Woods - A New Generation Office System

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Gerard Taylor for Orangebox Autumn 2017

Creating Great Collaborative Workspaces

GERARD TAYLOR / Design Studio 1 Butler House, First Floor, 51 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3PT T. 020 7739 8208 e-mail. gerry@gerardtaylor.com

www.gerardtaylor.com

A NEW GENERATION office system

WOODS – A NEW GENERATION office system

®

A NEW GENERATION office system

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2017 Orangebox an updated version of our original 4 cornerstones map, which defined Orangebox at the outset and results from our product development strategy meeting of summer 2017.

On the following page is

The 4 cornerstones are our powerhouse platforms and each requires high investment and lengthy development cycles. Within each, major product developments will always be underway.

The others are complimentary products or product collections with limited development costs and shorter development cycles. Their purpose it to compliment our key platforms, allow continuous vitality and ensure we retain the culture of a start-up, more maverick less corporate powerhouse.

Gerard Taylor for Orangebox Autumn 2017

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Network Landscapes

cornerstones map

Ergonomic Task Seating

Light-Touch Task Seating

Perch

Essential Smartworking

®

Hospitality Hospitality

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Network Landscapes Coda

Moving Away from the Desk

Library

Why Build Walls?

Woods

®

B.A.E

Scooby Doos

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Creating Great Collaborative Workspaces

The office is migrating from a fixed hierarchical system-focused environment to a more casual

and diverse net work pace.

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1. Why woods?

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2. Why biophilic design has come of age.

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3. The contribution of plants.

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4. Why faux botanical is smart.

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5. Simplicity through an intelligent plant pot system.

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6. How scent diffusion technologies add a sensory layer to woods.

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7. What buying an office plant company and a cool faux botanical supplier /manufacturer says about Orangebox.

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8. Why we should be producing woods.

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woods configurations

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How within this market do you become an aspirational brand able to prevent yourself being played off against a competitor if your product becomes a commodity?

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Achieving a balance between

passengers

+ innovators,

between your ‘version off’ and real and vital product innovation, is a difficult game.

One gives you short-term gain from your network but weakens your potential to achieve a

unique and irrefutable ‘long game’ proposition which is what true innovation, builds.

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has been designed to answer a precise question; How can we design products “ that are difficult to copy and are so singular and clear in their innovation we can better protect them. And if copied would be seen as plagiarizers of Orangebox’s innovation. ”

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Why Biophilic Design has come of age.

Biophilia, not plants

The intelligence behind biophilia

Plants were big in the 70s and 80s, and some of us still recall rubber plants, aspidistras and cheese plants with a combination of fondness and embarrassment. In the 90s, for some reason, office plants and houseplants lost their coolness and were banished from the workplace.

We survived quite a long time without them, although bamboo, mature olive and fig trees continued to feature within atriums and larger open spaces.

The central tenet of the biophilic movement is our inborn need for beneficial contact with the natural world; contact that’s essential to our physical and mental health, and also to our productivity and wellbeing.

Now, however, technology is taking so much out of us that we crave the balance offered by the natural world. Slowly, slowly then all at once plants are moving back to centre stage within the office. A key reason for this is that we’re looking to add individuality, personality and ‘made by hand’ attributes to our interior spaces.

The movement’s origins lie in the 1984 book Biophilia, written by Edward O Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of America’s foremost evolutionary biologists and environmentalists. Wilson is widely credited with amplifying our understanding of the biodiversity of our planet in a bid to encourage us to protect key species and habitats and avoid the unintended destruction of life-sustaining ecosystems.

The EO Wilson Biodiversity Foundation describes the book as: This time around we’re not just using plants in the workplace, we’re employing biophilic design. This Portuguese co-working space (left) says it all really: we want environments that have been curated by individuals, not committees; spaces that balance the perfection and polish of our global, homogeneous technologies with something more natural and comforting.

‘Exploring the evolutionary and psychological basis of humanity’s attraction to the natural environment, the book introduced the word biophilia into the language, and has been influential in the shaping of the modern conservation ethic. In 1988 Wilson edited the volume Biodiversity, based on the proceedings of the first United States national conference on the subject, which also introduced the term biodiversity to the language. This work was very influential in creating the modern field of biodiversity studies.’

Wilson championed the belief in humanity's innate affinity for the natural world, and examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes may be a biologically based necessity that’s integral to our development as individuals and as a species. His idea caught the imagination of diverse thinkers, and it explains dynamics of life such as, ‘our fear or phobias of snakes and spiders which are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artefacts such as knives and guns rarely elicit such a response. Why we find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics and why we would rather look at water, green vegetation, or flowers than built structures.’

