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Page 24 — Office Properties Quarterly — December 2016
I t’s pretty easy to “mil-
lennialize” the office,
at least when it comes
to design concept. Why
wouldn’t it be? Millen-
nials are the most studied
and observed age group in
American history. Besides,
designers “ize” spaces for
myriad office cultures and
specialized industries every
day. That’s the essence of the
profession, after all. A com-
pany’s office design should
represent the culture and
drive the brand. Right?
Theoretically, yes. But the
budget also drives the brand
and drives it hard. Quite
often, the bottom line super-
sedes design intent, and the
challenge becomes not what
the client wants, but what
the client can afford. No
news flash there.
So for those clients who
don’t have the luxury of
huge tenant-improvement
dollars, any type of “izing”
can be a challenge. But there
are ways to adapt a smaller
budget to new space or
existing space.
• Yet another word about
the open-plan office. All mat-
ter of publications from the
nation’s preeminent daily
newspapers to the design
industry’s most esoteric
trade journals are still stuck
on the notion that millenni-
als thrive in a purely open-
plan office.
Not so. The “boundary-
less” workplace is as disrup-
tive to millennials as it is
to any other group. Indeed,
studies show that millen-
nials will use earbuds, seek
refuge in quiet areas of the
office and even leave the
space altogether to fend off
the relentless chatter of co-
workers. In fact, The Journal
of Environment Psychology
points to several recent stud-
ies that claim as much as 40
percent of
employees
in open
office envi-
ronments
– including
millennials
– clamor
for more
privacy,
are less
focused
on their
primary
work and
show higher levels of stress.
Clearly, even millennials
want barriers and boundar-
ies that offer alternatives
to the vastness of the office
without walls.
The answer, not surpris-
ingly, is a balanced office
that provides wide-open
workspaces with key
areas of collaboration and
enclosed quiet zones for
individual work, one-on-one
meetings and simple decom-
pression. The challenge is
getting there when money is
most certainly an object.
Starting from scratch with
bare space and a nearly
unlimited design budget is
surely the way to go when
planning a millennial-style
office. Of course, for the
vast majority of businesses,
this just isn’t going to hap-
pen. What of the small
firm with a modest tenant-
finish allowance relocating
to a new building? Or how
about the company that’s
ensconced in an existing
space, midlease, with an
influx of new employees,
all millennials? There are
options for this majority
that don’t require grandiose
design plans and the bud-
gets that go with them.
• Open design is flexible
design. Open-plan spaces
can take on any number of
characteristics but, in gen-
eral, the most coveted seem
to consist of 12-foot ceilings
(or higher), exposed duct-
work, perimeter windows,
if available, very low or no
walls, and concrete slab or
other hard-surface flooring.
It costs approximately $20
per square foot to convert
a 10,000-sf office suite with
standard grid into what
most of us would term an
open-plan space. For ten-
ants seeking space in a new
building or in an existing
building with a landlord
willing to rip out the stan-
dard office grid, even a por-
tion of open-plan design
can suffice very nicely at a
fraction of the cost of open-
ing up – or building out – the
entire suite.
Limiting the amount of
open square footage with-
out a suspended ceiling
grid certainly will minimize
noise from the suite’s heat-
ing, ventilating and air-con-
ditioning system and other
sources while providing
aesthetic appeal from var-
ied ceiling heights. Adding
accent and indirect lighting
in a limited open-plan space
can boost design appeal
significantly while saving
money on the overall infra-
structure budget.
A human resources online
magazine recently noted in
a piece about millennial-
izing the office that a “spare
conference room” could
be used as a “war room”
or other gathering area in
which to bounce around
creative ideas. Spare confer-
ence room – who has those?
It’s a nice notion, but that
kind of square footage is just
too valuable to cast off as
“spare.”
A more likely scenario
could involve the demolition
Abbey Lyon
Senior project
manager, Kieding,
Denver
Design
Ron Johnson
The design of this millennial-style Denver office space couples a small sit-down kitchen area with an
expansive and colorful multiuse break room, including vending machines, flat screen, soft seating and bike
rack.
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