Office Renovation

In the last couple of months, my company expanded onto the whole floor of our building and I was asked to design the additional space for our IT department. It was a bit daunting, but it was also a chance to try out some ideas I'd been having about software teams. Here were some of the things I've been thinking of doing:

1) Hot seating. Our staff are often working on multiple different projects. This can mean they spend a day - or even part of the day - working on one project and then move to another. It would be good if the staff were able to rearrange themselves based on who they were working with at any given time.

2) Harkness tables. Many private schools have been using these tables to teach for decades. The basic idea is to build a table which enables all the students to see one another - as well as the lecturer - and thus encourage conversation and eliminate the hierarchy that dominates the typical classroom.

3) Wireless network. I hate unnecessary cabling, so I wanted to reduce cabling in the office by moving to an almost exclusively wireless network (we're still working on it).

Anyhow, long story short, I had the contractor tear-out the warren of offices that were left-over from the previous tennant, rip-out the carpet, etc. and then paint the walls with some more lively colors. At that point, the office looked something like this:

So, having torn the place up, next I had to build it back into something approximating the ideas bouncing around in my head. I had the floor epoxied and, being China, I found some replica Eames and Corb seating and then had the tables built by some local carpenters. I also wanted to be environmentally conscientious, so I used salvaged wood for the built furniture, put LED lighting into the drop-ceiling fixtures (that I wasn't able to have torn out), anmd installed filters for the water (instead of relying on bottled water).

After two months - and many misadventures - we've moved into the new space. It now looks like this:

It's still not completely finished, there are quite a few missing pieces: polyurathane on the built furniture, white-boards, pin-up board, wireless hubs at the tables, etc. but the big pieces are in place.