View
Transitioning from a PC to a MAC can make a head spin. Where’s this - where’s that? Why did they not do it this way? After stopping to take a deep breath and exhaling, it appeared that the new mega screen was blocking my view, causing greater stress.
My frustration didn’t have an outward view. I have the luxury of working in an upper loft that has a view of the outdoors, which happens to be a lake. The pirouettes of thinking about a smaller screen, flipping the screen to portrait, so I can view (the) landscape, created yet another mind spinning movement.
A room with a view is not a cliché. Especially in the setting of a home office, it offers a balance that offers a respite in the midst of a chaotic mind spin. It offers a break from the page, by looking beyond the screen; it is one of the forgotten simple ideas to help balance one’s mind throughout the day and actually accomplish what you set out to do!
Crescendo
After any decision-making, the time between the current state and the implementation of the decision inspires emotion. Were all options considered, communicated, was the right decision made, how can we tweak this in the future? Think about it - happens nearly all the time and with any decision. Somewhere in the spectrum of making a decision to execute its completion is a crescendo. It is defined as: the highest point reached in a progressive increase of intensity. At that very moment, the excitement to move forward happens. Just like music, decisions are experienced with a crescendo.
Designing a space for your home or shared spaces have many decisions . With Nicholai Studio as your guide, together we focus on enlightened purpose and motion, which brings change - the crescendo in space. We often don’t know when the crescendo happens - sometimes gradually in the design process as parts of the design are revealed, other times the first step into the completed space. Each person creates their own moment for crescendo in designing and then experiencing space. It connects personal emotion within the space - benefit, purpose, or simply a place of focus or respite. That aha moment is different for everyone. Once the crescendo is experienced CHANGE begins!
Wonder
Do you ever wonder how creatives, be they artists, writers, architects or designers spark new ideas? Their brains are in constant motion, often not satisfied with the last step. Some days it is inspirational. Other days seem like a curse as new ideas come forth and then deliberation happens, then more ideas. Often creatives can visualize each alternative to a point of getting brain tongue-tied before deciding which way to go next!
Think about it - it is not just those in the ‘creative’ field that are deemed creative. How many times have you created a new set of numbers to make a major business decision? Or maybe you created options for a new market strategy. Maybe your creativity engenders black and white options for decision-making rather than many gray fuzzy could-be options. Yet, it is the rigor of thinking that creates the options that lead you to a decision.
Creativity is about making complicated - simple. The reverse - making what is simple, complicated is an everyday occurrence and usually changes nothing. The core of creative simplicity is to take away a problem and bring something new into the world.
Home Work
The occasional working (your ‘day’ job) at home was an overnight opportunity. After a year, how is this working for you? There are so many surveys and results published stating varied opinions; it is confusing. If asked to answer a survey of where you want to work, these reflective questions may focus you and your work space at home may need:
COMMUTE: love lack of travel OR miss transition time between workplace and home?
TECHNOLOGY: easy use and plenty of plugs and bandwidth OR slows your day?
MEETINGS: enjoy seeing colleagues remotely OR missing the 1:1 connection?
MEETING BACKDROPS: positioned well, showing personality OR fake background?
SPACE: appropriate set-up, lighting, and ergonomics OR is your DIY space lack-luster?
No matter how often you use a home work space, it is important that it is attractive and balanced with ease and comfort. Nicholai Studio can help through home space therapy to create a place you want to be to work. We start small, inquiring with thought-provoking questions and move toward priorities and ideas. We offer residential scaled furniture and accessories to enhance ergonomics. The intent is always removing distractions and reaching your priorities. Fill out your contact and let’s chat!
What’s Next
Mysteries of ‘what is next’ brings forth varied emotions. The world has witnessed mysteries that seem to happen thrice daily! ‘What should our space be’ can be confusing. Should we continue to have an office, give up space, leave it alone for now, and how long? As we decipher data, survey people, decide what is right - changes on the heels of new data, surveys, and new products.
What’s next for office space, depends on the organization. Each company has special needs as people experience new places to work, revealing new ways of work. Many different ideas unfold in the media to change space and bring people back. Building owners have installed products to alleviate safety concerns: touchless elevators, faucets, doors and increased air circulation. The furniture industry has been nimble to provide choices as: portable screens, individual work shelters, and it goes on and on. This is all good stuff, necessary, and a whole new tool kit.