The biophilia hypothesis provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity, and, as society becomes further estranged from the natural world, it also implies serious consequences for our wellbeing. As Wilson later observed, relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life materially, psychologically and spiritually: ‘ We have to remember that humanity grew up in nature so to speak and over millennia our survival through generations was entirely depended on our connections with nature. We now need the living world around us and in most societies we want to return to nature and be there for a while, that is not just for our pleasure but as it was in Paleolithic times – for our survival.’

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‘ A waterfall signifies an abundant supply of fresh and helpful water.

Flowers represent the bursting forth of nature, it represents happy feelings, being there with nature, which is coming forth and is bountiful. I think beauty is our word for the perfection of those qualities of the environment that have contributed the most to human survival.’

Over the last thirty years we’ve seen the environmental consequences of our relentless thrust for progress. With this has come a recognition of the urgent need to employ a higher degree of environmental intelligence in the design of our cities and buildings. Cities need to incorporate open spaces and the natural world, and buildings need to be more human-focused and inviting, and also climatically and environmentally friendly. These observations reflect the thinking of today’s authors about the need for biophilic design: ‘ We now acknowledge that alienation from the natural world is not a given but a mistaken design choice that we have pursued. It’s a predicament that we have designed ourselves into and we have to now concisely, with increased effort, design ourselves out of with the help of biophilic design.’ ‘ We’re spending 90% of our day inside, we are moving towards a crisis of place and we have become profoundly disconnected to the places where we live and work, and so we are caring less about these places.’ ‘ We are suffering from place disconnect and it’s a major challenge for us to figure out how we can become more embedded and rooted in the places in which we live. It’s important for no other reason than for us to care about them and therefore want to look after them.’

Widely available research illustrates the benefits of biophilic design. In hospitals, research has proven that when we are stressed and go into a natural environment, our blood pressure goes down and our immune responses improve, as do our recovery rates. In factories, it’s been proven that productivity is higher when a facility has good natural light and visible connections to an external green environment. And in schools, pupils’ attainment and commitment levels improve within environments with good natural lighting, access to natural outdoor spaces and the use of fewer artificial materials.

We should see biophilia and the expanding potential of biophilic design as part of the wider sustainable green design movement, reflecting an agenda of reconnecting to and caring for the natural world around us more intelligently, in line with the basic idea that

‘life follows life’.

Layers of additional and original thinking enhance Wilson’s ideas, including:

Jay Appleton – Prospect-Refuge Theory ‘ Appleton began with a ‘Habitat Theory’, which examined animals’ responses to their surroundings, and extended that to humans through our unique ability to understand symbols. He suggests that as we developed from our hunter-gatherer ancestors we came to understand previously real threatening and comforting aspects of the landscape symbolically. Storm clouds, chasms and shadowy places were still felt to be potentially dangerous, though those dangers might no longer be directly experienced in the same way. He concluded that most people have an “inborn desire” for environments that allow the capacity to observe without being seen – to assess threats from a place of safety. He called this the Prospect-Refuge Theory.’

Gordon Orians & Judith Heerwagens – The ‘Savanna’ Hypothesis Beauty is not in the eyes of the beholder, but rather built into our minds. There seem to be strong universal, cross-cultural patterns that underlie much of what we find beautiful and enjoyable. These patterns have evolved from primitive habitat preferences that kept our ancestors safe and healthy over eons of human evolution. Nature has fortunately provided an intuitive guide to habitat quality—our emotions. Positive emotional states of interest and pleasure, associated with preference, signal that an environment is likely to provide resources and supports that promote survival and wellbeing, while negative affective states serve as warnings of potential harm or discomfort.

Because humans evolved in a natural landscape, it is reasonable to turn to the natural environment for clues about preference patterns that may be applicable to building design. Drawing on habitat selection theory, humans are psychologically adapted to and prefer landscape features that characterized the African savannah, the presumed site of human evolution.

Although humans now live in many different habitats, our species’ long history as mobile hunters and gatherers on the African savannahs should have left its mark on our psyche. If the "savannah hypothesis" is true, we would expect to find that humans intrinsically like and find pleasurable environments that contain key features of the savannah that were most likely to have aided our ancestors' survival and well-being. These features include: 01. A high diversity of plant (especially flowers) and animal life for food and resources.

