03

Designing for Everyday Impact

Students today have grown up with unprecedented access to information. They have the tools to forge their own learning paths, and a belief in doing so. To provide students the personalized and hands-on approach they expect, schools are leveraging technology and maker culture, and restructuring their curricula. In the process, education itself is being reinvented. But not all at once; for this shift to happen, space really matters. It is an active part of these evolving pedagogies.

The most successful spaces empower students to solve things that matter to them in their larger social context. This kind of problem-solving often requires more collaboration and a diversity of learning styles. Educational institutions are asking for spaces flexible enough to accommodate these new modes.

DAVID BROZ
Education Practice Area Leade

“The most important thing for students today is that they become critical, intelligent, and creative thinkers: How can space help activate that in them?”

The classrooms at Dwight-Englewood’s new Hajjar STEM Center are spacious, with movable furniture and writable walls; they more resemble labs and studios—where students can move around and work differently depending on the assignment—than traditional classrooms. Students are also encouraged to make use of the shared spaces outside of the classroom for more hands-on activities. This visibility and interactivity prompt students to look at things from multiple perspectives and to integrate those perspectives in their thinking process.

Gensler research on both education and workplace shows that more collaboration and the use of different spaces for different work modes correlate to higher levels of creativity and innovation.

Transparency plays a big role in creating these settings. At the University of Kansas School of Business, it serves to spark connections and inspire a more entrepreneurial culture for the whole campus. And at Duke Kunshan’s sustainable campus, learning happens everywhere and with everyone, to support a diversity of learning styles and innovative learning strategies.

Addressing the root causes
In order to deliver the best care effectively and efficiently, healthcare systems are looking to address the root causes of health and disease. Because that typically points back to a patient’s life beyond the hospital walls, more providers are positioning themselves as hubs of care for their communities, providing not only critical services, but outreach too—a wide range of services, to promote well-being inside and outside of their facilities.

Making healthcare accessible
The Cook County Health and Hospital System has a long legacy of providing community-based care to the underserved. The new Central Campus Health Center expands that mission. The new facility—combining clinical, administration, and educational spaces—is designed to elevate the well-being of patients and of the community. It visibly communicates the future of accessible, state-of-the-art healthcare, prioritizing outpatient “health” care and reducing the need for costly inpatient “sick” care.

TAMA DUFFY DAY
Health & Wellness Practice Area Leader

“Healthcare organizations are focused on keeping people healthy. Design supports this by creating new access points to health and care across our communities.”

To keep pace, companies are reinventing the workplace to adapt to these changes and deliver innovation. In San Francisco, the law firm Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP approached Gensler to help with their move from the Ferry Building to the Financial District. In the process, they reduced their real estate footprint by nearly one-third.

The downsizing prompted the firm to dissect their ways of working and prioritize needs. They opted for a single-size-office strategy that reflects their democratic culture, and added welcoming social spaces. Corner locations house informal meeting areas rather than partner offices. And a dramatic interconnecting stair provides places for collaboration and impromptu conversations.

DOUG GENSLER
Project Principal

“In the 21st century, a headquarters must deliver an environment that enables high-performance work. In addition, it should convene collaborators from the broader community.”

In San Jose, California, the three-tower, 1 million-square-foot campus of Adobe was reimagined to empower creativity, encourage community, and inspire innovation. The West Tower, for example, was reconfigured from 100 percent enclosed offices into an open floor plan. Now it features a variety of communal areas and alternative workspaces that draw people together and inspire creative thinking.

To encourage staff to interact, the 14th-floor breakroom was relocated from the heart of the building to the end, where it captures pedestrian flow from the other towers and receives more daylight. A large communal table, kitchen island bar, and collaboration spaces on each end of the breakroom offer alternative workplaces. Amenity spaces include three cafés and a fitness center tailored to yoga, meditation, relaxation, and exercise.

JANET POGUE McLAURIN
Firmwide Workplace Sector Leader

“Our research found that innovators not only have more effective workspaces, but they have twice as much access to certain amenities—and more choice, meaning, and purpose.”

Creativity and performance
Today the optimal workplace is a platform for creativity and performance. In Boston, a new waterfront headquarters for General Electric embodies GE’s transformation into a digital industrial company—one that creates an open, collaborative, and sustainable experience. The design highlights the connection between GE's rich history and a forward-looking view through the renovation of two historic factories and construction of a new 12-story building. The combination will drive a diversity of experiences and cross-fertilization of ideas, which accelerate innovation.

An important feature of the campus is its extensive indoor and outdoor public space. GE looks to engage the Boston ecosystem in idea generation, creating solutions that will have impact worldwide. The new building is set back from the waterfront, allowing the landscape to flow through public spaces. The indoor public areas will include a maker space, a bistro, and an experience center. The community lounge will function both as a reception area and coworking café space for public use.

Enriching a vibrant community
The office of the future even comes in the guise of tradition, as it does at 25 Kent, a new commercial office building in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg neighborhood. Designed to reflect the area’s industrial past, the mixed-use complex is forward-looking in the way it addresses workspace design for growing technology companies. With floor plates that vary from 40,000 to 60,000 square feet, the building has a modular layout that adapts easily to tech’s changing needs. Additional space is dedicated to light manufacturing to accommodate the maker community. Ground-floor frontage along the perimeter and internal streets will add the vitality of retail, artisanal food and drink, and local goods and services.