Original Workplace Design Embodying Ideal Ways of Working Discovered Through Dialogues
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As knowledge society progresses, globalization accelerates, and network technology emerges, people are subject to various waves of environmental change. At many organizations, awareness-raising and innovation are cited as management issues, with people seeking new organizational models and attempting to change themselves. Nikken Sekkei engages in workplace design by using workshops to hold dialogues with customers and discovering ways of working together, one by one. It’s not just about creating spaces but rather a process of engaging from the perspective of what those spaces can provide for clients and users. Herein, this process is presented using Nitto Denko Corporation’s “inovas” as an example.
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The Answer to the Workplace is in the Client’s Way of Working
At Nikken Sekkei, the design technology for the workplace is the process itself. Because there are as many different ways of working as there are companies, the best answers to workplace design are not determined by the type of industry or line of business but are instead derived from dialogues with clients. Using workshops and the like for this purpose, Nikken Sekkei emphasizes the process of working together to draw out and discover companies’ ways of working.
A Different Proposal “inovas”: Discovering Natural Ways of Working Through Workshops and Daily Life
“inovas” was envisaged as a base for new innovation for Nitto Denko Corporation (Nitto hereinafter). The project was initiated based on the client’s desire to create spaces in which genuine innovation would occur.
What spaces will facilitate the innovation that Nitto is known for? What ways of working best suit Nitto? To find the answers to these questions, workshops were held repeatedly with the client. Moreover, to fully elicit the opinions of the people actually working in these spaces, Nikken Sekkei had not only the company’s top members but employees from each department participate in the workshops.
All participants brought to the workshops photo diaries made by taking one photo a day of their own activities and scenes from their office and recording comments in kind. They shared what they noticed about each other’s daily routines. As a result, we were able to discover things (“scenes”) that we could not have known about just from the client’s reports, such as spontaneously starting meetings by having everyone place their laptops (notebook PCs) on top of the refrigerator.
By arranging and analyzing each of these scenes at Nitto, common denominators emerged in the timing at which the innovations Nitto is known for occur, such as the fact that spaces are not necessarily used as intended but are individually customized instead and that many ideas emerge when the number of chance communications (encounters) is raised.
In addition, by extracting workstyles people could relate to from what they observed about one another’s daily routines, seven ways of working were derived that were the essence of what facilitates innovation at Nitto.
Seven key words could be used to categorize their future workstyles: encounter, discuss, cooperate, retreat, attempt, fascinate, and welcome. These words were, in fact, put to good use as design themes for a variety of spaces that emerged from “inovas.”
Incidentally, in the process of designing space and making it into something visible, we believe that it is vitally important to share a clear image with the client.
Based on opinions people expressed, such as the tendency to get ideas in the bath, wood and carboard boxes were used to make mockups of furniture, like bathtub-shaped sofas. Having employees act out scenes in which they actually used the furniture or spaces was part of the process.
In addition, to broaden the client’s perspective, tours to Musashino Place, TSUTAYA Books in Tokyo, and elsewhere were organized so that people could observe spaces that had been achieved with new ideas. Together with the client, we gained firsthand experience of how these spaces worked and how they worked on people.
This series of workshops allowed everyone at Nitto to deeply share the topic of what workstyles and workplaces would express Nitto’s mode of innovation and what goals should be achieved.
A New Facility to Maximize the Number of Encounters that Change Mindsets
At a glance, the space that emerged from this process was colorful, like a toy chest that had been overturned. One might say that this result was inevitable.
In the spaces for many encounters within “inovas,” colorful chairs and outdoor furniture that could be used in various positions were provided, along with whiteboard walls and the like. Design that allows everyone to make free use of space, while changing their moods in their own ways, inspires free and fresh activities.
In addition, for the purpose of raising the number of encounters, all the functions of “inovas” were scattered here and there, making it different from the neatly organized workplace that existed previously. With the increased frequency of comings and goings from “inovas,” the number of chance communications naturally rose.
All of this was a result of designing space based on the knowledge gleaned from a workshop entitled “More Encounters, More Ideas.”
Office space was arranged on the inside of the building to be the opposite of the conventional layou. Because the workshop revealed that the conventional office space was frequently used with the blinds closed, it was concluded that windows were not necessary. Instead, the corridors were placed outside the building, which allowed them to be full of natural light and made the space feel good.
These corridors are not mere passageways but were made multipurpose so that they can be used integrally with the office space. Interspersed with mechanisms for instituting the seven methods of working discovered through workshops, they have become important places for allowing new ideas and discussion to emerge from chance communications.
In this way, by selecting and connecting spaces or scenes that lead to innovation from ways of working, it was possible to realize the client’s essential needs, made visible in the form of space.
Mechanisms for Producing Innovation from Employee Participation Workshops
Building things up together using employee participation workshops instead of top-down decision-making resulted in a new space that exemplifies ways of working that are natural to everyone at Nitto. In addition, because a specific process was involved, the workplace became not something that was imposed but rather something unprecedented that everyone created together.
Incidentally, the name of the facility, “inovas,” was coined from the words “innovation” and “nova.” It was selected from ideas solicited from all Nitto employees, which contributes to the feeling of familiarity that they have with it.
Nikken Sekkei believes that mechanisms for producing innovation can be found not only in space but also in this process of working with employees to build something up together.
