Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal — Owners, Developers & Managers — February 28 - March 13, 2014 — B
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O wners , D evelopers & M anagers Barry Poskanzer reflects on balancing trends with needs Q&A: For office design, think “suitable” not “fashionable”
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who they are and how they operate – and then build their plan around these needs. Q: How can an organiza- tion find the right balance? A: The first step is to start the process with an open mind, not a preconceived notion. Analyze the work of your people. What kind of tasks do they address? What kinds of relationships do the have, and do they need, with other employees? It may sound nice to have an open meeting area in the middle of an office, but if one of your managers has a particularly loud voice it may disturb the 20 people stationed around that
gathering spot. Can your senior managers sit among their staff members, or do they frequently discuss delicate information? If you ask the right questions, the answers generally rise to the surface. Ultimately, a designer’s job is not to force their client into the design but to help them develop a design around their unique needs. Q: Withopendesigns, what can be done to counter noise and a lack of privacy? A: The newest open-layout workspaces are incorporating “seated privacy.” Partitions are high enough that when the Continued on page 20B
RIDGEWOOD, NJ — For better or for worse, open office layouts
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a r e among today’s hot- test design trends. Ad- vocates say that commu- nal work en- vironments increase col- l a b o r a t i o n
Barry Poskanzer
Contact:Yaacov Weiss P:732-552-5087
and require less space, which saves money. Those on the other side of the fence cite pro- ductivity-sapping distractions and noise. Barry Poskanzer, AIA , a partner with Poskan- zer Skott Architects (PSA) of Ridgewood, believes the un- derlying problem is that com- panies are approaching their planning with a “one size fits all” mentality. In the following interview, Poskanzer, who has been designing office interiors for four decades, elaborates on this topic. Q: The push toward open office layouts has been gain- ing traction for years. Why? A: Trends in office design are like hemlines. Clothing designers change dress lengths from season to season so that consumers will have to buy something new to remain fash- ionable. And the same is true of office formats. But there is a big difference between “fashionable” and “stylish”: Fashionable is fleeting; stylish is forever. Open office formats are the former. Ultimately, when it comes to great design, the focus should not be on what is fashionable, but on what is suitable. Q: When is – and isn’t – shared space suitable? A: Shared space might make sense within an engineering or R&D department, where em- ployees collaborate frequently. Jobs that require a high level of concentration – such as editing and writing, or working with numbers – require the peace and quiet of a private office. I have a drafting table in my company’s open work area, as well as an office where I can have privacy when I’m discuss- ing a transaction or the finan- cial aspects of a project. So even within a single company, and sometimes within a single posi- tion, there are justifiable rea- sons for an employee to have or to not have an office. Too many companies are buying today’s most popular model “as sold,” but really they should examine
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