In a recent iOffice Workplace Innovator Podcast titled “A Conversation about the Forces Changing How We Use Office Space”, teammate David Wagner and other industry leaders discussed their perspectives on the future of the workplace for both traditional and coworking spaces. Check out this audio edit of the broadcast and then download the video of the full conversation including a fascinating Q&A time with these experts!

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania — April 7, 2022—Award-winning architecture, design, and strategy firm NELSON Worldwide has merged operations with Daroff Design Inc + DDI Architects, PC (DDI), an award-winning, internationally recognized interior design and architecture firm headquartered in Center City, Philadelphia. With almost 50 years of history as a certified Woman Business Enterprise (WBE), DDI joins the NELSON team with shared values. The firms come together to solidify their commitment to creative design solutions that thoughtfully respond to client objectives and transform the human experience. 

“We are extremely excited that Karen Daroff and her team will be joining NELSON,” notes Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at NELSON Worldwide, John “Ozzie” Nelson Jr. “Since launching Daroff Design almost five decades ago, she has led the firm to national and international prominence and has received many accolades along the way. I am looking forward to her having the opportunity to continue her legacy alongside our team.” 

NELSON has been one of the industry’s most aggressive integrators in the AEC industry. It has previously acquired well-known Philadelphia-based companies such as H2L2, Space Design, Cope Linder, and Brinjac Engineering and is continuing to scale. As part of a long-term strategic growth plan for NELSON, the merger will combine the firm’s strengths to address its clients’ challenges with ingenuity to provide unexpected design solutions and unparalleled client service. DDI’s creative team, grounded in innovative thinking, combined with NELSON’s industry knowledge and geographic reach, will allow the firm to expand and strengthen its ability to deliver exciting and emotionally connected experiences within the built environment. 

Founded in Philadelphia in 1977, NELSON offers a breadth of services that transform and touch all dimensions of the human experience, including architecture, interior design, graphic design, and brand strategy. The firm creates and delivers brand experiences, compelling environments, and smart solutions across the spaces we interact with daily—where we work, shop, dine, stay, serve, live, play, and thrive. DDI joins NELSON with an expansive project portfolio across the workplace, hospitality, multi-family, and public sector. The firm specializes in facility programming, master planning, and the design of innovative, efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally sustainable spaces. Some of DDI’s most notable clients include Comcast, NBC Universal, The Durst Organization, Vanguard, Disney, JetBlue, Loews Hotels, St. Regis, Ritz Carlton, PIDC, Sheetz, MGM Resorts, Parx Casino, and Harrah’s, among many others.

“I am excited and proud to have our DDI team join forces with NELSON, a company I’ve long admired. NELSON and DDI share many of the same values and are aligned both in spirit and our strong commitment to hands-on client service and design excellence,” comments Karen Daroff, IIDA, President + Design Principal at DDI. “When approaching this merger, it was important to identify a company with a large and dynamic national presence to better serve our clients. I am also personally thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with team members nationally and service our clients with a national footprint.

This is an amazing opportunity to integrate our teams, bring together our shared visions and to have a strengthened presence in our merged Philadelphia Headquarters.”

NELSON will welcome 25 employees from the DDI team alongside Karen Daroff. She will provide hands-on leadership for NELSON’s hospitality practice and become a senior leader within the firm’s Philadelphia interior design team. Both firms are committed to managing a seamless transition for employees and clients. 

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About NELSON Worldwide

NELSON Worldwide is an award-winning firm, transforming all dimensions of the human experience through architecture, interior design, graphic design, and brand strategy services. With more than 800 teammates spread across 20 offices, the firm’s collective network provides strategic and creative solutions that positively impact where people work, serve, play, and thrive. The team combines industry knowledge, service expertise, and geographic reach to deliver projects across the country and around the world. Client partnerships across the NELSON network include: Hilton, Macy’s, Comcast, Simon Property Group, Prologis, Yum! Brands, Boston Consulting Group, T-Mobile, Emory Healthcare, SAP Fieldglass, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Kroger, Hyatt, Bayer, Target, and many more. 

Visit www.nelsonworldwide.com to learn more.

About Daroff Design Inc. 

Daroff Design Inc + DDI Architects, PC (DDI), is an award-winning, internationally recognized interior design and architecture firm. The team specializes in the facility programming, master planning, and design of innovative, efficient, cost effective, and environmentally sustainable facilities for their workplace, hospitality, multi-family, and public sector clients. Working in diverse design vocabularies, their creative team, licensed to practice throughout the US, is widely recognized for their integrated design process and for creating emotionally connected experiences.

