Beyond the Cubicle

Area employers are focusing on office design as a tool to improve productivity and to foster creative thinking.

By Mike May

Bulldozers and hard hats are workaday props at any construction site, but they seem downright Daliesque on the 13th floor of the old Gimbels department store.

Showing off the transformation-in-progress at last fall's "groundbreaking," Jeremy Kronman, a senior member of the brokerage group at Oxford Realty Services, the leasing agent, was singing the downtown landmark's structural praises - such as its Atlas-like ability to hold bulldozers on upper floors.

After the store closed in 1986, several lower floors were converted into retail space, and some office space was rented out, but most of the upper floors, with their acre of space each, basically defied development.

Now, big floor plates are hot, says William Kolano of Kolano Design, which is marketing the building for its new owners, a local investment group. "What was its biggest drawback is now its most important feature," he says.

In fact, Kolano cites a letter for United Health Group, which moved into its new digs in the renamed Gimbels Landmark building in February, acting on its decision to stay in Pittsburgh and expand.

Why? Changing ideas about how businesses operate and how employees work. A floor in Gimbels offers flexible use of space and an ability to expand or contract, activity that some of the tall, narrow skyscrapers of old do not always allow.

A trend toward this type of space design is reflected nationally and regionally, from century-old institutions like Alcoa to spunky cyber-age start-ups like BodyMedia. The workplace is being rethought and reinvented in many ways.

Back in the days of the man in the gray flannel suit and the 9-5 world, no one had heard of office feng shui (see Pittsburgh Prospects, April/May 1999), hoteling (see Pittsburgh Prospects, June/July 1998), ergonomics and similar ideas. Few considered as plusses such things as fresh air and natural light - another advantage at Gimbels, thanks to the big old windows and a new sky-lit octagon-shaped atrium sunk into the middle of the upper floors. The attitude toward employees was akin to the galley slaves in Ben Hur: "We keep you alive to serve this ship. So row well and live."

Thanks to the comic strip "Dilbert," dehumanizing work philosophies and design have been mocked. "'Dilbert' drives home a good point," says Anton Germishuizen, a principal at the local architectural firm of Burt Hill Kosar Rittelmann Associates, which did the Gimbels makeover.

A transplant from South Africa who designed the new Blattner Brunner offices, Germishuizen shudders when he recalls a building he saw with a "dismal sea of cubicles." So vast was this sea, he says, that coordinates - like B-18 - were placed on columns to help guide workers to their cells.

The open office of the '00s needn't be like that, he reasons, noting that his own firm has opted for an open plan at its Smithfield Street headquarters - despite some trepidation from senior staff who had been waiting all their careers for a private office.

Of course, there shouldn't be a cookie-cutter approach to design. Form follows function, and not every office - the Heinz Family Philanthropies, for one - lends itself to the open plan. But in a country that gave rise to the Shakers and Harmonists, the communal has not lost its vibrancy, and the wide open spaces where that variety of work environment can be created are a strong attraction.

As Kronman notes, "Look at Alcoa." OK, so let's look at Alcoa, and some other places around town where the work environment is being reinvented.

Alcoa:

'S' spells seismic

A huge paradigm shift in attitudes about how we work occurred in August 1998, when Alcoa moved from its old 31-story skyscraper on Mellon Square to the new six-story glass and aluminum shore-sprawler on the North Side.

But the shimmering S-shaped corporate headquarters is much more than just a skyscraper flopped on its side. Changes inside the $67 million building are even more seismic.

Seated at a simple 9-by-9-foot work station like hundreds of other Alcoans is Paul O'Neill, the CEO. At one time, an architect even suggesting that the king be denied a throne room would have been dismissed on charges of lese-majeste. But as architect Martin Powell of the Pittsburgh-based Design Alliance says, the idea was O'Neill's, perhaps the most symbolic evidence of a corporate goal to have Alcoa be "driven by function and need, rather than status and hierarchy."

That dovetailed with another goal to encourage "cross-functional collaboration, communication and spontaneous contact," which would, in turn, support "organizational and process effectiveness and responsiveness."

Alcoans, explains Powell (whose own firm relies on an open plan), need to be "flexible, dynamic and team-oriented," and the award-winning new building was conceived to "encourage speed and collective, collaborative decision-making [the kind] that happens on a soccer or rugby field."

Powell describes client O'Neill as "unique." "He clearly understands that architecture shapes behavior." However, before the die was cast, O'Neill set up an open-office pilot project for a year in the old building, using himself and other execs as guinea pigs.

