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People
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 The concepts of “access” and “inclusive design” have become doctrine in the industry. Pauline Hadaway, director of Belfast Exposed Photography gallery, and Geoff McCormick, product designer for design consultancy Alloy, present public and private perspectives on these thorny terms, moderated by Michael Willoughby
Pauline Hadaway: What I would like to talk about is the way that the public sector now demands as much access as possible and starts from the presumption that we are trying to exclude people.
Geoff McCormick: For me, as a product designer, I actually think inclusive design hasn’t gone far enough. I think the principle is a very good and strong one, but it’s just terribly misinterpreted by many people.
PH: Coming from a different background, my impression is that inclusive design has to do with functionality and what the purpose of a thing, activity or object is. Because our organisation has
an outreach programme, I’ve seen the foregrounding of access. This is fine when it’s separated from everything else. But we’re not allowed to just design the best programme we can on our terms and then go to the “access people” and say: “Right, get that out to the public, get as many people in as you can”.
GM: ... Make sure that anybody who wants to come
in can come in.
PH: What is happening as part of a deliberate policy – and much of our resources comes from public funding – is a demand to integrate into our
programming the ambition of accessibility. What they’re actually saying
is, “Will you design your programming with as wide a group of people as possible?” and not, “Will you design in terms of what is important in terms
of your artistic direction?”.
GM: Art and design are different. Art is about self-expression and is about the artist’s take on the world. We designers have to create something around a particular brief. That’s still an expression, but it’s on behalf of someone else and, in our business, usually with a commercial imperative. But regulators shouldn’t determine the type of content. How can the government or regulatory body influence what you show and what’s their reasoning behind that?
PH: They no longer say, “Fine, you get on with it,” but they want an integrated programme that is not just good quality, but that is also of interest to a group of people that they designate, be it “early years”, “young people” or “disabled people” or whatever is the target for that year. If we want to get 100% of our funding, we are expected to put together programming that will include these segments in a commercial way.
GM: As a product design agency, we create artefacts for people to use
– things like the touch, feel or form factor – and inclusive design has been a big element of our business for quite a while now. This is where I think it’s been misinterpreted, because inclusive design is not just designing for the elderly or disabled. I think this is the worst way of looking at it. It’s designing for the widest possible audience. On the other hand, inclusive design as a trend only has to get bigger. The ageing population of the UK means you have to consider this new group who are quite young in their minds but are ageing physically. It’s something that we are going to hang our hat on quite strongly for the next ten years because we think it’s going to be a big thing.
PH: I think in the public sector you are much more vulnerable. In the private sector, a lot of the ideas about good design are to do with function. That’s unassailable. You know people want something because they go out, buy and use it. You can establish a connection between good design and value. It’s probably less easy to measure the value of a painting or a programme.
GM: It’s subjective!
PH: So what is the “design for all” concept? Does it apply to everything?
GM: Everything that we design has to have an aesthetic consideration which comes from understanding the lifestyles, concerns, worries and needs of a particular niche. And although you are a public body, you need to generate some form of money, and that’s the problem. I mean what are you actually
on this planet for? That is tied into where you get your money. That’s where
you have a tricky path to tread.
PH: I think the gallery’s purpose is to provide a public space for private use
and contemplation. It sounds grand. But in a city where there is not much
quiet space for people to go and look at things and think and be left in peace, the public gallery serves a valuable purpose. Trying to design for every eventuality misses out what people bring to a situation. It’s a failure
of imagination, in a way. If you want to have total design, you are saying,
“nothing else can happen”. Museums are a nightmare now because everything
is predetermined.
GM: Yes, the voyage of discovery is important. The audio commentaries make you passive. A space where there are no accepted norms can be quite comforting or quite scary: “There’s no path, just have a look.”
Moderator: What about the death of the Routemaster double-decker bus in 2005 and the rise of the bendy bus design disaster?
GM: Well, first of all, they were hard to get pushchairs in, so I always ended up taking a taxi. But I think the bendy bus is a relatively good idea because it accommodates more people per square foot.
PH: But why is it that we hung on to the design of the Routemaster for so long? And how come what’s replaced it all these years later is so obviously inferior? Why, when we are so aware now, are things not getting better?
GM: I think it’s a dilution of purpose. There’s a complexity in terms of engineering. But because you are including design principles that have to appeal to a broader section of the community, you are going to have some dilution of purpose. The answer is that nothing is as simple as it used to be. That’s not necessarily a good thing. That’s just the way things are.
PH: Is there a sense that there has to be a compromise between functionality and access and if you go all out for access or the greatest number of people you may have to compromise on the functionality of the object?
GM: Quite simply, yes. But in terms of the gallery and of access, I honestly don’t see the harm in having a gallery as a place to go – not just to look at art. I think that provides greater meaning. That would be my ideal situation.
PH: Going back to the Routemaster – it was popular because you used
to be able to jump on and off it. You had freedom.
Moderator: You used to feel so alive. You’d think:
“Here I am taking a controlled risk. Wow!”
GM: Well, you are fit, active and male. That’s maybe seven percent of the population. So that’s good for you. I mean a lot of the rest of the population would do it, too.
Moderator: More than seven percent of the population jumped on and off Routemaster buses!
PH: I think even I could manage it. But isn’t there a connection between accessibility and social progress? These buses were designed to produce cheap transport for the masses. Why didn’t anyone think of adapting the Routemaster?
GM: Well, we’ve moved on. In Japan inclusive design
is much more popular because they have more elderly people and more respect for them. The have tools that are designed so you don’t have to apply brute force to them. B&Q do a range of them. They are lighter and they perform their function better than they did before. They support inclusive design principles but they are not designed for old people. It just so happens that since they are easy to use, then older people will buy them.
PH: That makes a great deal of sense to me.
Firstly, the product will be commercially successful. The problems seem to arise more in the public sector, which often “creates” the publics the policy makers want. Progress is not being driven by the real users but by the people who set themselves as representatives of the public.
GM: They try to give themselves goals so that they can then be judged against a determined set of criteria – for instance, more young people, but there is no commercial benefit apart from their
pay rise next year.
PH: In that case, the purpose of art – that it has its own purpose – is not valued. It becomes a tool for something else – for cohering society, for example – so if you’ve got young people drinking on street corners, if we could only get that lot in, we would be fulfilling a target.
GM: It seems that policy makers are not speaking to your users and they haven’t tried to speak to them.
PH: We know very well what we need to do and would just like to get on with it. |
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Feng Shui for the Workplace |
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People
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 Someone could stand to benefit from a bit of office feng shui.
It just might not be you, however, finds Indigo Clarke
By Indigo Clarke
Translated as “wind and water”, feng shui is the Chinese “art of placement”, practiced for over 5,000 years. The traditional teaching, once reserved for China’s emperors, is primarily concerned with the flow and quality of the energy, or chi, occupying a space. Chi is believed to be composed of dual opposing forces known as yin and yang – yang energy being light and active, while yin is dark and passive. Feng shui consultants attempt to balance these opposing forces through the placement of doors, furniture and objects, as well as in the analysis of birth dates, to create harmony and wellbeing in a home or office.
Big-name business players such as Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Rupert Murdoch have recently been lured by the potential gains of the ancient art of feng shui in their working environments. Along with a growing number of major corporations including HSBC and Hewlett-Packard, Murdoch’s News Corporation has been employing the Eastern practice as a means of improving business.
While applying the rules of feng shui may well have had positive effects in Murdoch’s new DirecTV El Segundo headquarters (it is of course rather difficult to measure such effects in any meaningful way), it has been to the dismay of the company’s president, Mitchell Stern. Stern had an 11th floor perch overlooking mountain and ocean views – until at the request of Murdoch’s wife Wendy Deng, feng shui masters were brought in to analyse the workspace early this year. At their advice, Stern traded his enviable office for a new space taking in unappealing views over a sewage treatment plant and the company garage – because, as it turns out, the new office is a lucky charm for someone born on Stern’s birthday. We wonder if that had anything to do with Stern quitting his job after just one year ...
DirecTV’s chief financial officer Michael Palkovic was also forced to relocate offices because of the little problem of his adjoining bathroom – seen by the feng shui experts as sucking the company profits down the drain. If passing up a dream workspace for a treatment-plant vista is not very enticing, it might be an idea to ensure luck is on your side before consulting a feng shui expert.
“Feng Shui is a set of rules about how our environment influences our activities and health,” says UK feng shui consultant Thomas Coxon. “In a business context we’re mostly interested in how it can help with turnover, profit and staff motivation. It considers the effects of ‘energy’ – which sounds a bit nebulous until you are aware of some of the basics, such as the more energy entering an office, the more energised and productive the staff will be.” This all sounds rather vague, but Coxon says that there are simple, practical guidelines to promote wellbeing and efficiency in the workplace. “If you lay out the interior of the office with feng shui principles in mind staff are likely to be more productive. Two basic rules are: where possible, have people’s desks face the door (so they face the incoming energy stream), and sharp corners in the room generate small but strong cutting flows of energy and where these strike a person, that person will begin to feel uncomfortable and distracted, weakening their productivity. It’s best to block these corners with a large plant or similar obstruction.”
Internet-based toy company The Millions Group employed Coxon’s services when director Lucy Pole was considering taking a further two floors of an office building to accommodate the business’ rapid expansion. Not only did Coxon advise on the placement of furniture in the office, but looked at Pole’s home environment and how it affected her business. “Thomas saw that the kitchen in my house was actually the ‘money sector’, and every time I was using this cooker I was actually burning money. Thomas strategically placed amethyst crystals around the cooker to offset the burning element, neutralising the energy.” Well, um, quite.
Amethysts and energy aside, Pole firmly believes many of the basic principles of feng shui have helped her financially and personally – she says that after employing Coxon’s advice her business attracted a bigger client base and media attention. We’ll have to take her word for it on that one. |
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People
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 FUTURESCAPES OF WORK A DOCUMENTARY FROM 2012
Interaction designer Anab Jain has created a frank vision of future working practices.
Welcome to Little Brinkland ...
Anab Jain’s Futurescapes of Work project was forumlated at the Helen Hamlyn Research Centre at London’s Royal College of Art, from where she graduated with a Masters in Interaction Design in 2005. She created a design research project to define opportunities for product development responding to the impact of new technologies on the ways we work. As a result Jain created a virtual world called Little Brinkland to demonstrate her vision of work scenarios in 2012. For video footage taken from the project, go to www.onofficemagazine.com.
The original project was a multimedia installation, and on the next few pages we lead you into the sphere of Little Brinkland, introducing the main characters, the newly invented job specifications and last but not least the designer behind this prediction of future working practices. To construct this fictional space, Jain consulted with researchers at the Institute of the Future, Palo Alto and the Future Foundation among other institutions. She identifies three key drivers of change that she believes will influence the way we work:
1 Emerging technologies
2 Ageing population
3 Environmental risks
Based on this forecast, Jain creates virtual personas to show how humans may deal with these effects six years into the future. New job specifications and professions emerge for the inhabitants of Little Brinkland – not entirely unfamiliar jobs, but more like mutations of past careers. Of course there is an element of poetic freedom here – most job titles are a smart play on current trends, and it’s unlikely these specific scenarios will ever materialise. But they provide an insight into Jain’s forward-thinking and analytical approach.
We present the main protagonists in this project overleaf and show how their current work/life situations are projected into the not-so-distant future of 2012:
Alice is a cyber-junkie – described as a coding freak, data-neurotic homeworker who actually lives and works inside her screen.
Andrew is a nomadic city worker – a hacker network king who aims to be an aspiring entrepreneur.
Liz is an experienced worker who is scared of retirement. She has always worked in an enclosed office as a librarian and wants to learn new things to continue working.
The story of Alice is frighteningly familiar. The character is addicted to being/working/living online, and sends a postcard from a so-called “cold zone”, an online retreat. The concept behind this storyline is based on the current movement towards creating wireless buildings and wireless cities. Philip Ross, CEO of Cordless Group, talked recently of the “wireless bubble” at Worktech, a conference focusing on technology in the workplace, and British institutions like the British Library, the BBC and the Guardian all strive towards that model. So with the wireless city on the horizon, Jain uses Alice’s case to draw attention to the fact that people are becoming so dependent on being online that for health, and, more importantly, sanity reasons a necessity will arise for “off” areas and break-out spaces – her so-called cold zones.
The second protagonist, Andrew, is described as a nomadic worker, in reference to Jeremy Myerson’s work-style categories developed in his recent book Space to Work. Nomadic workers are always on the look out for new opportunities and in this case Andrew’s entrepreneurial spirit leads him to found
a pet implant consultancy.
Liz, as a librarian the most traditional worker, takes on new challenges and embraces emerging technology by becoming a databank archivist, in order to fit into technology-dependent work patterns. She knows that if she ignores the future, she will inevitably be unemployed.
Jain has developed a number of such characters, all providing thought-provoking examples of future working scenarios. Colebrook Bosson Saunders was the research partner and sponsored the project. “We are currently discussing how CBS may translate this material into a product, but it is not something I can talk about just yet. I have started working at Microsoft Research for the next six months, while CBS works on a strategy to present this work to the wider community,” says Jain.
“The Little Brinkland project is the closest to the kind of method and style I would like to pursue. Here I am interpreting style as a certain kind of thought process and way of approaching work, not just design skills. I think the project works well at several levels,” she adds.
Jain has already accrued an impressive list of awards, including the UNESCO Digital Arts Award in 2005 and the Grand Prix prize at the Geneva International Film Festival on Human Rights in 2004. Her past design concepts include Sketch-a-move (patent pending), an interactive toy car model, and Yellow Chair Stories, a “live” service design project inviting neighbours and passers-by to use her open wireless network outside her house.
“The Yellow Chair Stories project is close to my heart. I feel more confident doing live social experiments after that. It also gave me valuable insights into the design of services from a people-centred approach. While Sketch-a-move, done in collaboration with Louise Klinker, taught me the significance of experience prototyping,” says Jain.
Jain’s main source of inspiration is people. ”I don’t have favourite designers,” she continues, “but in terms of musing I’d say that filmmakers have inspired my thoughts most, such as Jean Luc Godard, Jacques Tati, Wim Wenders and Iranian Mohsen Makmalbaf. Plus Louis Kahn’s thinking about space and time in architecture and the edgy thinking of studios like Dunne&Raby, Live/Work, Troika, Etoy – all that has something I would look to create in my own practice.”
The inevitability of humans increasingly becoming dependent on technology is a disturbing statement to some. Does Jain feel threatened by her own vision?
“Human dependence on technology doesn’t scare me. But what did were the visions of the future I came across while doing my research. Initially I just read about everything I could find regarding emerging technologies and work – then ended up reading Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity is Near, which promotes the idea of how the human brain will increasingly merge with the computer/machine and so on … that is scary stuff!” So does she see technology as the dominant driving force in product and workplace design?
“I think technology always has and will continue to change the way we work. The flexibility of working anytime, anywhere – the era of the 24/7 economy, the information worker etc have become prevalent because technology has facilitated it. However, I think workplace design has already started looking at the larger picture, and I hope designers and manufacturers will include the issues around aging populations, environment and urban living more closely in their products.”
We’ll see. The urban phenomena in Little Brinkland bear resemblance to London and by the time it’s 2012, the city will be bang slam in the middle of the Olympics. I wonder if my dog will have an implant manipulating his poo to smell like lavender by then? |
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People
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 Kerstin Zumstein discusses stripping out, lighting up and going it alone with workplace designer Linda Morey Smith
By kerstin Zumstein
What is it about Linda Morey Smith? Her company is persistently popping up on the workplace radar. The London-based architecture and design practice, MoreySmith, has done interior fit-outs for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) and EMI headquarters, and just this week Nokia announced it has chosen MoreySmith for its brand-new offices in both London and Helsinki. According to a recent survey by Metropolis Property Research, the company is ranked in the top ten interior architects for the London market, securing a place among the likes of Gensler and DEGW. The many awards aside, ever since doing the EMI headquarters in 2003 MoreySmith has managed to occupy a niche in the market – one of non-corporate, fresh office design. But Linda herself seems to keep a low profile. So we decided to meet her and find out just how she does it.
In 1993, Morey Smith started her own company. Was workplace design her aim from the start? “I didn’t have an aim, to be honest,” she says. “I just needed to escape from where I was.” She had left City-based practice TTSP to work for Andrew Chadwick, “who was lovely as he was,” she continues, “but I just had to move on. So I told a few clients I was doing my own thing and they went: ‘Well, can you do this for us’.” And that was the beginning – at just 30 years old and with a team that consisted of herself, her PA and a student.
Capital Radio was MoreySmith’s first project, in 1996, and Sony Music soon followed. While still at Chadwick, she was beaten by architect Harper Mackay in a competition to fit out Sony’s London office. The company saw her as the strongest link at Chadwick and believed she wouldn’t be around for too long. As predicted, she soon left, founded MoreySmith and developed a close relationship with Sony, working on smaller projects. Thirteen years later the relationship is still going strong: she has recently won the contract to do Sony BMG’s offices in Kensington, which includes designing Simon Cowell’s new office. On the day we meet she is about to rush off to meet Cowell, but due to repeated delays caused by Sony’s facilities manager and the company’s overpowering paranoia of corporate espionage, we get a little buzz from the thought that the onoffice shoot may keep the notoriously impatient X-factor celebrity waiting.
So, in terms of design, what exactly is Morey Smith’s signature style? It is apparent that the bulk of her clients are from the creative/media industry. Although there is one recurring theme that stands out in her work and creates a persistent leitmotif: light. Talking through her latest projects the brief is always the same: “Go in and lighten it up.” At EMI, SCEE and the new Sony BMG space – a 4,300sq m former department store with no natural light whatsoever – the original offices all seemed to suffer from a lack of natural daylight and Morey Smith was called in to brighten up the spaces.
“We go that step further across the board,” Morey Smith says. “We’re happy to take an old building, strip it out, gut it, give it a lift. I’d never do a new build. I think it’s about doing what you know you’re good at.” For example, at SCEE the MoreySmith practice achieves the characteristic lightening-up effect through two arresting features: firstly, by completely reworking the initial outdoor space into a bright glass atrium area, and, secondly, by exposing the original concrete slabs and leaving this raw finish to give the working areas an immediate lift. The concrete ceiling does look unfinished and I’d imagine it will take some getting used to. “Its rawness contrasts with the pure clean finish of the surrounding fit-out,” Morey Smith explains. “The thought behind it was that with the staff being so young and the gaming industry having a grungy image, this warehousey feel reflects the company ethos.”
I hate to do it, but in the light of Morey Smith’s predominantly male client base, I need to ask the “as a woman in the industry” question. She is 43, has three children and her own thriving business, which I imagine poses a number of challenges. “Oh don’t get me started, every once in a while I’ll have a feminist moment. In reality the world is generally still male-dominated. It’s not that the industry isn’t changing, but I can certainly say that I never get work in the City. It’s not that we don’t go there and tender but they simply don’t get what we do.”
“You still get men in the industry saying things like ‘Oh it’s easier for you, you get all the work because you’re a woman. You just flash your eyelashes’. If people think it’s easier for women they must be joking!”
She tells me a story about a particularly intensive clash of personal and business worlds. “It was the day after I’d had my second child: a client who I still work with now said, ‘Listen I know you’ve just had a baby but can we just come around and see you.’ I’d only just got out of hospital. ‘We know you so well, we just want to run something by you.’ So I had five barristers come to my house the day after I gave birth. That’s kind of nuts really – now, looking back, I think ‘what was I doing?’, I shouldn’t even have picked up the phone. But this is just such a personal, people business.”
Morey Smith compares her work to that of a psychotherapist. “You have to sit with your clients, listen to them, give them nice things so they feel ok.” I can imagine that clients feel in safe hands with her. She comes across as being genuine and down to earth – none of the usual architect’s airs and graces.
I ask Morey Smith about her predictions for the industry. She says that while it is experiencing a general shift towards domestic interiors for the workplace, the creative industry looks for a more unrefined finish, a warehouse atmosphere. “The direction I see office design going is linked to the fact that more and more clients share an aversion to the corporate thing. Of course there has to be a brand, but people want room for personality and to control their own workspace,” says Morey Smith.
MoreySmith successfully implemented the domestic style at property investment company Exemplar’s new offices just off Oxford Street, with rugs and a home ambience to it. At SCEE, the materials soften the rawness of the finish: reclaimed timber, leather walls with the PlayStation symbols stitched on to it. “I’m having quite a leather moment,” laughs Morey Smith. “I just love using different finishes, it’s so much more alive to look at than a uniform design.” The glass atrium at SCEE is a good example of this mix – one side of the old building shows reclaimed timber, the other brightens up the space with its clean white walls.
MoreySmith covered the space with a slightly sloping glass roof, took off the cladding, opened up the window spaces and added protruding glass boxes over the window on different levels. Especially in comparison to the original building, it is remarkable how this space suddenly seems so much larger – it’s completely opened up. “And the great thing about the timber, besides the look,” Morey Smith explains, “is that it prevents that echo-effect that you find
in most glass atriums.”
Morey Smith summarises her style: “I like to play with light and colour to prevent that formal business feel.” At Cardinal Place, she was called in by Land Securities because they felt there was something missing in the reception area. She revived the space with light installations and artwork. Her artist husband, Patrick Burrow, is connected to British arts association Artsource, which often supplies artworks for her fit-outs. She is particularly fond of using paintings by London-based artist Jonathan Huxley, and his works appear in projects such as her fit-outs for Channel 4 and Capital Radio, as well as in her own offices. “I love his use of ultra-violet colour that glows,” she says.
At SCEE, the committee pulled the breaks on a more colourful design. “What they were saying was that due to dealing with computer games they look at colours all the time, so the workspace should function as a backdrop,” says Morey Smith. But colour is nevertheless dotted around the building by the usual suspects – colourful chairs, such as Vitra’s classic Eames chairs in the boardroom, Tacchini’s red Moon chair by Pietro Arosio in the reception area and the Butterfly chairs by Magis in the cafe area, which creates a great pattern when looking down from the work floors. Together with Modular Lighting’s special light installations, the workspace does indeed give off a non-corporate feel. “I mean, if someone wants an institutional building, they are not going to come to us, are they?” says Morey Smith. “There are enough people out there doing that. I guess we found a niche. We made a conscious decision not to grow beyond a certain point and as a result we’re in the fortunate position that we don’t have to take on any bread and butter work.”
Morey Smith has developed a winning formula that looks set to continue unabated – letting in light and opening spaces out, she brightens up even the darkest of office interiors. |
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