Now celebrating nearly 50 years in business as a certified Woman Business Enterprise (WBE), DDI provides its clients with a wealth of creative, and technically skilled design and project management services. They have been consistently recognized as a leading, innovative design firm both by the US and world design press, including regular inclusion in Interior Design’s Top Hospitality Giants and Contract Magazine’s Top Workplace Design Firms.

Balmiki Bhattacharya has joined NELSON Worldwide as an industrial practice leader. Based in Seattle, Bhattacharya will integrate design programs to maximize operations and investments while also helping create a strategic, sustainable plan for the firm’s future. Read more here.

NELSON Worldwide, award-winning architecture, design, and strategy firm, welcomes Balmiki Bhattacharya as industrial practice leader. Based in Seattle, Balmiki will spearhead client solutions and integrate design programs to maximize operations and investments while also helping create a strategic, sustainable plan for the firm’s future. Read more here.

I love a face-to-face meeting. I process information more holistically in these settings – body language, verbal cues, visible reactions in the room. While NELSON works from home during the COVID crisis, Zoom and Skype have been indispensable in filling the face-to-face void between colleagues.

Our digital era has given rise to the concept of being “alone together” – solitary but connected. Right now, millions of us are “home together” and looking for ways to maintain the genuine human connections that keep a workplace humming.

In lieu of water cooler chats, we share images of our homes, our pets, our families, and our unique or quirky work settings. We schedule virtual happy hours. We check in more often.

Being “home together” has reinforced the need for authentic, human-to-human connection at work. Trust, empathy, and communication between people form the foundation of the most successful teams.

As we rely on WiFi and video chat to keep our social ties alive, I think workers may return to office environments in a post-crisis era with a different attitude – an even greater desire for meaningful connections, and a new appreciation for the physical space that enables them.

How will our Zoom-connected virtual offices influence the “IRL” workspaces we return to?

Bringing the Home-self to Work

Working from our kitchen tables in slippers, we’re entering a new era of “business casual.” It’s allowed us to mix the workplace and the home space and relate to our colleagues on a more relaxed level. We can bring this sense of authenticity to the physical workplace too. Elements like employee walls located in central gathering areas allow people to share photos and items from their personal lives, capturing the same new closeness and informality we are experiencing in Zoom life.

Flexible Workspace

Working from home can offer more flexibility in setting – we are fully free to change rooms or positions throughout the day. Offices should have the same flexibility. Following the principles of the activity-based workplace, creating a variety of settings at work to support mobility and choice can foster the same sense of freedom as home.

Meeting Spaces and Video Rooms

Change your Zoom background yet? The ability to use a branded background is a useful tool for representing your company to clients or other partners. We can translate this to the physical space by branding smaller video-enabled rooms in the office.

Loosen up densification

With more space to spread out at home, expanding the typical desk surface in the office may be in order. Is having a bigger desk counterintuitive to connection? Not at all. Aside from the hygienic benefits of increasing social distance for everyday tasks, it allows more individual space for changing use throughout the day, from heads-down work to spontaneous meetings with colleagues.

It’s heartening to see human connections flourish despite physical distance. If we embrace the tools and techniques we’re adapting now for the digital realm, we can use them to enrich our offices once we return.

“What will bring employees back to the office?” is one of the most common questions we as architects and designers are asked on a daily basis. While there is no one-size-fits-all secret recipe when it comes to designing the best back-to-office experience, there is one thing that definitely won’t have employees crawling back to the workplace…

During a meeting with a client about the importance of listening to employees, the value of acknowledging their concerns, and involving them in deciding when to make changes, I was shocked when the CEO commented, “I don’t get it, no one came to the office today, and we ordered cake.”

The response sparked a greater question and conversation: What’s the magic “thing” that will bring life back into our office spaces? What will convince people to commute two hours, pay for childcare and wait until Sunday to do the laundry? That CEO isn’t alone in their thinking: When employees were in the office five days a week, having free food was considered a perk. They were already there and only had to get up and walk to the café to grab a slice of cake, pizza, etc. It was a nice break in your day, a chance to chat with your colleagues. However, things have changed, and we need to adjust our expectations on what the true draw is. Hint: It’s not cake.