"Everyone [employees from all levels] got to participate at some level in development of the building," Powell notes. The democratic process translated into the finished product, in which employees on each football-field-long floor, where they helped decide the placement and configuration of the work stations, share in the natural light from the 11-foot-high windows, specially treated to reduce glare.

No one is more than 45 feet from a window - and the views of the downtown skyline - and each station offers adjustable fresh-air outlets.

Naturally the "p" word arises. That's addressed by privacy suites, where a worker may take a private call, or a project needing special focus can receive unhampered concentration. An electronic "sound-blocking" system also helps keep employees' conversations from being overheard.

Powell admits there's no cookie-cutter approach to office design, noting that what's good for Alcoa might not work everywhere - a "closed plan," he explains, might be the best design for faculty offices at a college, for instance.

Another goal in the design was to encourage "cross-functional collaboration, communication and spontaneous contact," and Powell says escalators - a rarity in corporate headquarters - are one way to achieve this.

Although escalators are a luxury in terms of space usage, Powell points out that this is not a "real-estate-driven" building. "They are the most literal connection between people and architecture. You can look around and talk...see people, exchange ideas."

None of this would have been possible at the old Sixth Avenue headquarters, hailed by Architectural Forum as "America's most daring experiment in modern office building" when it arose in the early 1950s.

Today's innovations include hundreds of plug-in connectors for laptops, allowing work to occur in myriad locations - like the kitchens on each floor that can double as conference rooms. Other employee-centered amenities include a cafeteria, a riverside terrace for dining, a restaurant and newsstand open to the public, and an underground parking garage for employees.

Happy? Powell says the reviews have been positive: from old Alcoans, new hires and visitors.

Work Study

Margaret, Is That You?

Margaret Morrison Carnegie is wearing a funky new hat these days. Look up at the pretty buff-brick landmark building at Carnegie Mellon University, and you can't help notice a rather startling chapeau of glass and recycled aluminum on top. It's sort of like seeing "Whistler's Mother" with a Walkman.

This $4 million skylab - officially the Robert L. Preger Intelligent Workplace (Preger is a CMU alum and benefactor) - provides a visual lesson in how yesterday's building can conform to 21st century needs.

More concretely, it serves as a research, development and demonstration project with a mission "to advance physical improvements that affect the health, motivation and productivity" of more than 50 million members of the office workforce in America.

This "living laboratory" doubles as office space for a multidisciplinary CMU team headed by Dr. Volker Hartkopf, director of the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, the division of the CMU Architecture School that works in the facility.

"We're our own guinea pigs," Hartkopf says. The team addresses four office-related research goals: health and well-being of occupants, technological adaptability, organizational flexibility, and energy and environmental effectiveness.

For example, one project focused on the very low speed continuing replacement of air. If put into place, this would allow for an efficient system to supply moving, fresh air to workers in some open-office plans.

Since its opening in 1998, the IW has drawn about 1,000 visitors per year from all over the globe, even China. Hartkopf says that the IW has recently expanded beyond the CMU campus, setting up an adaptable workplace laboratory at the behest of the federal government at the General Services Administration in Washington, D.C.

Hartkopf speaks proudly of the honors the IW received in 1999: The highest award bestowed by the American Institute of Architects and the Business Week/ Architectural Record Award, shared with nine other honorees, including the new Alcoa Corporate Center.

Quoting from the latter award, Hartkopf emphasizes: "Good design is good business."

- by Mike May

Do's and Don'ts

Design for Success

People need to feel comfortable in order to be productive. Simple concept, right? Comfort and production can mesh when offices are designed to place employees both physically and mentally at ease.

Ed Shriver of Cuteri Architectural Group offers some advice in creating a modern office: "The first rule is: There are no cookie-cutter rules," Shriver says. Businesses should avoid conforming to traditional corporate standards, and instead design an office that is functional and represents the character of the business. For example, an advertising agency would be designed differently from an accounting firm. "

Work spaces should be designed for teams or groups rather than for individuals. This approach allows for a sense of community (and may reduce the amount of square feet needed per person). "

Windows are a real bonus, so definitely maximize the number of employees with access to daylight. Who wouldn't want natural light and natural ventilation (except for film developers, maybe)? Cracking open a window on a pretty spring day just might breathe some life into any business."

There really is no rule of thumb when it comes to color schemes. Shriver has only one recommendation: contrasts.

"The beige-on-beige varieties found in many offices are really boring," he says." Really try to design an office that minimizes physical discomfort for all employees.

