support its employees, APQC set up a number of design elements to meet the founders’ goals. For example, APQC has an open office space design. There are low cubicles and glass walls on the conference rooms so that employees feel that the space is adaptable. The open space also encourages communication and collaboration. Additionally, there are no offices; all employees, as well as directors and executives, utilize cubicles. Employees also periodically move desk spaces so they have exposure to different departments, fellow employees and managers. APQC believes that this increases the “cross-pollination” of ideas.
At APQC, we believe that the work space can enhance or hinder organizational progress. How is your office space set up? How could it be improved?