02. Clustered trees with spreading canopies for refuge and protection.

03. Open grassland that provides easy movement and clear views to the distance.

04. Topographic changes for strategic surveillance to aid long-distance movements and provide early warning of approaching hazards.

05. Scattered bodies of water for food, drinking, bathing, and pleasure.

06. A “big sky” with a wide, bright field of view to aid visual access in all directions.

07. Multiple view corridors and distances.

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Biologist Stephen Boyden – 12 Design Principles for Well-Being There is a mismatch between humans’ evolutionary environment and current industrialised settings, and this mismatch is detrimental to human well-being because current environments do not support the full range of our evolved survival and well-being needs.

01. Engagement in spontaneous social encounters 02. Relaxation and psychological restoration 03. Privacy and movement between interaction and solitude 04. Learning and information sharing 05. Connection to the natural environment 06. Regular exercise 07. Sound levels not much above or below that of nature 08. Meaningful change and sensory variability 09. An interesting visual environment with aesthetic integrity 10. A sense of social equity and respect 11. An ability to maintain and control personal comfort 12. Making sense of the environment.

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Biophillia suggests that ‘we possess an inborn need for the beneficial contact with the natural world – which is essential to our physical and mental health, productivity and wellbeing’.

Perhaps its increasing importance is best understood when we comprehend the results from the latest wide ranging NHAPS survey from the US, which shows that on average we spend 92.4% of our time indoors.

NHAPS (National Human Activity Pattern Survey)

in a residence

-Refuge Theor

office/factory

in a vehicle

other indoor location bar/restuarant

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outdoors

tenet of the biophilic movement “ isTheourcentral inborn need for beneficial contact with the natural world.

Contact that’s essential to our physical and mental health our productivity and wellbeing. Because through our formative years of well over one and a half million years, we existed in tribes as hunter-gathers.

”

Our era as hunter-gathers may have “ ended 12,000 years ago but we still have a residue of ‘defaults’ of this mode within our super smart brains.

”

Yep we have primeval needs that we “ should to pay attention to, if we want to live well and be happy. ”

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The contributions of plants.

Extensive research carried out over the last decade (and referenced at the end of this document) collectively establishes the ten key contributions plants bring to the workplace.

1. Plants contribute to “Green Building“ design

2. Plants create a healthier interior environment

The Green Building movement is becoming increasingly important, as architects, developers and clients strive to design, construct and manage buildings that are more sustainable and environmentally smart.

One of the benefits of interior plants is that they help cool the air around them through evapotranspiration (the movement of water from the soil through the plant and into the atmosphere). Large interior plants are also excellent at reducing temperature through shading.

Interior plants can lower operating and maintenance costs while contributing to a ‘green building’ design agenda. Plants cool via transpiration, a process that, according to the US Department of Agriculture, can decrease air temperature in offices by ten degrees. Additional research shows that heating and cooling costs can be reduced by as much as 20% with an informed selection and placement of plant materials.

Plants remove toxins from the air thanks to microbes that live in the potting soil (or other media), which work constantly to turn toxins into food for the plant. Indoor plants reduce VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds): organic compounds that easily become vapours or gases. VOCs can help contain elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, sulphur or nitrogen to negligible amounts, making the air much cleaner to breathe. This makes them the greenest way to improve air quality.

Specifying planting within the office environment is seen a part of a bigger move towards achieving sustainability within the wider urban environment, and in turn it satisfies the ‘triple bottom line’ of environmental, social and economic considerations. There is a growing consensus that indoor plants will become standard technology; a key building installation element for improving indoor air quality, with an important role to play within the green building agenda.

For example, rainwater is a free resource that can be collected from the roofs of commercial buildings and used to water interior and exterior planting. Grey water (water that’s already been used once, for instance to wash hands or dishes, and then treated for use where drinking quality isn’t required), can also be used to water plants.

Plants also attract more than their fair share of dust, meaning particulate levels (including airborne spores) can in some situations be reduced by as much as 20%. This could lead to a reduction in the use of air cleaners (although not to their replacement), and an improvement in indoor air quality. When plants transpire water vapour from their leaves, they pull air down around their roots to supply their root microbes with oxygen. Root microbes also convert other substances in the air, such as toxic chemicals, into a source of food and energy. Microbes, such as bacteria, can rapidly adapt to a chemical contaminant by producing new colonies resistant to it.

As a result, the longer they are exposed to toxic chemicals the more effective they become at converting them into food.