Items such as a comfortable chair, a no-glare computer screen or a split keyboard might reduce physical stress for a person who spends most of the day in front of the computer." Computers should be placed in areas where reflections from the light will not be a problem.

"Always face a desk toward a door, so that a person's back is to the wall and s/he can see who is entering the room." Install plenty of electrical outlets so that there are a lot of places to plug in equipment.

"Install computer scheduling software so that employees can reserve conference rooms and desk space. This would be especially helpful for companies that use hoteling or job-sharing."

Telephones should be placed opposite a person's writing hand so that writing and talking at the same time is possible. "Look into radio frequency telephone systems (cordless phones) and computer networks that are able to recognize a person's location regardless of where he or she is. Who would have thought? Cordless phones at the office.

- by Amy Camp

Blattner Brunner:

The color of work

Visitors are coming for tours of the new Blattner Brunner Inc. digs on the 16th floor at Four Gateway Center, downtown, which, like Gimbels, is an older building revamped for the '00s.

Tours have been coming through about every 10 days since the company moved here last April, says CEO Joe Blattner, Those whose idea of an advertising agency comes from the 1960s TV comedy "Bewitched," where witch Samantha's husband, Darrin Stephens, slaved for the New York advertising firm. McMann and Tate, need to twitch their nose to 2000 and see the hive of the so-called "Killer B's."

What would a time-traveling Darrin and boss Larry Tate think? "Darrin and Larry would be afraid of it," admits Blattner. Forget that advertising has come light-years in many areas. Plus, as Blattner notes, "productivity and efficiency" are the buzzwords nowadays. Back then, "Lots of time ended up in the trash can," he says.

Gone are the sleek private offices of McMann and Tate days. Blattner's and president Michael Brunner's work spaces are defined by the same 41/2-foot-high dividers that define all the space here, which includes not only the advertising agency but also a public-relations division and a newly acquired e-commerce component, Lighthouse Interactive.

"I can promise everyone 365 sunny days a year," boasts Blattner, who uses "virtual office" to describe the estimated $1.3 million space. "It's a pleasant, sunny environment to think in and to shine in." Special eye-friendly up-lighting augments the natural light streaming in from windows, providing a mutually shared view of downtown.

Blattner invites visitors to try out the ergonomically advanced Herman Miller Aeron chair, a high-ticket item, but one Blattner believes reflects corporate concerns for employee health, comfort and productivity. He wants his staff to "do work in an integrated fashion in as unencumbered form as possible."

Like Alcoa, Blattner Brunner has shifted to wide-open spaces and a sense that the whole office is a community. Like a traditional community, the office centers on Town Square, an area whose central focus is a coffee bar, with polished stools and comfy-funky armchairs, near a row of meeting rooms "that belong to everybody," Blattner notes.

Like other businesses opting for openness, Blattner identifies a goal of "integrating leadership with the organization," summarizing the boss/worker bee paradigm shift: "Now it's all 'we,' not 'they.'"

Rotating around Town Square are six-packs and four-packs: work clusters revolving around a "main street." Work can happen just about anywhere, thanks to an abundance of data ports where computers and other electronic gizmos can be "punched down throughout the entirety of space," thanks to an advanced local area network on the company's computer system. The ports also can be found in the four "privacy rooms," available for individualized work or personal business.

In the open space, overheard conversations and other audial distractions have been addressed through a "white noise" system and sound-sensitive flooring made from recycled tires. "I thought it would be a lot noisier," admits graphic designer Beth Pedone, whose casual attire, like that of most of the employees' (including both Blattner's and Brunner's) would have been unthinkable in McMann and Tate days.

"I'm not big on rules," says Blattner. "Surround yourself with good people and let them do their jobs." As Blattner sees it, salaries are the company's biggest investment, and to "take care of people, cater to the individual" makes good business sense. A bewitching idea.

Heinz Family Philanthropies:

Up on the roof

Maybe this was what the Drifters were talking about in that song. Right smack dab in the middle of downtown is the CNG Tower, a handsome Kohn Pedersen Fox skyscraper that epitomizes the 1980s. Blake Carrington would be right at home in the glitzy, marbled lobby. But don't expect to find Alexis Colby in the penthouse; Rachel Carson, though, wouldn't be out of place.