We’ve known the answer for years: the only thing your office space has, that nowhere else does, is your people. When employees were surveyed in the wake of the pandemic, the number one thing they all said they missed about the office was the people. Even science tells us we need in-person interaction. Studies have shown that in-person interaction helps drop blood pressure and reduce anxiety. The elderly live longer and more fulfilled lives when they have regular interactions with others. Blue Zone studies, which explore regions of the world where people live significantly longer and healthier lives, are showing us how important a connection to our community is to our longevity. So, if we know that we miss each other and that being around others will improve our lives, why isn’t that enough to get people together in offices?

It’s going to take work both from employers and employees to implement the changes required. Let’s dive into what we can do to promote and support in-office work by focusing on three necessary steps to build and sustain in-office culture in a flexible work environment:

The First Step: Listen
This seems simple but it’s more nuanced than you may think. You need to have a deep understanding of not just the organization, but the specific office culture and local teammates. Engaging the end users to understand, when they do come in, what it is that is bringing them in. What tasks and activities are they completing? This understanding helps your team identify the tasks that bring them in, ensuring you support them in both policy and physical space. In turn, this approach demonstrates that you’re listening and encourages continued engagement.

The Second Step: Create Rituals
Rituals have been proven to help build social networks, psychological safety, performance and purpose by giving people a sense of ownership and empowerment. Humans find comfort in predictability. Take a common ritual like going to the gym as an example: Once it becomes embedded in your routine, it becomes something you count on, you look forward to it, you see and interact with the same people, you build personal relationships, you feel part of something bigger than you and you miss it when you don’t go.

Rituals don’t need to be complicated. They can be as simple as a 15-minute stand up discussion to talk about your weekend plans. They can be as involved as an all office outing. The key is they need to happen regularly and at a consistent day and time that people can begin to count on.

The Third Step: Build Place Attachment
If you build reliability through listening and creating rituals, you will inevitably begin to foster place attachment. Place attachment is the emotional link formed by an individual to a setting that has been given meaning through interaction. Building workplace attachment has been shown to improve job satisfaction, performance, organizational commitment, employee retention, and office culture. Things that any company would be interested in.

There is no slice of cake or magic pill that is going to solve all our workplace woes. It’s going to take effort, patience and determination by both employers and employees. Some companies find it easiest to begin deploying these ideas at the same time as an office renovation, when teammates are already primed for change. However, these are all things that can be implemented at any time in any company for little to no capital.

Some consider the open office concept that gained popularity in the early 2000s, dead. “It’s too noisy”, or “There’s too much distraction and not enough privacy” became common complaints. However, we believe that creating a successful open office requires us to look deeper.

Research tells us that employees are returning to the office for purpose, not policy. Employers now recognize the workplaces as more – a space for productive collaboration, mentorship, and a tool to attract and retain top talent. All the while, employees desire a space that blends the comforts of home with the benefits of choice and control. They seek a workplace that embraces neurodiversity, stands for inclusivity, and prioritizes wellness, and looks to accommodate their unique preferences and needs.

Reimagining the “troublesome” open office floorplan through the implementation of zoned furniture vignettes, alongside the use of change management to introduce new ways of work, today’s workplace can be personalized, productive, and purposeful, meeting the needs of both the employer and employee.

Our designers recently conducted an experiment to determine what solutions might be possible using furniture only, no demo or dust required. The team created a workplace with three zones to meet specific user needs — Active, Shared and Focus — that are purposefully placed around the workplace to create comfort for the wide variety of users prevalent in the office today and their even broader number of work styles and preferences.

Active Zone users prefer to surround themselves with people and be part of the action. They enjoy the freedom to collaborate with others at any time. These zones might be located off elevator lobby, around interconnecting stairs, or in and around the work café to ensure that these active users are immersed in the hustle and bustle of the office.

These areas are activated with a buzzy energy and, like a hotel lobby, are inviting to those who are energized by being with and near others. People who want to be seen will often intentionally spend a portion of their day here, a signal that it’s ok to approach them for a conversation. And knowing that they will not be disturbing others, they’re free to talk on their phones or with colleagues. An out-of-town executive might also choose to sit here to make themselves available and visible for interaction with teammates when not in meetings.

With seating options for solo work or groups that boast varying heights, including standing options for more active meetings, Active Zones create pockets for collaboration and solo work. Plant dividers, bookcases, screens, and pergolas can be used to reinforce different seating vignettes and provide separation between conversations. Movable furniture allows for ease of configuration based on group sizes and encourages laptops, tablets, and other easy-to-move technology.