Plants can reduce CO2 levels by 50%, and also reduce the dust, bacteria and mould that would otherwise be being inhaled by employees (they’re able to reduce dust levels by up to 20%, for instance). The correct placement of plants can also reduce the need for air conditioning and, by keeping the air at a higher, healthier humidity level (up to 20%), reduce the incident of illnesses such as tickly coughs that are symptomatic of low humidity levels in air-conditioned environments.

There is also a body of recent research from Australia and the USA showing that interior plants are effective at removing a range of pollutants at relatively low planting densities in real office situations.

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3. Plants reduce noise

4. Plants reduce fatigue & sickness, while improving wellbeing

Unwanted noise can be distracting, and if we’re persistently disrupted can make us less productive. Plants, however, absorb, diffract and reflect sound: an acoustic benefit that’s only only now being appreciated by acousticians thanks to a growing body of research. Plants also create a psychological perception of quiet, complementing their actual acoustic qualities. The species, size, shape, container, top dressings and compost all influence the sound reduction capability of plants, and sound absorption also varies with the sound frequencies and the physical properties of the interior space.

Emissions from building constituents, construction materials, synthetic furnishings, computers, electrical equipment and other materials we use every day cause high concentrations of toxic chemicals within our interior environments. Formaldehyde can be released into the air from furniture, flooring as well as multiple products even from the personal grooming products we use daily such as hair products and nail polish, which become trapped inside the building.

Plants alter room acoustics by reducing the reverberation time, and work better in acoustically live spaces such as those that have multiple hard surfaces. Hard surfaces don’t vibrate when sound hits them because they’re rigid, so sound waves are reflected off and back toward the source.

Flexible material like plants, however, vibrate, transforming sound waves into other forms of energy, as well as deflecting them.

Diffusion occurs when sound waves strike a dynamic or uneven surface, breaking up the uniformity and concentration of the sound waves and scattering them evenly around a room’s area. As plants and shrubbery are naturally uneven, sound waves hitting their surfaces are reflected around any given space more evenly, reducing echoes and the intensity of sound.

Plant parts such as stems, leaves, branches and wood all absorb sound, and the number, size and surface area of plants will all affect sound absorption levels. Positioning several arrangements around a space is more effective than concentrating plants in just one location, and research has shown that arranging different plants in groups has a better acoustic effect than positioning plants individually.

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Unfortunately, contemporary large-scale internal environments are virtually hermetically sealed, with the new generation of energy-efficient buildings exchanging stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air less frequently, resulting in higher concentrations of toxic chemicals. Plants help to remove many unhealthy and unwanted compounds, and research has shown that plantfilled rooms contain 50-60% fewer airborne moulds and bacteria than rooms without plants.

NASA’s pioneering Clean Air Study, which I’ve discussed elsewhere, first documented the environmental benefits of plants, noting for example that the humble rubber plant can help eliminate toxins such as formaldehyde from the air and, as time goes on, becomes increasingly efficient at eliminating airborne toxins. Subsequent research has found that all sorts of plants continuously remove chemicals from the air, with both the leaves and the microorganisms in the soil that help plants grow, contributing to the improved air quality.

We are becoming increasingly aware of and intolerant of the damaging consequences of what may previously have been considered and accepted as small incidental irritants. And we’re starting to appreciate that green plants can help counter these irritants, while also humanising the workplace; reducing absenteeism and health problems and enhancing wellbeing. Both individuals and the organisations they work for increasingly report this highly desirable outcome, and understand the very real contribution that the use of plants in our interior spaces can make to the bottom line.

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5. Plants increase our concentration & memory

6. Plants make us more innovative & creative

We breathe in oxygen and convert part of it to carbon dioxide, which we then breathe out again: the greater the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air, the more tired and weak we feel.

The carbon dioxide generated by busy humans working within a well-sealed building can lead to drowsiness, impaired concentration and lower productivity. Plants, which naturally extract carbon dioxide and exchange it with fresh oxygen through photosynthesis, are a great way to decrease workplace stress, and can enhance productivity by 12%.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. The greater the leaf surface a plant has, the more efficient it is at removing carbon dioxide from the air: it’s not the size of the individual leaf that counts, but the sum of the surfaces of all the leaves on the plant. Plants reduce a building’s carbon footprint, and raise the level of oxygen in the air: this refreshes us, increasing our concentration and productivity levels, improving our ability to focus and reducing our mental fatigue.

