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30 September, 2019

Neighborhoods: Exchange and Align

Design Trends

Human beings are earth’s most emotional creatures. Emotions drive almost all aspects of human life, from cognition and interpersonal relationships to group behavior and social commitments. It is the power that shapes societies and molds organizations.

"Love" appears in many, sometimes unexpected forms, ranging from the familiar, like parental love and that of our friends, to the romantic love that unites couples with nothing else in common. Love is everywhere.

Have you ever thought that "love" can also be part of the office?

Wait, I know what you are thinking. I’m not really telling you a modern love story; I’m talking about a kind of love that is born out of trying to work and grow together. 

We live in an era of information overload, with torrents of disparate information fighting for our attention. The same is true in the office environment. Every minute we are called upon to absorb new information that interferes with our ability to focus; what we need is something that can help us work with different partners across various teams, share our experience and knowledge with others, and work together to solve problems. Although mobiles phone and video conferencing give us a convenient way to communicate, technology still cannot fully replace the intimacy and trust established during real meetings – such is the essence of communication and cooperation. Notwithstanding technology, we still depend on face-to-face cooperation. The process not only involves work, but depends on our ability to build networks, gain experience and acquire new knowledge. To succeed requires love and neighborhoods.

Neighbors’ main objective is to foster a support and social network. Neighborhoods can even be seen as promoting social cohesion and solidarity, as the support function also encourages mutual assistance within a small area. The resulting sense of security and trust between neighbors further reinforces a common understanding about how to address life and work issues. 

Recent research established that an interconnected, interactive office environment can foster a sense of belonging while also enhancing productivity. In addition, furniture makers have introduced new types of smart furniture to empower companies to create highly connected office environments. But merely installing something new doesn’t always translates into triggering meaningful connections. So how can we cultivate and deepen authentic "neighbor love" between colleagues?

Providing a place for gathering

This is not to say that simply creating a connected space is enough. Instead, different spaces, including personal workspaces, meeting rooms, leisure areas, etc., are separated from each other by different layouts, so that employees can communicate and share in these "communities". These various spaces in turn allow employees to join a group, work and live within these communities.

Lamex’s office space solution can create the most suitable solution according to the business needs of different enterprises and the way employees work. In the above case, the “connecting” space is adjacent to the conference space, and the personal work space is also adjacent to the connecting space, allowing employees to perform different tasks in the same space, and giving them sufficient reasons to work and interact in this space.

Let people live in the space

A space’s function should not be limited to meet the daily office needs of employees but also provide them with additional benefits. For example, a green space can also deliver a very comfortable environment for employees:

In addition, items like stand-up desks, lift tables, etc., can offer extra health support while allowing for a way of working that gives employees a sense of freedom.

Meanwhile, technological features such as wireless charging and web conferencing can be used to allow for better, more instant connection with the outside world.

These are the details that help make people fall in love with a work space, thus fostering a desire to stay with an organization. 

Nurturing a culture of communication

Besides using space to trigger interactions, companies also need to leverage internal operations such project management, team configurations and human resource management to ensure everyone can build their own communities and fulfill their potential. Enterprises should use spatial-user analysis to assess how operations can be customized in ways that encourage employees to interact and communicate more.

Encouraging people to be creative at work

The interaction between people always fosters creativities.  When people love to interact with others in a team, it generates a great synergy that drives people to solve problems together. The creativities of people will be encouraged by the happy and relaxing environment.  And it is actually a two-way flow. A creative work will normally appear in a comfortable environment. A comfortable and happy environment will inspire people to be creative and interact with others, and so shape up a deeper relationship.  For a corporate, a happy working environment always leads to a great teamwork and synergy, which make the team formation more stable and sustainable. People will also tend to be more creative and more versatile for different tasks.

In the modern office culture, "love" is the window of interaction and cooperation. In an office space where everyone loves one another and helps each other, the sense of enjoyment and satisfaction will grow naturally. This will in turn enhance productivity, improve business and promote development.

Lamex is committed to continue introducing high-quality public system solutions in order to provide clients with better office space options filled passion for life. Stay tuned!