Office Properties

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Page 20 — Office Properties Quarterly — July 2015
Design
I t’s likely that your home kitchen
is located somewhere near the
back or middle of the ground
floor.Whether it’s a tiny, crowded
galley style or a sprawling restau-
rant-grade area with sparkling equip-
ment and furnishings, the kitchen usu-
ally finds itself hidden from the main
entrance to the house.The same gen-
erally is true for office kitchens.That’s
because kitchens and break areas are,
at their core, utilitarian.
That’s subjective, of course, given the
state of flux in today’s office with open
plans continuously pushing the design
envelope. But in a practical sense, when
food, beverages and people share the
same space for any significant length
of time, there will be things left behind
that typically cannot be tolerated in the
parts of the office where serious busi-
ness is done.
On the other hand, kitchens and
break areas are being reshaped and
recast as quickly as the offices in which
they’re located. In essence, that means
rules are rewritten on the fly, if they’re
written at all. It’s not that the concept
of larger, multipurpose break areas is a
new idea. It’s that open-minded com-
panies and their architects are finding
double and triple duty for those spaces
while shattering traditional boundaries
in design and real estate.
Consider the home kitchen. Even
those of modest size often are the
heart of the home, the primary family
gathering place for meals, meetings
and all types of daily, ad hoc activities.
The office kitchen and break areas are
taking on that same identity with some
interesting twists.
One striking trend is the fishbowl
break area. Located at the front of the
suite and usually enclosed by at least
one glass wall, this option can vary
in size and level of
finish, but is visible
from tenant com-
mon areas or even
the building lobby.
Some are designed
to be a hybrid recep-
tion area without a
receptionist.Visitors
quite literally step
into the break
area at the front of
the suite and are
greeted by whom-
ever happens to be
eating, standing, working – or walking
by.That may seem both ill planned
and unprofessional, and it probably
is by traditional standards. But the
open-plan culture in its evolving form
is anything but traditional.That is,
employees who embrace a specific
type of work culture will request that
it spill over into their break spaces.
Glass walls and natural light are perks,
even if that means greeting guests and
being eyeballed by passersby.
From an employer’s point of view,
keeping staff in the office for an entire
workday is a victory in and of itself.
During break times – which essentially
are all day – a 60-square-foot galley-
style walk-through isn’t going to cut it.
But an 800-sf break space with sofas,
bench seating, stand-up cocktail tables,
flat screens, healthy food choices and
prep areas, and an endless selection
of coffee and tea, probably will do the
trick.While this new generation of
break areas might not be appointed so
generously, many do offer more than
enough to allow employees to stay put
without feeling the pinch of a lunch
hour. And keeping them in the office
and productive can offset the high cost
of furniture and equipment and even
the higher cost of real estate.
Design styles for these spaces run
the gamut. Open ceilings, concrete
floors and bright colors appeal to a
wide element, but not all.There is
no prototypical model. A Los Ange-
les Times article last year featured a
major downtown law firm that fused a
break area with a library, dubbing it the
“loungebrary.” Clever. And extremely
effective, according to its attorneys.
Obviously, a professional services firm
does not fit the mold of the open ple-
num and foosball table culture. But an
upscale kitchen and break space ful-
fills the same need for a multipurpose
gathering area that appeals to employ-
ees, managers and guests.
The common thread here, of course,
is the millennial.We all know who
they are and how their share of the
American employment base is affect-
ing interior design and the real estate
that supports it. Millennials profoundly
shape recruitment and retention
tactics and, by extension, facilities.
Although they are not cut from exactly
the same cloth, millennials do share
the need for workspaces that empha-
size mobility, flexibility and collabo-
ration. Break areas that blur the line
between work and leisure will con-
tinue to be sought after as a must-have
for most millennials.
There certainly are questions to
consider, such as how to keep a large,
wide-open break area perpetually
clean, and who’s responsible for that?
Also, there are potential concerns
regarding food odors and noise abate-
ment. And how about a landlord who
isn’t crazy about the look of the fish-
bowl now that it’s been showcased
off the building lobby?These are but a
handful of valid and documented con-
cerns. But if business owners and their
managers are backing off the emerg-
ing concept of the punched-up break
space, they certainly aren’t saying so.
Neither are their employees.s
Tia Jenkins
President/architect,
Kieding, Denver
Photo courtesy Ron Johnson
A Denver marketing firm dropped the reception concept altogether.