Property Lobby looks to give free rent

The Property lobby’s concern about the impact on CBD businesses from staff not working from the office as frequently as they used to – and the reduced effectiveness they see is a consequence of people not attending everyday – has reached a point where it is calling for free rent periods to help out.

OK – so that’s not really true. ?

Instead it is treading the familiar path of lobbying for people to be directed to attend.Broad return to the office edicts have recently been issued by the NSW Premier’s Department?and the NZ Government, with a more nuanced hybrid approach in Canada. These follow announcements by large corporate players such as Amazon along similar lines.

We completely agree that a level of office attendance is critical for most organisations and recognise the impacts that non-attendance can have on CBD businesses. But we don’t buy into a one size fits all model or that everyday attendance is needed for the oft quoted elements of learning and collaboration. And we recognise there can be issues with distributed or remote work.But for most organisations, hybrid is here to stay and the biggest competitive advantage will come from ensuring you have a strategy to ensure it works effectively.

Where no man has gone before

While the traditional office sector sorts its office attendance approach, we have been further building our expertise in the higher education & research sectors.

Part of this has involved sending our intrepid Principal Chris Alcock on a world study tour with the University of Melbourne to understand the latest and best in terms of learning and teaching and university facilities.

The tour comprised visits to fourteen universities across the UK, Europe and the US and was an eye opener on the power of project-based learning to transform the learning experience and at the same time inject new life into the campus.

Over the coming issues we will be writing a series of the key highlights from the tour. In this issue we will provide a first up some insights from University College London (UCL) below.

Study Tour - University College London

The new East Campus of University College London (UCL) was one of the first sites we visited and is ground breaking in a number of ways.

Located at Queen Elisabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, the new UCL campus joins other education and arts institutions in manifesting the legacy value of a former Olympic site, including Sadler's Wells’ 550-seat theatre and hip-hop academy, a new Victoria and Albert museum and storehouse that will house millions of pieces from the V&A's back catalog, BBC Music Studios which will provide a new home of the London Symphony Orchestra and a new campus for the London College of Fashion.

It’s dramatically different to the ‘residential tower legacy’ planned for our own Olympic site at Homebush in Sydney. Hmmm …

Also significant is the approach adopted by UCL in planning its new East campus where rather than replicating the traditional models in place at its historic Bloomsbury campus, it has adopted new approaches to teaching and learning, research and workplace.

On this basis all the courses offered and research facilities are multi-disciplinary whilst the workplace is based on an activity-based working model with no assigned offices nor desks. It is a powerful example of the opportunities for innovation inherent in a new campus development.

What we have been up to recently...

TEFMA 2024

We recently participated in the Tertiary Education Facilities Management Association (TEFMA) Conference in Auckland.

The Conference reinforced an almost universal focus on making academic workplaces more sustainable (read – better occupied and utilised) with it being the most common theme across the sessions. Key in this was a reduction in offices and aspirations for greater sharing.

In a way it was pleasing to see that it reflects much of the current work we are doing. Many universities are on the verge of this but are yet to achieve the transition.

UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE

One of our several projects we have been working with at the University of Newcastle involves the redevelopment of the Health Education Research Building (HERB) and the consolidation of the College workforce in the development.

The space provides a mix of learning, teaching and workspace.

The project has many facets including the redevelopment of a carpark level into teaching labs and workspace, and blending the needs of people already in the building (in an existing fitout) with a greenfield development in the redeveloped carpark.

The project is making great progress with a view to consolidation in mid-2025. When complete, the building will adopt an agile / ABW model for both existing and relocating staff. There will be no offices in the newly developed space and sharing will be adopted across the building for both academic and professional staff.

What we have come across...

The future's so bright I gotta wear...

Two Harvard students have recently demonstrated how Meta ay Ban 2 glasses can be linked to meta search engines to cross search AI face recognition technology with personal information in seconds. ?In the demo they show how using a language model they combined the information to identify a range of information about strangers?in real time.?

Office Densities: How Low (High) Can You Go?

Ran across this great panel session from the recent Workplace Trends Conference in the UK. Take a look and see what these practitioners think about the future of office densities.?Discussion with Rob Harris (Ramidus Consulting), Tim Oldman (Leesman), Dr Nigel Oseland (Workplace Unlimited), Gillian Stewart (Michael Laird Architects) and Budget Workman (The Changing Work Company).

Stuck for a Xmas gift?

Take a look at the latest in robotics from the Consumer Electronic Show 2024, this video showcases robots across areas such as food delivery, companionship, general-purpose and transport. While some are still being developed, others are in their 3rd generation and 'on the road'. As William Gibson, SF writer who coined the term 'cyberspace', put it: "The future is already here – it's just not evenly distributed."

Think Electoral Maps Are Hard To Interpret? Try Floor Plans

"Floor plans impacting workers’ experiences are being reviewed daily by executives who may be ill-equipped to evaluate their options despite thinking they can. In other words, remodeling a bathroom at home does not make you a workplace expert." This article by Phil Kirschner explores how workplace experts can, just from floorplans, interpret and diagnose the many positive and negative elements of a design that can impact the employee experience.

Want to know anything more?

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