The greater question is - how do you decide ‘What’s Next’? Nicholai Studio’s Space Therapy is an opportunity to emerge through a guided dialogue that starts to define what is next for your organization’s space. We help you through the chaos, lay your fears aside to make simple clear answers for your organization’s space. The result reconnects people , aligning culture and purpose to your space.
Lets talk and scribe a path forward together.
Color!
Trends are futuristic and fascinating for a split-second then it’s history. The media is bathed in the latest trend colors reported to be in vogue for the new year. Uplifting shades of pink, yellows, warm greens, oceanic blues, shades of orchid all mixed with grays, are being validated.
How does one decide or even step into the world of coloring space? Trends are short-lived. Rather, think about: how you use your space - the color of your skin - and what evokes your emotion. All these questions are important in your color selection for you. Gray rooms have numerous undertones - some make you look fabulous, others make you look tired. The color of your skin set beside color resonates ‘how you look and feel’; it is important for your well-being.
Think about all the online meetings and seeing other’s backdrops. Was there chaos in the background or just blank white walls. Your space communicates who you are. Why not create a backdrop that reflects you. Add color to your space that makes you smile, add a few of your favorite things, and/or piece of stellar art at the very least. The same transcends workplace environments. Beauty does affect how we think, feel and behave working with others.
Office space that focuses purely on functionality risks dehumanizing people. In contrast, focusing on the experience of people as central to the design of a space better allows people to harmonize and flourish. Color is a primary aspect to humanizing space.
Answers
Answers satisfy a question or need. The journey to the right answer may deviate from what is anticipated with an unexpected surprise. The outcome depends on the coach who asks the right questions, with knowledge that moves you forward to the right answer. Taking a therapeutic approach to thinking space stimulates the right answers to develop an environment, focused on how you want to live/work in your space.
Every organization has a different purpose and values, hence a different answer to space needs. To diagnose your space, Nicholai Studio uses a penta-prong course of action with tools: listening, surveys, 1:1 dialogues, group interactions, and watching people move through the space:
Explore new strategies for how many people are in, when, and why;
Entice people to the office by fulfilling what’s missing when working elsewhere;
Encourage a unique variety of spaces to accommodate different work modes;
Energize dialogues by envisioning what can be;
Express your organization’s culture to experience who you are throughout your space.
This is hard yet fun work; both sides of your brain are required. With Neena as your Space Coach, ideas will flow and connect to your space. She has a knack to listen to your spoken and unspoken desires. She will guide you through the design process with the larger internal and external teams that will bring your space to reality based on your contributions during space therapy.
Space Re-Awakening
We have a big opportunity to create an epiphany through space. Centuries ago the Renaissance gave rise to humanism in the design of buildings. Thinking space together offers a dialogue to create spaces that give courage, comfort, and joy….human qualities that people seek.
Some organizations are offering a choice of where you want to work. Yes, the shelter-in-place had bumps and hiccups. It was unplanned with no timeframe to plan, yet deliberate for your safety. Recent surveys indicate many people are now more comfortable working from home, others miss the order and camaraderie of the office. A large majority noted greater productivity, with family around and less commute time working from home.
In Denmark, the surroundings of home are called hygge (pronounced hue-gah). The term refers to "a form of everyday togetherness, a pleasant and highly valued everyday experience of safety, equality, personal wholeness and a spontaneous social flow." It gives rise to feelings of well-being which translates to connectivity and productivity through color, light, sound, and shape of space.
Anjan Chatterjee, professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, talks about the “relationship between buildings, beauty and the brain as ‘place’ shapes our everyday experiences. From the colors of the walls to the amount of light in the room, how we design buildings affects how we think, feel, and behave.” What better time to rethink what the office can be with positive impact. How we change space can change us.
Space Interrupted
Long rows of worksurfaces, called benching, introduced concerns about close distances to colleagues and spread of germs. This seemed a contrived comment, coming from a dislike of openness. Yes, now, space has been interrupted.
Leonardo daVinci’s Vitruvian Man is an image associated with proportion and health/fitness. My first lesson of proportion as a child, mom - a dress designer - showed me how to measure one yard of fabric from nose to fingertips of a stretched arm. For convenient measure, both arms stretched out is close to six feet.
Individual Work Spaces will bear the new metric planning - six feet. Wiggle room should be considered; movement is not static. Immediate possibilities for safety: add screens between desk spaces - desktop (min. 20”H) or full height (60-65”H). Other possibilities: staggering occupancy of every-other workstation or stagger number of people coming into the office. Work from home guidelines may resolve the density and six foot zones.
