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There can be no doubt that the office landscape has changed immeasurably in the past few years. The advent of hybrid work and increasingly dispersed teams has led to many companies questioning the role of ‘the office’. For many of us, the office is now somewhere where we only spend part of our time, and this has enabled some employers to reduce the amount of space that they devote to banks of desks. However, what employers don’t want to lose, is the face-to-face interaction and collaboration that takes place in the office. Creating an inviting space that facilitates this happening is essential to building a strong company culture and maintaining a sense of ‘team’.

Smarter ways to use time and space

If workers are spending less time in the office, it makes sense to extract maximum value out of that time (rather than just sitting at a desk). If fewer desks are required on a day to- day basis, there is more opportunity to create stand-out spaces that teams can use for collaboration. Vantage helped Red Consultancy do just this when they reconfigured their space. Red Consultancy took the opportunity to really think about what activities they wanted to take place, and created beautiful spaces for these to happen – cosy nooks with lush planting for colleague catchups, hospitality-inspired coffee areas, and separate areas screened with planting where more focused work can take place.

Creating an office experience that delivers unique value

Leaders all agree that regular in-person interaction is essential to sustain strong cultural cohesion, but it’s unlikely that mandating presence in the office is going to achieve the underlying objective. Travelling into the office requires additional effort and expense, so it’s important to make being in the office an attractive prospect. The best coffee and comfy chairs used to be the preserve of the client area in many workplaces, but employers are turning this on its head to offer employees enhanced spaces in which to work. We helped legal firm Ward Hadaway invest in their workforce in this way by providing a biophilic design that stretched beyond their client area, making it less ‘back office’ and more ‘heart of the office’.

Indoor gardens create exceptional collaboration space

Collaboration space requires a different sort of energy to the usual space – it needs to provide a step change from the humdrum, to relax yet stimulate, to connect people and inspire productivity and creativity. Plants and planted furniture are a great way of creating such areas. Spaces with a distinctly greater presence of plants can give the feel of a real living retreat from the everyday work zones. Being close to nature and living plants has been proven to stimulate higher levels of creativity and positivity, paving the way for better outcomes from collaborative sessions. Biophilic design can be further enhanced with additional sensory experiences such as special lighting and background nature sound, white noise, or soft music, creating a truly contrasting zone. Coming in to work with others in a space like this can provide a very real contrast to days working alone at home.

There are some activities that are best undertaken (and some would say can only take place) in the office:

– Organic peer-to-peer learning, simply by observing others
– Collaborative activities and meetings
– Spontaneous interaction and relationship building

Evolving needs require flexible design

Flexibility is obviously an important consideration in any modern workspace – to extract maximum value out of a space it needs to be able to meet changing team practices. This means being able to adjust elements in a space so that they always support the most rewarding human interaction. A space may need to be adapted as a business grows, but it also needs to be able to perform multiple functions on a daily basis. Plants and planted furniture can be used to create movable partitioning and screening, combining flexibility with the powerful wellbeing and stimulation benefits of just being among living plants.

For instance, on a day-to-day basis, larger spaces can be broken up into different ‘rooms’ with planted furniture such as ParaVert modular planted screens and EnviroZone planters on castors, which lend themselves beautifully to adaptable zoning. When a larger space is required for entertaining or team building activities, Paravert and EnviroZone can easily be moved into another position where they simply become beautiful planting displays, enhancing the larger space.

Solo space is still important

It’s important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, however! Collaboration space is important, but it’s impossible to spend all day, every day, collaborating – areas for productive, peaceful work will always be required. The absence of a private space to retreat to could cause some to regret the choice to commute in. The opportunity for privacy is still a major driver for many, and providing a choice of different work environments for different situations and diverse working styles is very much the direction that many progressive employers are taking. Booths and pods are great options, but these needn’t be the spartan rabbit hutches of old – planting can create a solo space that feels like a calming nook within nature. Judiciously placed planting in desk areas can provide subtle privacy and help to drown out sound, yet foster a sense of still being connected to the buzz of the office. Smaller solo spaces can even be created with plants. Vantage Space’s modular planted furniture has been designed so that it can literally form ceilings and walls – creating a private nature nook.

Hybrid working needn’t be the death knell of the office; it is an opportunity to turn it into a harder-working, multi-functional space where meaningful activities take place. Well-designed spaces enhanced with planting and other sensory stimuli can create the opportunity to make coming into the office a positive, rewarding experience, and lead to more cohesive, collaborative and creative teams.

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If you’d like to know more about creating this sort of experience with planting, get in touch and we can show you what we have already done for others!