Research has found that higher levels of oxygen lead to fewer mistakes being made by workers, and improves performance when doing cognitive tasks. Such tasks are completed faster, and (in the case of computer workers) productivity is increased by between 10%-15%. The inherent ability of plants to reduce excess carbon dioxide in the air therefore equates to higher levels of concentration in your workforce.

During one research study, women and men working in an office environment that included flowers and plants demonstrated more innovative thinking; generating more ideas and coming up with original solutions to problems. Men who participated in the study generated 15% more ideas, while women generated more creative, flexible solutions to problems. Multiple research studies have confirmed that exposure to nature can increase overall productivity by up to 15%; the same percentage of employees becoming more productive if ‘lean’ workplaces are filled with just a few houseplants. Employees who actively engage with their surroundings, meanwhile, are proven to be better workers.

Studies in laboratories and in naturally ventilated and air-conditioned office spaces have shown that tasks performed while under the calming influence of nature are performed better and with greater accuracy (and yield a higher quality output) than those performed in a ‘synthetic’ environment. Moreover, being outside in a natural environment can improve memory performance and attention span by 20%. Work performed under the natural influence of ornamental plants, meanwhile, is normally of higher quality and completed to a much higher level of accuracy than that performed in environments devoid of nature.

Air pollutants, even at imperceptible levels, can cause ‘sick building syndrome’, with symptoms including headaches, nausea and sore eyes, nose or throat. Multiple projects have proved that such symptoms can be ameliorated in environments in which indoor plants have been installed, with staff wellbeing levels also benefiting.

When humidity levels are too low, individuals are more likely to develop viral infections: when it’s too high, their vulnerability to other disease increases.

Plants can help bring humidity levels within the optimum range for human health.

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7. Plants reduce stress & increase happiness

9. Plants inspire a better, healthier quality of life

Research by Gallup indicates that two thirds of the US workforce cite gardening as their favourite hobby, while the Englishman’s garden has for generations been known to be his restorative refuge.

Gardening is a positive way to channel stress and frustration into something beautiful, and provides satisfaction, comfort and joy. Extensive studies have shown that spending time cultivating plants, gardening or landscaping is an effective way to reduce levels of stress, with those who garden and nurture plants displaying lower stress levels and suffering less mental distress than those who don’t.

As a species we need sensory stimulation in order to properly function, and if deprived of this we can become demotivated and uninspired. Multi-sensory environments have been proven to improve the development of thinking, intelligence and social skills, and the different textures of plants provide varied stimulation that’s essential to both emotional and physical health.

Nurturing a living plant and helping it to grow and flourish is a satisfying and positive activity that offers pleasure and real physical benefits. And plants in the workplace are soothing precisely because they resonate with these positive associations and help humanise the overly synthetic working environment, promoting employee satisfaction and wellbeing.

A density of planting is increasingly recognised as an important natural counter to the demands of the technology-focused workplace.

8. Plants create a better-designed environment The Portuguese co-working space (shown above) has evidently taken plant density to an extreme… But interior plants generally cost less than most alternative corporate decoration choices, and positively enhance perceptions of the workplace while contributing to office wellbeing by creating a healthier and more pleasant work environment. Extensive studies conclude that people (whether clients or employees) regard a building with interior planting as more expensive-looking.

Plant displays can be especially useful space management aids, forming natural screens and partitions, and helping guide people around a space.

This, together with all the benefits discussed above, gives woods the potential to become an original tool to help rebalance and revitalise the contemporary workplace. The high density planting within woods also facilitates a denser use of space, as it makes the presence of fellow workers less obvious. This, in turn, frees ups space for a richer diversity of collaborative typologies.

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Growing or having flowers at home makes us happier, less stressed, and more relaxed. Overall, adding flowers to your home or work environment reduces your perceived stress levels and makes you feel more relaxed, secure and happy. Flowers can help you achieve a more optimistic outlook on life, and plants – while lacking the intensity of flowers – offer many of the same benefits. As EO Wilson observed, ‘Flowers represent the bursting forth of nature, happy feelings, being there with nature, which is coming forth and is bountiful. I think beauty is our word for the perfection of those qualities of the environment that have contributed the most to human survival.’

Natural environments induce a positive outlook on life, making people feel more alive and active. And at work, plants can help improve people’s performance by increasing their perceived vitality and energy levels, which in turn encourages them to put more of themselves and their energy into their work.

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10. Plants create a more empathic community

Key Research Publications

The insight that plants create a more empathic community comes from research into how access to the natural environment is better for us both personally and communally, especially within more densely populated cities. Its simple truth would, I think, be accepted by most of us.

