bigpicture7
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I was debating whether to post this to one of the "good book" threads or here.
Anyway, I may have missed it but I was surprised to have not seen this book mentioned in aB:
The Organization and Architecture of Innovation by Thomas Allen & Gunter Henn
This is old (2007) but it's a wonderful read about the role of physical space in innovative work. It's coauthored by an engineering management scholar and a German architect (known for designing BMW's R&D headquarters in Munich, among other things). There are some beautiful graphics on workplace layout and office building design.
Too much to summarize here, but there are messages abound for the role of offices post-Covid. In short, simply making people come to a building is not what breeds innovation: this book points to 100 ways you can do this entirely wrong and waste a lot of money. However, it does make a strong case for how physical layout and orientation of people can influence idea exchange and collaboration. I was skeptical whether these ideas would hold with 2021's technology, but I recently re-read this and sense that many of them still would. This is not to say that 5 days/week in the office will be the norm, but if there is core/overlap time in the office (~2-3 days/week) at innovative firms, folks would do well to pay these lessons a re-visit. One key theme is the role of positioning different occupational functions who benefit from reducing the formality of interacting with each other, yet whose day-to-day work does not force them to interact together. I find that interesting because, with remote work, a lot of people speak about who they "need" to speak to or collaborate with, as if that's some pre-knowable absolute information...what about the folks whom you're unaware you'd benefit from interacting with? I'll leave it at that for now.
Work like this leads me to believe that there will be some enduring place for cities as innovation hubs, despite Covid & the rise of remote work.
EDIT: it is worth mentioning that they talk about the benefits of horizontal proximity vs. vertical proximity, pointing to upsides of large floorplates
Anyway, I may have missed it but I was surprised to have not seen this book mentioned in aB:
The Organization and Architecture of Innovation by Thomas Allen & Gunter Henn

This is old (2007) but it's a wonderful read about the role of physical space in innovative work. It's coauthored by an engineering management scholar and a German architect (known for designing BMW's R&D headquarters in Munich, among other things). There are some beautiful graphics on workplace layout and office building design.
Too much to summarize here, but there are messages abound for the role of offices post-Covid. In short, simply making people come to a building is not what breeds innovation: this book points to 100 ways you can do this entirely wrong and waste a lot of money. However, it does make a strong case for how physical layout and orientation of people can influence idea exchange and collaboration. I was skeptical whether these ideas would hold with 2021's technology, but I recently re-read this and sense that many of them still would. This is not to say that 5 days/week in the office will be the norm, but if there is core/overlap time in the office (~2-3 days/week) at innovative firms, folks would do well to pay these lessons a re-visit. One key theme is the role of positioning different occupational functions who benefit from reducing the formality of interacting with each other, yet whose day-to-day work does not force them to interact together. I find that interesting because, with remote work, a lot of people speak about who they "need" to speak to or collaborate with, as if that's some pre-knowable absolute information...what about the folks whom you're unaware you'd benefit from interacting with? I'll leave it at that for now.
Work like this leads me to believe that there will be some enduring place for cities as innovation hubs, despite Covid & the rise of remote work.
EDIT: it is worth mentioning that they talk about the benefits of horizontal proximity vs. vertical proximity, pointing to upsides of large floorplates
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