From mixed-use to mixed-experience

From mixed-use to mixed-experience

Hello friends of the art of gathering! You will no doubt remember that last week I shared some words on our fast-emptying cities and invited thoughts, comments, and hopefully push-backs. I received all three, so thank you for jumping in, joining the conversation, and giving me much to ponder going forward.

In the same spirit and vein, I thought that this week I might focus on how we might go beyond the 'mixed amenity' approach to planning for gathering well in the workplace. As many of you will attest, much of what goes into planning for and delivering a workplace that has the capacity to attract and involve present and future talent is the 'scope list of benefits' that might come from the proposed 'mix of positive amenities'.

This is great, but often falls down on how they might properly link up as an integrated experience. I'm interested here in those interventions that go beyond the listing of ingredients that make up the recipe for great workplace design, the kind that ask - in their planning, delivery, and maintaining - how they are properly informed by and flex to the experience of the end user.

You will, no doubt, have your own examples of those workplaces that do exactly this - and I look forward to hearing about those. If you haven't and for the purposes of rounding off this post, I urge you to have a look at the Australian bank Suncorp's now much vaunted home offices Heritage Lanes, designed, developed, and partly owned by Mirvac, and which was relatively recently awarded a Leesman+ (workplace experience) certificate.

Advertised as a 'destination office' before the post-Covid world began to speak of such things, it is a wonderful example of how to programme for many types of flow. The employee experience is reinforced by and constantly informs the use of its superhub and destination floors. The concierge service - real-world and digital - and the planting facilitate beautiful movement throughout the building. A calendar of regular and one-off events creates a genuinely festivalised feel. The building's the opposite of being a fortress: it is in permanent conversation with the city. Far greater than the sum of its amenity parts, Heritage Lanes is so much more than an office.

I know a bit about how Suncorp got here as FreeState was involved in helping create the experience framework that served and continues to serve as the 'experience underlay' to Heritage Lanes's design, delivery, and ongoing management. However, I don't want to overplay our part. Like all strategies, it will have evolved over the time, getting better and better as the research moved into design and on into build. In this respect, Suncorp will have benefited enormously from Mirvac's championing of the 'shared value' or 'mixed experience' development. As it concludes in Unlocking nexus value: From mixed-use to mixed-experience, a 'new metrics focused on shared value should be used to ensure our cities as a collection of villages, precincts and buildings are activated through programming to act as a magnet for people.' Heritage Lanes is that magnet.

So, friends. In the name of the art of gathering, don't hold back: examples of and ideas on what it takes to create workplaces that are as enjoyable as they are productive. Let's get the conversation going.


(Previous post: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/art-gathering-adam-scott-bgfae/?trackingId=Bjf6zpbPRSqCPC4fjjWZzA%3D%3D)

James Wallman

?? CEO, World Experience Organization ?? experience designer & strategist ?? keynote speaker, 2x TEDx ??? author, 2x bestselling books ?? futurist

11 个月

Love this on *new metrics* to measure & benchmark success of these sorts of places. Our cities need this! "new metrics focused on shared value should be used to ensure our cities as a collection of villages, precincts and buildings are activated through programming to act as a magnet for people" Goc O'Callaghan - you might have a take on this sort of thing?

Adam Scott

Founder and Global Creative Director at FreeState // Co-Author The Experience Book and ReThink Design Guide // Visiting Fellow at Central Saint Martins, UAL

12 个月

Riffing on this Menno, I think Urban Designers have long been talking about ‘setting the stage’ with thoughtful and well-targeted capex spending on architecture, landscape and infrastructure. But now we urgently need to spark activity and engagement with ongoing opex spending on the programme of activities as a catalyst for inspiring our passive audience to step forward as active participants! Jan Gehl spoke of ‘First Life’ (then spaces then buildings) but now policy-makers and city-shapers can no longer assume life will find its way to our gathering spaces, we need to better incubate that life w hich means we need to commission Stage-Programme-Team from the outset >> - The Multi-Scenario Stage, which is event-ready whatever the challenge. - The Ongoing Programme, always on and always relevant. - The Live Team, who run the programme with participation front of mind! ‘Single impact briefs are a thing if the past’ as Su Lim told me this morning. We clearly need to contract and work better ‘in concert’ and across the ‘whole company of players’!

Menno Cramer

Director of User Experience @ OutSystems | UX, Design Thinking. Neuroscientist & Designer

12 个月

There is an underlying question I have been wondering since your previous article... What is the core reason for us as species to gather. There are many obvious reasons, social ones, economic ones but one strikes me as key. Quality of life. I can get things (experiences) from a random bunch of animals (aka humans in cities) that I cannot get from myself/my family/my tribe... So there is a selfish aspect that is interesting to evaluate, with a shift in work being remote or hybrid, I now "need" the city less. And the negatives may outweigh the positives. If my primal needs don't get tickled by the (empty) urban fabric, why would we interact, if there is nothing to get... So lets rethink what cities have to offer. It can be a beautiful stage for the play to occur, yet the puppets aren't dancing.

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