Published by NASA in 1989, Interior Landscape Plants for Indoor Air Pollution Abatement was one of the first research papers into the issue: it remains widely referenced and contains a level of detail not often replicated. This is also true of the eFIG Health & Green Living and Working with Plants, which offers extensive links to multiple research sources for all subjects discussed.

The research shows that people who spend extended lengths of time around plants tend to have better relationships with others. This is due to measurable increases in feelings of compassion, and the belief that being centred within a dynamic community is important to realising a good life.

Extended exposure to nature and wildlife increases people’s compassion for each other just as it increases their compassion for the environment in which they live. In short, being around nature and plants can help to improve relationships between people and increase their concern and empathy for others.

Cohesion in any community is critical to the success of that community, and one way it can be achieved is by unifying people around a park or botanical garden. Parks help to bring neighbours together and they often increase local activism. Residents of neighbourhoods with well-maintained parks are much healthier, and healthy people are happier people, with those who exercise often enjoying better overall health and a more positive mental outlook than those who don’t.

. . . . . . .

Among other research being continuously referenced are: Bill Browning and Sir Cary Cooper’s books, The Global Impact of Biophilic Design in the Workplace, and Biophilic Design in the Workplace, published in 2015 by Human Spaces and supported by Interface.

Biophilic Design, by Kellert, Heerwagen & Mador, published in 2008.

UK/Dutch/Australian research The Benefits of Green Versus Lean Office Space, published in 2014.

Cities Alive: The Green Building Envelope, 2013, part of Arup’s extensive Cities Alive series.

The Plants in Green Buildings White Papers by Ambius.

The extensive writings of Judith H Heerwagen.

Numerous articles in the design and architectura press, newspapers, trade organisations and companies involved with ‘Green Building’ design.

People associate living in areas of natural beauty with a higher quality of life.

A high quality of life, in turn, benefits the entire community, because residents spend more money and positively affect the economy and social pulse of their area. Thriving communities are ones in which natural beauty is appreciated as a part of an overall high quality of life, which is why installing landscaping is crucial to both the success and happiness of the individual and of the public.

Communing with the natural world increases people’s feelings of vitality and energy. As noted earlier, multi-sensory environments improve the development of thinking, intelligence and social skills, and the different textures available through the use of plants provide varied stimulation that’s essential to both emotional and physical health.

While, as yet, the research specifically relates to the importance and contribution of external natural space, it doesn’t take a huge leap to understand that at least some of the communal payback from closer intimacy with plants within our interior spaces will be an increased empathy for our community of fellow workers.

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‘ I wanted my garden to feel lush and tropical with a good mix of evergreens so that in the winter it looks as good as in the summer, because I overlook it all the time.’

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Why faux botanical is smart.

In the early summer of 2017, an exhibition on the contemporary Japanese house at the Barbican in London won wide acclaim for its vibrant design. Intrinsic to the design was the use of super cool faux botanical trees and plants. This, perhaps more than anything else, demonstrates that the design and manufacture of fake flowers, plants and fully grown trees is now achieving a new degree of artistry and quality.

London-based interior designer Abigail Ahern was one of the first to understand the potential of this new typology, and in partnership with her sister she’s created a vibrant business importing faux botanicals from Asia.

When BBC Gardeners’ World visited her London garden, a magical space where real and faux plants mix in such a way that you can’t tell the difference between them, Abigail observed: ‘I wanted my garden to feel lush and tropical with a good mix of evergreens so that in the winter it looks as good as in the summer, because I overlook it all the time.’

When Joe Swift, the interviewer, remarked, ‘Abigail, you know this is Gardners’ World and I’m a little bit worried this is plastic – and you have a few plastic plants around your garden,’ she responded:

This insight from a creative designer proved decisive in the development of woods. While, as extensively discussed, real plants contribute considerably more than just their good looks to interiors, we know that within some interior spaces the architectural design of woods could result in some plants not prospering – no matter how good the curating and care of the stock. We were also anxious to ensure that specifiers wouldn’t feel intimated by the demands of looking after living plants – even though this has been partially solved by the integration of the super smart Lechuza plant pot system.

Abigail’s observation that the mixing of real plants and faux botanicals is not a reductive process but rather a dynamically challenging and engaging one shared by many designers and clients, is something we at Orangebox absolutely agree with.

