The Outdoor Office By American Studio Jonathan Olivares Design Research, presents three distinct scenarios for working and studying outdoors

Domus Web Article:

The Outdoor Office by American studio Jonathan Olivares Design Research, being exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago until 15 July 2012. 

"The Outdoor Office presents research and design on the subject of outdoor work furniture for corporate, institutional or educational contexts, made possible by grants from The Graham Foundation."

Hospitality Business News: Hotel Food and Beverage Trends

"The combination of catering revenue, public room rental income, audio visual fees, and banquet service charges accounted for an estimated 55.5 percent of total F&B department revenue.
For these full-service hotels, the offering of F&B is not just a source of revenue, but an amenity used to position the property within the marketplace.
Losses within the F&B department are no longer tolerated by owners. F&B managers struggle to contain costs and grow revenues.  The ability of management to attract local patrons, boost catering revenue, and increase beverage sales within their restaurants are examples of successful tactics that have generated profitable revenue."

To learn about the tools PKF-HR offers to benchmark the performance of hotel F&B operations, please visit www.pkfc.com/benchmarker.  This article was published in the May 2011 edition of Lodging.


 

Working Alone in Common Lobby Space

Working Alone In Shared Space

From Conventional to Collaborative, Steelcase

"Though the nature of collaborative space varies according to culture, the one constant is the need for a greater variety of informal areas that give workers a choice about where and how they interact. That choice can come in many forms—lounge seating, focus rooms, stools and tall tables, perhaps even file islands that invite colleagues to gather and compare notes when they bump into each other on the go.
“Formal conference rooms are great for presentations, but informal spaces encourage a different kind of interaction—more unstructured, more creative, and more conducive to a collaborative culture.

Technology has freed knowledge workers to work just about anywhere, causing organizations to re-evaluate the role of their physical workplace. This much is becoming clear: The need for dedicated offices and walled conference rooms is on the wane, replaced by a desire for informal collaboration space.

“The collaboration plan represents a cultural shift from space that is ‘mine’ to space that is ‘ours.’ It encourages
people to start thinking of the entire floor as their office, not just their individual workstation.”

Steelcase collaborative office space design - Bringing nature indoors

Meeting Outdoors

Light Work, Informal Gathering with Colleagues

Princeton Students working outdoors

Light, Privacy, shelter, Comfort... Outdoors

Business Travel Set to “Take Off” in 2012: Deloitte Survey Millennials, Generation X likely to fuel growth in corporate travel

Andaz West Hollywood Hotel Meeting Space

Deloitte Business Travel Survey:

"Corporate travel will likely fuel the travel, hospitality and leisure industry in 2012 as many Millennials and Generation X professionals expect to take to the road more often, according to a new Deloitte survey. Specifically, 85 percent of business travelers surveyed expect to take more or the same number of trips next year with 27 percent of 18-44 year olds expecting to take more trips in 2012, while only 16 percent of business travelers 45 years old and above are planning to take more trips next year.

Two-thirds of respondents (67 percent) say they often work in their hotel room, with younger business travelers enjoying working in more social spaces, such as executive/business lounges and the lobby or common area. Nearly two-fifths (36 percent) of the 18-44 year olds surveyed say they often work in the lobby or common area, while only 17 percent of those 45 and older do the same."

The Future of Work Innovation Co-Labs: part of Marriott's "Brand New World"

During the March 2012 Marriott Hotels & Resorts Global General Manager Conference in Los Angeles, ten prototypes designed in collaboration with IDEO, Marriott, and Steelcase will be tested by general managers. The future of work furnishings are softer and warmer, of varying heights with the possibility of rearranging seating at the moment.

Crafting Chairs for How We Sit Now

 

Wall Street Journal Article | Cal Arts Professor, Herman Miller & Steelcase Designer, 80 Design Awards from IDSA.


"While teaching a design class at California College of the Arts several years ago, Brian Kane noticed that his students often didn't sit. They instead draped themselves across their chairs or lounges, completely absorbed by their various electronic devices. Sealed off from the world by earphones and entranced by glowing screens, they were as likely to sprawl sideways as to sit up straight. Even in public places, many of them liked to rearrange the furniture and transform those spaces into their own customized zones for working, meeting or socializing. "





"MAKE IT SOLID | An early prototype of a new outdoor chair Mr. Kane is designing, left. Like all of his designs, he had to tweak it—wrapping a rod frame around the seat—so it could withstand the growing girth of the public."