One-way aisles were brilliant grocery distancing around contemplative shoppers. Did you get any sneers going the wrong way? The same may be implemented in your space (for now). Predetermined pause points off to the side of the path may allow a quick collaboration when you see a colleague you have been wanting to talk to.
Gathering spaces for collaboration will change. What comes to mind if we think space can inspire and support innovation. What does it look like? What natural elements can you foresee that make you feel exhilarated? Inspiration may come to you alone or thinking together.
These are all in-the-moment thoughts. What happens next - no one knows. Every organization is different with different needs. Space needs to be a collaborative discovery to best suit your organization. We are entering an era called regenerative design, meaning thinking ahead.
Agility
How did your DIY home office set-up work out for you?
Cheers to all the on-line ingenuity of ergonomic ideas to support work from home. Imagine keeping your agility moving forward. Mental well-being promotes agile thinking. Sudden change has given ode to ‘how can life be better and different". The familiar office may no longer fulfill expectations...life was interrupted. This is an opportunity to live differently - connected for purpose. Don’t lose this valuable transition time to co-create space.
Let’s use this moment to generate resilient space for connection. First, think about keeping what works. There may be a ‘crack’ in the space - yet it may enlighten the tasks to flourish as is with easy minor modifications. These are agile moments. You showed up, don’t let time give way to complacency.
First priority is physical and psychological safety in your space. Many buildings are putting new practices in place from building entry to your organization’s space. What’s next: how can you take control of your space in the office to feel safe? Ideas from media: clockwise corridors; cleaning products sprinkled about; and non-touch faucets. The intensity depends on how you and your colleagues feel about what else may be required for your mental well-being. Be empathetic.
Think about how gathering spaces can be modified. You and everyone else used video conferencing to gather recently. It has become more natural and some feel more exhausting. A lot of people will be virtual, while others physically present in the office. Largest changes in physical meeting spaces is less people around the table; technology more intuitive; less wasted time getting into the meeting purpose. A room appointed for 8 should now be 4. A room for 4-6 should be 2. You get the idea.
Take the opportunity to use your agility to a kinder and inclusive environment.
Transitions
Life will continue to be messy...re-entry to your physical office may be hard. Coming back into the office, let’s reframe - moving forward into the office will have a wheel of emotions. Life as we knew it, is behind us and everyone else in the world. Life as we will know it - is not yet revealed. You and your colleagues will experience transitions. Transitions are not linear; there is no set time involved. Everyone’s experience will be different. It is important to acknowledge this, be compassionate with each other. Out of this will come meaning...and what is next for work space.
Change begins with an ending. There is a loss; letting go is unsettling. Physicality was dissolved between us. Connection was on the grid for weeks and weeks not knowing when there may be an ending. Now is the time to reconnect + dialogue what just happened. You may be experiencing some quick-fix ideas - think about what else can change. Honor the space as it was. As days go by, reflect with a new lens of how space can exist for a better for and connected community.
As you move forward - space as it is, doesn’t accommodate our new world. What are the safety precautions, how far apart shall we sit, do we need to be here every day. You are entering a neutral zone of transitions. Although, we wish it all to be crystal clear, it is not. What needs to change comes with time. Questions arise of where do we belong with discovering new ways we work, from sheltered places. Be empathetic. Changes are now possible that may not have been possible before. It is a time to think of possibilities!
How can space reunite the community, and accommodate safety. What new spaces may need to be designed for the new ways of work that everyone just experienced? Is there something that can be given back to offset the take-away?
This is a new beginning. Signs of re-orientation can be seen. New growth. Acknowledge all.
Space Thinking
Thinking about space with colleagues may be daunting at first. Ponder this: creating space is like making a beautiful cake. Deconstruct the cake: the layers of the cake, the filling that connects layers, the frosting that wraps the whole cake, and the decoration that represents the celebration purpose. The best cake ingredients add to the overall taste and beauty - craving the next bite.
Space deconstructed: layers of activities, fillings connecting activities, frosting wraps all of the activities and paths so you can get things done everyday; and decoration expresses the purpose of the organization. The best ingredients for space are diversity, security, resiliency, authenticity and stimulation folded in!
When people experience imagining space together, the impact is greater when their creations come together in the new environment