‘First of all Joe, they’re not plastic, they’re faux botanicals; that’s the new word for them. Secondly, I want the garden curated like an interior space, so there are big vases with oversized foliage trailing everywhere. And thirdly, I think that when you play around with what’s real and what isn’t, it kind of doesn’t make sense and throws your mind and makes you feel even more enchanted. Not everything makes sense immediately: they do add a whole different dimension to the garden.’

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Simplicity through an intelligent pot system.

Early in our development of woods, we realised that its maintenance had to be robust and simple to convince clients and designers of its viability. An important piece in the jigsaw was offering clients a failsafe, user-friendly, idiot-proof way to look after such a large number of plant pots.

We researched the market extensively to find a smart product with a proven pedigree, and found our answer in a product invented by German manufacturer Lechuza (a sister company of Playmobile, Germany’s largest toy manufacturer).

The multi award-winning plant pot invented and patented by Lechuza has an integral irrigation system, ensuring optimal water supply. Pots only need their water replenished every three months, and the plants they contain can never be overwatered.

No matter how many woods units you spec into an interior spaces, using the Lechuza product makes things simple: pots only need watering four times a year, and if any plants fail, they’re easy to swap out.

Standardising on this one universal solution is the same smart simplification that led budget airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet to use only one type of plane in their fleet, in place of the more expensive and problematic mixed fleets of carriers such as BA. It solves the biggest headache of specifying interior plants: the ongoing effort (and hit and miss nature) of looking after them. And it removes the major stumbling block that puts so many organisations off having plants, even if they’d like them.

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How scent diffusion technologies add a sensory layer to woods.

The biggest deficiency of faux botanicals is shared by the output of many contemporary Dutch tulip growers (in their case resulting from excessive interbreeding of tulips from limited source stock): namely a lack of scent.

We’ve all experienced the amplified aroma of fresh bread near the bakery in supermarkets, the fragrance of fresh coffee within new generation coffee shops and the heady bouquet of fresh flowers at a cool-looking pop-up flower stall in a shopping mall. The science and subtlety being achieved by leading scent and air freshening companies is now well understood, and the benefits of integrating them well documented.

Scent is now a given in Las Vegas casinos, for example, as studies have shown that pumping scents such as freshly cut flowers into the atmosphere encourages more intensive use of slot machines.

Research has demonstrated that memories associated to odours have more emotional weight than memories associated to visual, tactile or verbal cues, and that, compared to other stimuli, odours are especially potent reminders of autobiographical experiences.

We also know through this growing research that curated odours within office environments can not only contribute to the creation of a more pleasant workspace, they also have the potential to enhance air quality. The importance and potential of using designed and curated odours in interior environments is a growing science, as these four brief excerpts testify:

‘ We found that memories that were re-evoked by odours were reliably perceived as more emotional and more evocative than memories re-evoked by the visual variant of the same cue. From this data we concluded that the distinguishing emotional quality of odor-evoked memories is due to processes occurring during sensory recollection and not due to memory selection.’ ‘ It currently remains unknown whether the reason why odors are thought to be ‘the best cues to memory’ is not only because of their emotionality, but more importantly because they may be able bring to consciousness memories that would otherwise be forever forgotten. One reason why odors may be able to evoke memories that might otherwise not be remembered is due to their low rate of exposure interference. An odor has a far greater chance of never being encountered again than a visual or auditory stimulus does. The specificity of odors as encoding cues may therefore enable them to elicit memories where no other cue can suffice.’ ‘ The olfactory area is unique among the senses in synapsing directly with the amygdala–hippocampal complex, the neural substrate of emotional memory. The amygdala is also essential for human olfactory memory.

Moreover, we have recently demonstrated using fMRI that there is a direct neurobiological correlation between the subjective experience of emotion during autobiographical recall to an odor cue and heightened activity in the amygdala. This is not the case when the same memory is triggered by the visual version of that same item or when a memory is triggered by a similar odor that was not related to a significant experience.’ ‘ The impact of indoor air quality on the well-being and comfort of a building’s occupants are key to creating an indoor environment which increases human performance. To date, efforts to improve indoor air quality have focused on creating thermal comfort and on developing technical means of reducing odor pollution. Conventional approaches are bound to remain incomplete because they fail to take account of physiological and psychological effects of the sense of smell. Acceptable indoor air quality can only be achieved if the reduction in air pollution is combined with the addition of natural olfactory stimulants with sufficient positive attributes. Indoor air will only be perceived as acceptable if olfactory criteria are taken into consideration in addition to the traditional criteria of thermal comfort.’

www.scentair.com www.airscent.com

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What buying an office plant company and a cool faux botanical supplier /manufacturer says about Orangebox.

