Workplace Wellness New

Frontiers in workplace wellness

With employee well-being as a guiding light, health-promoting elements shape the new office.

BY Colleen Arria

Both clients and tenants are increasingly aware of biophilia. People in general are more mindful about what types of materials are being placed in their space, where they're coming from, what they're made of, do they off gas, and how they affect the quality of the interior environment. People are much more responsive to our suggestions about healthy materials. Most of us respond positively to materials with natural properties. As a result, we're designing with a lot more wood, because it has biophilic properties—our brain associates wood with trees and that feels good.

I'm working on a huge 800,000 square foot campus right now and we're collecting data on the quality of the existing workspace. The number one request I’m getting relates to wellness at work. More specifically, 95% of the people polled expressed a desire for direct access to daylight. That desire for daylight occurs in every project that we design today. Even with traditionally windowless spaces like labs, we're organizing space to maximize access to windows. In our project, we’re making sure that the office spaces have access to the sun’s rays.

Ultimately workplace wellness should translate into happier staff that is ready to bring their best selves to the office. The clients that do it best, naturally, are those that foster a positive culture in the office. They are interested in the well-being of their employees because they have seen from experience that if you invest in people in all aspects of their life, they stick around.

Giving the weekends back with services If we think more broadly about wellness, we begin to think about work/life balance. That’s where services come in. With the BEAT or suburban office campuses, we see the need to create small town centers or small urbantype environments and campuses that bring all the food, fitness, fun, as well as services closer to the workplace. You may not think of having dry cleaning in a workplace development as healthrelated, but it contributes to wellness. As one of my clients put it, it gives them their weekends back. If you can do small little day-to-day, personal things while you're on the corporate campus or your workspace offers services like car tune-ups or dental cleanings, that helps folks gain some balance. Bringing in services can alleviate stress and contribute to workers' well-being.

Eating right, even on islands Corporate campuses, academic institutions, new office developments in urban areas all host lots of people working in offices. Generally, they need the same things. At the BEAT we are creating a corporate campus in the former Boston Globe headquarters. But the location is locked in by transit and geography, so despite its urban setting it doesn't have access to typical city amenities like great food. So, the design conversation for the BEAT is about building in access to really good local and healthy food options beyond the fries and pizza typical of some corporate cafeterias. The transformation is widespread within the industry, we’re seeing existing corporate cafeterias transforming themselves too to compete for patrons—we’re seeing existing corporate cafeterias transforming themselves as well to compete for patrons—taking inspiration from the dynamic food halls you see in vibrant urban centers.

Boutique fitness on demand Essentially, the on-demand fitness space is a room that enables employees to access a variety of different fitness programs digitally, take instruction from a big flat screen, and workout in a flexible fitness space. It’s a concept that started in the hospitality world and transferred over into residential that’s now entering the workplace. People are working longer hours at the office, while some also often have the option or obligation to work at home. This puts pressure on the workplace to offer some of the advantages available at home for those in the office and make it a destination for those that have flexibility to work elsewhere. Amenities like on-demand fitness offerings make the workplace more appealing. Workouts are likely to be done with co-workers. So, on-demand fitness spaces are an opportunity to build culture in the workplace, which is as important to a sense of well-being and mission as it is to productivity.

Flexible programmed spaces We're also seeing wellness incorporated in the workplace programmatically via flexible spaces that can contribute to people's wellness in multitude of ways. For example, small privacy rooms meant for a single person can be used for anything from a mother's room to a meditation space, to a room for rest or focused work, and of course to make private calls. Programming these rooms for multiple uses isn’t hard, but it can have a big impact on how employees perceive wellness.

Working outdoors Traditionally mechanical equipment was predominant on rooftops for residential buildings, but recently we’ve been designing to condense and minimize mechanical systems. We’re now collocating them in one corner, fencing it off, and turning the rest of the rooftop into amazing outdoor space that everybody can access. Now, we're now we're doing that with office spaces. We're creating these amazing outdoor rooftop areas that everybody in the building can access. Thus far, however, these rooftops are used for eating lunch and for parties. But, why can't we actually work outside? How can we make these rooftops four season spaces that employees can use throughout their day?

What’s next?

Wellness in the workplace is just getting started. Whatever we can imagine that may enhance a day at the office and promote innovation and productivity is possible.

Rooftop pods What’s intriguing to me is really truly blurring that line between the outdoors and our workspace. For instance, imagine having a little rooftop pod outside where you can go have a meeting, even while it's snowing. Sitting outside on a rooftop is a different experience than sitting somewhere very deep somewhere inside the building. That's small scale, but it's a hint at the next wave in designing for wellness. The next wave will be all about connection to nature and the outdoors into work environments that are typically closed-off glass and steel.

Natural Materials and Biophilia

Culture Building

Daylight and Views

Making nature tangible Food is really this tangible experience meant to be tasted, not experienced on the screen, and yet today we are often taking pictures of our food. Our interior environments are very much like that. We're still designing very glassy buildings, but I think there's this yearning to utilize more natural materials and elements that are tactile. Green walls are indicative of this desire to connect with plants. We’re going to see more natural materials used inside and out at the workplace.

Mass timber as a structural material Wood is coming on strong in interiors, but now it’s showing up in structural systems through its laminated timber form. It can be strong, durable, and sustainable. That’s another way we will be looking at bringing more natural, more biophilic elements into the office and exposing them.

We’ve only just begun to see where wellness is taking us. Keep an eye on the Design Quarterly for more workplace well-being.

Approaching the office as a place that should enhance the health and well-being of its occupants has changed how and what we design for our clients. The following are the elements that are influencing wellness-oriented office designs, as I see it, and some possibilities for what comes next.