thecoolhunter - World's Most Creative Work Environments (Our 3rd book) Designers

World's Most Creative Work Environments (Our 3rd book) Designers - Submit your designs.

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

If you are reading TCH while working, stop for a moment and consider your surroundings? What is your environment like? Are your surroundings in tune with what you should accomplish? Some of us work in our homes while others stare at their computer monitors all day in a multitude of places referred to as “work.”

Our environment has a direct impact on our work and on how we feel about our work. From the time you sit down with your Monday-morning latte to the moment you make the mad dash to the elevator late on Friday afternoon, innumerable stimuli affect your every action and reaction.

Can you gaze out, or better yet, open a window to let in fresh air? Is your concentration broken each time a nearby coworker turns on the external speaker when he answers the phone? Do you spend most of your day away from your workstation? Are the meeting rooms and common areas in your office inviting and inspiring?

Fortunately, designers have become increasingly ingenious when designing office space, but the ones making the decisions at the top deserve praise as well. We’re noticing more and more collaborations between designers and organizations that unquestionably result in satisfaction throughout the staff.

The focus of attention has started to shift. As leaders, we expect employees to produce more, better, faster, cooler. But we often spend all our time and energy ‘evolving our brand,’ and don’t pay much attention to work environments. If we changed the workspace, we’d probably start seeing more of what we want. Creative environments foster and attract creative minds.

Designers have figured it out – change the cube, evolve the thinking. Designers collaborate with interior architects and now the focus is on the entire space. How can we use space better? How do we create an interesting working environment? What if we did something really unusual? Like creating workspace inside a giant pipe – or a series of pipes?

Designers have now also been paying attention to elevators, stairwells, bathrooms, meeting rooms and other social spaces. These previously ignored and undervalued spaces are becoming an integral part of design strategies – and not just to look good, but also to function well. By adding colour, neon, digital interiors, irregular shapes and patterns – cool stuff to look at, to touch, or to sit in or on – we’ll heighten the senses and draw out creative thinking.

We know at least some of you have benefited from our previous take on innovative workspaces, aso now we're now on the hunt for more of the best creative offices for our third book - "World's Most Creative Office Environments.” Email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or nominate yourself if you think you’ve got what we want. - Andrew J Wiener

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