Hey there, Kimball team. My name is Kelsey Omis. I'm a New York City-based interior designer specializing in workplace at Perkins Eastman and this is how I use every space to redesign our office. When I first joined the firm in 2019, this space was bustling with designers and architects collaborating, sharing lunch and hosting lots and lots and lots of happy hours. But with COVID forcing us into a hybrid work model, the overall reduction of people in the office and the changing of technology, our space hasn't exactly kept up with the times. My vision is to use every space and Kimball products to identify the things that are missing and most important to us and redesign our studio space to be an active, inspiring and collaborative experience that's truly fit for 2022. So, let's get started. This is Studio X4. The interior studio at Perkins Eastman that consists of designers, architects, design strategy, environmental graphics and business development leaders. As it currently stands, it's kind of a sea of work stations with a couple collaborative areas around the perimeter. One thing that I've heard several times and something that we've tried to implement in the past is more meeting space. We are an extremely collaborative group and the one thing that's been missing from the hybrid work or work from home in general is the ability to gather around a table and sketch out ideas together. The colors are... minimal. But some would say it's a blank slate for design. I didn't say that, but I'm sure someone has. Because of the hybrid work model, there isn't a need for this many workstations anymore. All of the current desks are of the same size and storage capacity, regardless of the person's job type or preferred working style. That could be a great opportunity to diversify the workstation types and integrate some more working postures considering we have so many different types of people with so many different types of jobs working in one space. As you can see, we don't really have any artwork on the walls, except for these beautiful hand sketches that someone did for an educational project back in 2019. I wonder who did those? Right, it was me. Rather, we have a number of areas where teams have displayed project work sketches from design shurets or helpful guidelines like this. I'd like to keep that aspect of the design and emphasize it. Really allow teams to use every space available and encourage them to proudly display their project work for the rest of the studio to see. Based on everything I just mentioned about the existing space, I've identified the most important goals for this new design. Increased meeting space for both informal collaboration and private team meetings, diverse workstation types and reduction of quantity, creation of neighborhoods to co-locate teams, encourage space customization and project display, and bring life back into our studio with color. With those primary project goals in mind, I then turned to Kimball's design typologies to see what exactly these spaces will be functioning as and what types of furniture do I need to be specifying in order to satisfy them. The Kimball space typologies being used in this project are work your way to efficiently support a variety of people and job types in a hybrid work model. The meetup to create more room for collaboration and integrate more technology into meeting spaces and culture cafe to encourage quick chats, informal pinups, and ultimately bring the life back into our studio. I started with the meetup. I decided to keep the existing meeting room on the east end and close it to be a private conference room. I also wanted to add an additional meeting room in the center for larger team meetings and this will also help break up the entire studio so we don't have that sea of workstations again. I then layered in sections of workstations, keeping in mind that I'll want to mix in a variety of different workstation types. Finally, I filled in all the extra space with culture cafe collaboration zones. Here's what the final plan looks like. With the entire space thoroughly planned and the correct furniture place, let's now take a more in-depth look at the space typologies, the furniture selected, and the design itself. First, let's look at work your way. I've created three different workstation types to accommodate three different types of workers. The transient desk, the standard desk, and the work course. The transient desk comes with a 48-inch height adjustable desk and a 38-inch privacy screen. As you can see, it contains no storage and not much space to personalize, except for the privacy screen that may be used as a stackable surface. This desk is for the free address worker who mostly works on their laptop and doesn't have much of a need for storage such as samples or papers. These include business development leaders who are in and out of the office between meetings, our design strategy team who work remotely a lot, and also visitors from our other office locations who are visiting the city for a while and need a place to work for the day. These desks have been custard in groups of four and located in three different locations around the office to facilitate collaboration or allow people to sit near different teams. They're also paired with a larger privacy screen and some file storage. The standard desk will be the workstation that the majority of people will have access to. It includes a 60-inch height adjustable workstation, cabinet storage below, a 57-inch privacy screen, and a metal mobile pedestal with a cushion top, two store purses, and backpacks, and encourage a coworker to come stop by your desk for a chat. This desk will be occupied by designers, architects, the environmental graphics team, and really anyone who needs a medium amount of storage. As it stands now, we have file cabinets spread throughout the studio for teams to store project material and finishes. Therefore, we don't need a ton of personal storage. We feel that system works really well right now, so I've gone ahead and done the same here. To make it more interesting, I've changed up the colors on the mobile pedestals and the privacy screens to add more fun and interest into the space. This could also be fun when seating the different teams next to each other where every team gets their own color combination. The workhorse desk speaks for itself. It's for those people who need lots and lots of storage and workspace like senior architects and designers managing multiple projects at once. It includes a 60-inch height adjustable desk, a 57-inch privacy screen, plenty of lower cabinet and file storage, a bookcase with sliding doors, a display shelf with upper storage, a metal mobile pedestal with a cushion top, and a shared wardrobe. Notice that I've talked about each of these workstation types in terms of job description and not hierarchy. At Perkins Eastman, people aren't categorized by their job title or their level of experience. Everyone sits mixed in together regardless of any of that. Efficiency and job satisfaction come when people have the right kind of workspace to support the kind of job that they do and when people feel as they are equals, which I feel like is really important. And if you've also noticed, every workstation has a height adjustable desk to promote wellness and is paired with the Kimble Wish height adjustable task chair. Now let's look at the meetup. I've enclosed this existing meeting alcove and added conference type furniture for private meetings and client conference calls. For this four-person meeting space, I've selected the 42-inch diameter round table and the Portada chair with wood legs. The new center meeting space is partially enclosed for semi-private meetings and large teamwork sessions. It has every space storage, walls, flanking it on both sides with integrated pin-up and whiteboard space as well as technology integrated. This is an eight-person meeting space with the free standing conference table in the center and eight Theo guest chairs around it. And finally, culture cafe. For the culture cafe, there are two informal collaboration spaces for design shurets, pin-ups or brainstorming. These include every space storage with integrated technology, movable, more casual furniture, and other movable technology accessories. Some of the products used are the X-seed media cart with screen, the core magnetic marker board, the joel round ancillary ottoman, the super cool high back four-star swivel-based chair, and the joel round wood top ottoman, just to name a few. Kimble defines culture cafe as a space that plays an important role in defining an organization's branding culture. But I would argue that every aspect of this space does that. From allowing co-workers to pull up a pedestal next to your desk and have a chat or lots of fun informal collaboration zones with fun accessories, and furniture to promote design innovation. Every corner, every piece of furniture will ultimately define us as a studio, as a culture, and as a company. After the crazy two years that we have had, our studio has really become more like a family. We love having happy hours and social events, both in person and virtually. We got really personal over Zoom the last two years. Someone argue a little too personal. And having space that can allow us to do that in person now will just really make our bonds that much stronger. To Kimble and the every space team, I hope you've enjoyed my design story, and I'll see you guys in Chicago.