Change management keys here encourage active and social interaction.

Shared Zone, with moderate noise levels, allow users who prefer to see what’s going on around them while being just off the beaten bath. There is a medium pace to these areas and occasional conversation is not disruptive to those who chose to sit here. Located along common paths of travel, the Shared Zone serve as a buffer between the active and quiet zones.

These zones reinforce teaming and open collaboration, encouraging small groups to come together for conversations. Both open and enclosed spaces are offered to provide users with the choice of being heard or just seen. Users can conduct scheduled video calls and have impromptu one-on-one meetings, while being respectful of those around them. Employees whose sole reason to come to the office to collaborate with teams will thrive in this environment. These spaces encourage productivity, learning, and mentoring.

Furniture options are enhanced with robust technology; wall-mounted monitors or additional desk monitors provide high productivity. Lower or no panels on sit-to-stand benching allow easier eye contact and ease of engaging in conversations. Providing space where furniture tables and chairs are movable, white boards are available, and there is ample space to move for teaming sessions is a useful element to the Shared Zone.

Acoustical considerations are critical here, as they help muffle the sound between different groups collaborating. White noise, acoustical ceiling baffles and wall panels, and spaces with doors are key to keeping noise at a moderate level. Bookcases, acoustical screens, and specific design elements define zones, while helping soften noise.

Change management keys here are encouraging conference call and video conference calls be taken behind closed doors, while encouraging teams to reserve areas that are conducive to the activities they need to collaborate with white boards or digital technology.

The Focus Zone is ideal for users who prefer to be secluded with some privacy. The atmosphere is quiet and calm, where focus is key. Located well off the common corridors, or with buffers from corridors, these spaces are cozy, inviting, and most important – quiet.

Users come here for heads down focus work and understand that respecting the quiet atmosphere is of the utmost importance. Furniture is ergonomic, lighting is adjustable, and workstation panels are set higher as are the backs on lounge seating to ensure privacy. Phone booths can be useful in these areas so that unexpected calls can be taken without traveling too far. Should a Focus Zone user need to make a scheduled phone call or video conference, they would move to the Shared or Active Zone to do so.

Acoustical considerations beyond the furniture solutions also should be considered. White noise, high-quality ceiling acoustics, carpeted floors, and acoustical wall products all help enhance the experience, promoting quiet.

Change management keys to this area are enforcement of the “quiet car” expectations, respecting your colleagues who choose to work here and taking healthy conversations elsewhere.

Each of these solutions leveraging furniture to create spaces that meet the needs of varied workers are scalable, experimental, and should align with your company culture. Test a focus zone by selecting a far-away spot in your existing office and experiment with different furniture or separation ideas. The ideal solution reflects an inviting and comfortable space to empower all to be their best selves while at work, no matter the task at hand or their preferences or work style.

Back in 2017 one of my favorite blogs, Oh Happy Day, announced a new project called ‘Color Factory’. It was described as a ’12,000 square feet of color experiences’, a collaboration between their favorite artists, designers & chefs to celebrate color, design, and their hometown of San Francisco. All the bright colors and fun looked amazing, but it was also on the other side of the country. THEN, this summer, Color Factory brought their hugely successful exhibit to New York, so during BDNY week, we were able to get tickets and experience the fun firsthand!

To begin, we entered the ‘lobby’ greeted by a physical manifestation of their colorful, New York-centric website, a display of colors and poems inspired by the streets of New York, and most importantly, mochi ice cream. The space became a holding area where you can hand in your tickets and check your coats before you enter the exhibit.  It was explained that we would enter through a series of rooms that let you experience color differently, sometimes there would be an activity, sometimes a food pairing, sometimes selfie stations and sometimes all three. One of the most clever things they did was hand out cards with a QR code that we could scan at different stations which would take a picture of us and send it directly to our email, so we could be hands free!

The first room was full of colorful pins, and each person got to pick which color spoke to them (I picked ‘Jet’ which looked to me like an inky blue/purple, but was really just black). As we traveled through the exhibit, we did some activities that made us feel exposed (like staring at your coworker intently, while sketching them without looking at the paper or picking up your pencil), some were a little less exciting than others (like playing plunking on a two note xylophone), some were sponsored by big brands (like the dance party sponsored by Maybelline) and almost all of them had a food pairing (the best one was the blue ice cream from the blue ball pit room).