Stepping into the Heinz Family Philanthropies/Heinz Family Office on the 32nd floor is like entering, well, another world: a light-infused, plant-filled Shangri-La for philanthropy. When chairman Teresa Heinz selected it in the mid-1990s, the space was basically a blank slate. For its (cost undisclosed) transformation, she chose William McDonough + Partners of New York (relocated to Charlottesville when McDonough became dean of the University of Virginia School of Architecture). According to McDonough, Heinz was impressed with the firm's concept for the Environmental Defense Fund office in Manhattan. Completed in the early 1980s, it was the first example in New York of "green architecture," an ecologically sensitive approach to building and design - one favored by Heinz, McDonough says.

For example, the wood selected in the office for trim as well as furniture has been harvested using methods of sustainable forestry, an ecologically friendly philosophy espousing use of lesser-known species of trees, like vitex from New Guinea, that has been sensitively harvested. As McDonough explains, "We ask the forests what they want to give us, rather than tell them what we want."

Construction materials, paints and adhesives were chosen for their low toxicity. As McDonough explains, Heinz is not only concerned about the health of her employees but also for the people who have to work with these materials - like the painters. Fresh air is another amenity: Not only does the office have a system for bringing it inside, but also employees have windows that open. McDonough dismisses the myth that skyscrapers cannot have operable windows because of air currents.

Employees work from offices that resemble "little houses" with skylights for ceilings and doors that open onto halls that seem like streets. As McDonough says, "It takes a village...." And this village includes outdoor terraces for al fresco lunch hours or just relaxing.

McDonough, who opts for a private office himself, does not put down the open-space office idea, explaining that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to architecture. At the Heinz offices, with its 14 employees, he believes the private office functions well for "people doing particularly sensitive tasks - contemplative, intellectually challenging things."

When designing an office, McDonough emphasizes that the question must be asked: "Why are we making the office?" Like Teresa Heinz, he says the answer must involve "sustaining our people." From that can come an increase in productivity and "delight," a term McDonough favors. He envisions workers that can think: "Thank God it's Monday." And, despite all the amenities here, if this old world starts getting you down, there's also an exercise room, sauna and showers.

BodyMedia:

Wave of the future

An innocent question about where BodyMedia had been located before the House Building draws a laugh from Jill Larkin before answering: "In their kitchens."

The executive manager of BodyMedia was being serious. Like many startups in this cyber age, these are the new kids on the block: The 12 employees are in their 20s and early 30s. Unlike Alcoa, they have no corporate history to draw from. They're making it up as they go - and quickly.

Although the company has been around only one year, the name has already changed. A sandbox - on wheels - greets visitors and attests to BodyMedia's previous incarnation: Sandbox Advanced Development.

Much is on wheels here: from chairs to walls, which double as pin-up boards. Attached are hundreds of cut-outs of bodies from magazines, echoing the company's new name and its business in health and wellness, website development and wearable health-monitoring products.

Of all the places featured, this is the most fluid, the most democratic. A ping-pong table (with two guys enjoying a game) sits not far from the the CEO, Astro Teller, one of the founders, who has a Ph.D in artificial intelligence from CMU.

Larkin notes the absence of "boundaries," allowing for "flexibility" and "interaction." Almost everything can be reconfigured at a moment's notice.

The creator of this $100,000 techy space atop a conservative Edwardian building, with two playful dolphins sculpted above the Smithfield Street entrance, is Gerard Damiani, a young architect whose 3-year-old South Side-based firm, Studio d'Arc, has its headquarters in his residence.

His theme embraces both "crude" and "crisp." Heating ducts, plumbing, exposed ceilings and beams contrast with sleek walls, floors and furniture, whose "shape grammars" allow for flexibility in usage and arrangement.

An abundance of natural light is supplied from windows that open to provide fresh air and offer an assortment of city views. Other than an antique nuclear-imaging device, circa 1970, the only other noticeable artistic elements are the canvas sails, airily draped from the ceilings.

But even these have a functional side: to act as lighting baffles for continuous perimeter uplighting. For this space - as in other workplaces highlighted - the architectural adage form follows function holds true. However, there is an added emphasis on the "fun" in function.

In the Information Age, the workplace is changing to foster creativity and intellectual teamwork - two traits that will become increasingly important if the region's companies are going to be able to compete - both in terms of productivity and in terms of attracting and retaining employees who will grow business.

Blattner talks of taking down the "walls of hierarchy," adding, "There are lots of good-looking offices that are useless." What passes for "decor" might be considered virtual, too: "Work is the color here," Blattner says.

Associate editor Mike May, who has written about feng shui and hoteling for Pittsburgh Prospects, would like to add windows and fresh air to his office. Amy Camp is a former Pittsburgh magazine intern now studying at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs.