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property report

If you can shift your eyes away from the jaw-dropping view of the water and mountains from Expedia’s sleek new office space in Vancouver, you’ll notice in the reception area nods to all things nautical: a sliding door that resembles the side of a shipping container, the front desk shaped like the bow of a boat.

Wander through the office’s eighth and ninth floors and you’ll see porthole windows on interior walls and signage made from rope cleats. Those seafaring references morph from one side of the office to the other into design details inspired by land: faux “living” grassy walls, wood detailing, and walls emblazoned with markings derived from topographical maps.

The decor is meant to represent both Vancouver’s incredible geography and also Expedia’s branding, the office housing three of the growing company’s groups: Expedia CruiseShipCenters, Expedia Lodging, and Expedia Worldwide Engineering.

Meeting rooms at Expedia's new office in Vancouver have clear walls, which not only keep the design light but also represent corporate transparency. (Jessica MacAleese)

The uncluttered 28,500-square-foot-space is worthy of a spread in Architectural Digest, but there’s more to its contemporary design than visual appeal. There’s science behind workplace set-up, with designers weaving in all sorts of elements to make a corporate setting not just beautiful but also functional and motivating.

At Expedia Vancouver, some of those elements include glass walls and an open office plan where everyone gets a view, with work stations, phone rooms, “huddle” areas, and the funky, expansive lunch room (which is adorned with ships’ rope) all windowside.

“All the meeting rooms are glass to represent transparency,” says Matthew Eichhorst, president of Expedia CruiseShipCenters. “There are no secret meetings. Traditional offices had quite a few private offices [lining the outside walls] – that old school, hierarchical thing – but Expedia wanted more of an open plan. It brings more light into the floor, and we wanted to create very bright spaces for people. It also gets people talking to each other a lot more. We’re all trying to do the same thing here.”

The funky lunch room exudes a marine vibe, with its colour scheme and its rope decorations on the ceiling. (Jessica MacAleese)

Collaboration and communication are facilitated via glass-enclosed breakout rooms for brainstorming sessions and by whiteboards that employees are encouraged to write on (even if it’s to simply doodle or jot down inspirational quotes). “People use them constantly,” Mr. Eichhorst says of the erasable boards. “We put signs up on them [saying ,“Write on me!”] because not every white wall is whiteboard. We figured that out pretty quickly.”

Research has started looking at how design can affect people’s moods and well-being, with scientists discovering how everything from ceiling height to background colours can influence how we think and work.

A 2010 study into the effects of the physical work environment on physiological measures of stress, for instance, conducted by Ohio State University and the National Institute of Mental Health, tracked 60 white-collar workers at a government facility in the central United States for 17 months. Some were randomly assigned to an old office building, with low ceilings and loud air-conditioners, while the rest got to work in a recently renovated space filled with skylights and open cubicles. Scientists discovered that people subjected to the older building were significantly more stressed, even when they weren’t at work, so much so that they could be at increased risk for heart disease.

The shift from an independent working style to a more collaborative approach is another dominant theme in workplace design, as seen at Expedia Vancouver, with its multiple meeting rooms of varying sizes, all outfitted with videoconferencing technology. (Jessica MacAleese)

Even a workplace’s wall colours can affect creativity and productivity. Researchers at the University of British Columbia tracked more than 600 people’s performance on six cognitive tasks that required either detail-orientation or creativity for a 2009 study. Red boosted performance on detail-oriented tasks such as proofreading, while blue environmental cues prompted participants to produce more creative outputs.

“Our ultimate goal is to try and inspire people,” says interior designer Gracie Andraos, associate at Gensler in Dallas and team lead for Expedia Vancouver’s office design. “This isn’t just about creating a pretty space; it needs to go deeper than that. The workplace environment is becoming more and more important; we’re in the office for a good part of our week. We see these people more than our family sometimes. More and more companies want to create a culture where people feel comfortable.”

Vancouver interior designer Jennifer Hamilton, partner at Square One Interiors Inc. (SQ1), says a focus on health and wellness is at the top of the list of current trends in workplace design, with employers driven in part by a desire to gain a competitive edge by attracting and retaining excellent talent.

'This isn’t just about creating a pretty space; it needs to go deeper than that,' says interior designer Gracie Andraos, associate at Gensler in Dallas and team lead for Expedia Vancouver’s office design. 'The workplace environment is becoming more and more important.' (Jessica MacAleese)

“Promoting health and well-being results in employees who are more engaged, meaning that when they show up to work they are actively there, giving their all, fulfilling their true potential, and doing their best,” Ms. Hamilton says.

There are some overt ways to improve employee health, she notes, such as efforts to overcome the effects of being stationary all day.

“A fairly overused saying now is that, ‘Sitting is the new smoking.’ Physical examples of overcoming this are promoting movement and activity, which promotes connectedness between employees,” Ms. Hamilton explains. “This often involves sit-stand workstations, with desks that the user can adjust the height on with a touch of a button. Internal convenience stairs are often incorporated to encourage staff taking stairs between floors rather than the elevator. Providing only one place in an organization where staff can get coffee makes people get up and move and creates impromptu opportunities for collaboration. Several of the organizations we work with don’t provide garbage cans at the desk, only recycle bins. That way if you have garbage, you get up and throw something out. Same thing with printers; many organizations are reducing the number of printers they have to encourage movement.”

Strong corporate branding and identity are increasingly reinforced in workplaces. (Jessica MacAleese)

The shift from an independent working style (think shut-door offices) to a more collaborative approach is another dominant theme in workplace design, as seen at Expedia Vancouver, with its multiple meeting rooms of varying sizes, all outfitted with videoconferencing technology.

“At the Facebook headquarters, for example, employees have the ability to customize the layout, height and configuration of their own desks based on personal preference,” says Russell Devenish, chief executive officer of TruSpace, which specializes in office design. “Teams can also create the workspace layout that best supports the project they are working on. Grouping desks or making a long row of desks, for example. This ability to allow employees to control their own space has been shown to increase motivation and productivity.

“As a new, younger work force starts to enter the workplace, the breakout space is becoming an increasingly important area of good office design,” he adds. “The goal of a well-utilized breakout space is to create a truly multifunctional area that can be used in a wide variety of ways, from informal meetings and other collaborative work to greeting clients and visitors and, most importantly, a place where staff can relax away from their computer screens.”

Widespread access to natural light is another major goal of workplace designers for obvious reasons; so is bringing in greenery. While biophilia refers to the idea that humans have an instinctive bond with nature, biophilic design “takes that bond and strives to bring it into places where a there is separation between humans and nature,” Mr. Devenish says. “Bringing more greenery into the workspace has been shown to reduce stress and increase productivity and employee well-being.”

Strong corporate branding is also reinforced in more workplaces. Ms. Hamilton cautions that too much emphasis on a theme can look gimmicky and quickly become dated.

“Themed offices are not a trend, but strong branding is,” she says. “Our goal is always to create a space that makes people feel good, that supports the work that they need to do, and that is lovely to look at. I feel passionate about beauty in the workplace; in my mind this often relates to simplicity as well.

“People are drawn to beauty, and if a place is beautiful, it will have longevity, which is an ultimate goal in sustainability,” Ms. Hamilton notes. “If employees feel good in their workplace, productivity goes up.”