But, I think my favorite rooms focused on the origin of colors and the translation of an experience through color. There was a room about midway through that showed colors named A-Z; each color was mounted on a drawer slide – one side named the color and the other explained its origin. As a designer that digs through color every day; understanding the origin brought more meaning to the palettes we select. Another room translated a palette entitled ‘Thoughts on a Subway on 7/30/2018’, below were listed the ‘thoughts’ and their translating colors gradating from a sunny yellow to a deep midnight blue. The artist then made this observation and palette into a merry-go-round bringing the colors to life (and creating a platform for a cool Boomerang).

The price tag for a ticket is steep ($38/person), but you got a lot of bang for your buck with take-aways, activities & food pairings. If I had any critique, it would be that the rooms sometimes felt disconnected (most likely because of the wide variety of artists they included), sometimes it felt like the procession had meaning and connected to the room before, and sometimes the rooms seemed to stand alone. I almost expected the path to build up to a final New York – centric experience or reveal. The last room featured a GIANT blue ball pit, which was VERY cool, but didn’t seem to speak to the color story inspired by New York. That said, I really did love every minute of this exhibit, surrounded by color, inspiration and artistry, it was hard for me to find something I didn’t enjoy. We spoke with some of the guides along the way, and it sounds like they’re still discussing how long this exhibit will be in place (the one in San Francisco lasted about 8 month), but if you’re in New York and you love color (and who doesn’t?) – this is a must see.

The FRCH NELSON Creative Culture Committee took some lucky FRCH-ers on a field trip last week to the Cincinnati Art Museum to experience the art of Pakistani-American artist Anila Quayyum Agha. The exhibit entitled, All the Flowers Are for Me (Red), was created using laser-cut steel and light. Light emanates from the red lacquered cube, enveloping the gallery in intricate shadows that ripple and change as visitors move through the space. A few FRCH-ers share their reactions to the stunning display:

“I was surrounded by only light and shadow…It was one of most magnificent installation that can calm the agitations of our soul.” ~ Heesun Kim

“For something so out of its element, amazed how the exhibition seemed to fit the space so perfectly; simply poetic. Wonder if this is how the others viewed the artist considering her description of the two different worlds she felt she was living in.” ~ Elizabeth Birkenhauer

“A stunning display of light and shadow. It created a completely immersive yet out of this world experience.” ~ Allison Schmid

“Light lands on all surfaces, reflecting what it’s gone through.” ~ Lawrence Song

“The object floated weightlessly in the air, casting a mesmerizing effect onto every surface.The guests became entwined with the art. Light and shadow danced across each passerby, the intricacies manipulated differently onto each form.” ~ Liz Baverman

If you have not already, we highly recommend checking out this uniquely beautiful exhibit. The exhibition is free to the public and runs until October 15th.

On a recent business trip I had the fortunate (and rare) encounter to have a few brief minutes to walk around between meetings. My first opportunity took me between Robertson Boulevard. I have to admit it’s been a while since I have made it to this area of LA…and at first I was disheartened…Robertson Boulevard, my how you have changed! While my beloved Chanel store still stands with its beautiful open air courtyard, it is flanked by endless “available” storefronts. The good news is that a short walk down Melrose, produced pockets of wonderful new retail and restaurants. And in true West Hollywood style, they vary from the refined design district with beautiful modern California architecture and storefronts, to the lush Marc Jacobs and Bookmarc’s buildings at Melrose Avenue, to the individual gritty and artful boutiques which remind us of the individual spirit and art that is inherently LA. And thankfully after cruising up Roberston Boulevard, I now instantly felt “in LA”. I had lunch in this area at a great little restaurant called Au Fudge – where fresh food meets creativity and if you are up for it, craft. The style is old meets new, white space met with brilliant accents that brought a refined touch to this little artsy niche, area of LA.

The following day took me along Abbot Kinney and Venice Boulevard….again, the richness of individuality, the crafted nature of the storefronts, interiors and boutiques, juxtaposed with a few refined restaurants reinforced the creative and laid-back side that LA has to offer. It’s refreshing to see both start-up boutiques as well as more established brands embrace a more laissez-faire attitude. When one thinks of LA, the formality and luxury definitely come to mind, but these artful pockets remind one instantly of the free spirit and creative entrepreneurship that exists here as well…how refreshing!