A famous story lies at the heart of the success of the iPhone; a story that turned a faltering Apple around and sent it on a decade of growth to become the world’s most valuable company. Apple had already successfully launched the iPod, which had an acrylic screen. This worked ok, though it was small and prone to scratching, and the development team had planned to run the same material on the new phone.

Then, towards the end of the project, Steve Jobs said in an NPD meeting that he hadn’t slept the night before because he knew that plastic sucked.

To launch a game-changing product with scratchable plastic was inviting failure: Jobs didn’t do failure.

Extensive research revealed that glass tough enough to stand the rigours of the job wasn’t currently being produced anywhere in the world. A glass company in New York called Corning Glass had invented such a glass in the 1960s, but shelved it because they couldn’t find a market for their invention. Steve Jobs convinced Corning to not only put ‘Gorilla Glass’ back into production, but to gear up to produce it in significant quantities. Today Coring employs hundreds of workers in Harrodsburg, Kentucky (cowboy country), producing one of the few Apple components to be made in the United States.

Jobs’ decision to switch from plastic to glass at the last minute is a great example of bold and imaginative decision making. Many people slated the $500 iPhone as, ‘the most expensive phone in the world’, but by the end of 2010 Apple had sold 90 million of them, taking, from a standing start, half the total profits generated by the global cell phone market.

Big decisions make great companies. And, to turbocharge our own growth and put space between ourselves and our copying competitors (as Apple did with Samsung), Orangebox has to make similarly bold and imaginative decisions.

Maybe more than most of you I take Boss’s plagiarising of AftD with AtoM as a watershed destructive move by a key competitor who lack the research and ambition to make their own way in the world. It will embolden other manufacturers to do more of the same, not less, especially given the universal copying and commoditising of the Pods in the last three years – by everyone! And this destructive market dynamic will only increase in the coming years as the new office landscape finally shapes up, while key archetypes (as set out in the new map) hold pretty constant through the next 5+ years.

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Our ambition must therefore be to always position ourselves ahead of the curve. And always lead with innovative products that clients and the market recognise as being ‘on the money’; capable of solving upcoming needs and fulfilling ambitious mandates. We should, by default, be seen as innovators not passengers, with Orangebox considered the ‘go to’ super-partner to build a relationship with.

Plants within offices have to a greater or lesser extent always been part of the interiors mix, but they’ve never been at the centre of the project; they’ve always been a specialist sub. I think the time is now right to put them centre stage and buying a fledgling (but proven) office plant company and a cool faux botantical supplier is I suggest, a cleaver move at this point in our evolution.

We have a one-off chance to do this, and we need to do it with confidence and conviction, just as Apple did with ‘Gorilla Glass’. It will make a big statement, energising our network with something that’s totally unexpected, yet super relevant. And hopefully eliciting the response:

‘ That’s such a smart and cool thing to have done!

They know what they are doing, and they’ve got balls! ’

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Why we should be producing Woods’ importance lies not simply in its design (clever though it is), but also in its narrative of product innovation; the possibility that, after spending a day within a carefully considered workplace featuring woods,

workers could potentially leave work more energised than when they arrived.

Biophilia, and its premise that there are real and profound benefits in surrounding ourselves with nature, is a growing agenda within the green/smart buildings movement. Jim has also engaged our network with his WWW narrative and I believe we now have a window to act on this groundwork and surprise the market, with woods.

Woods take some of the key attributes of AftD and Fielding Tables and combines them into a fresh and complementary product, amplifying the potential of each while introducing a unique and innovative new system into our product mix.

Woods is also a clever way to introduce basic and cost effective worktables into our portfolio (simplified Fielding tables). These can be planned in density, with the biophilic design of woods allowing more people to work within a designed space without feeling that they’re cheek by jowl with others. Woods means you could be working adjacent to colleagues yet lost in your own concentrated world of work, thanks to the dense planting surrounding you.

But more important than all of this is our desire and, increasingly, need to bring creative, compelling and unique solutions to our saturated, plagiaristic market.

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need to continually engineer “ We space between Orangebox and the marketplace by introducing new, more ownable product typologies – as we’ve done so successfully with our task seating and Air. Our next job is to do the same with Smartworking. ®

This is our number one agenda with woods, just as it is with Fielding Tables. ”

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A NEW GENERATION office system

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takes some of the key attributes of AftD and Fielding Tables and combines them into a new, complementary product.

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Making our workplace a more engaging, stimulating and restorative environment. p.39

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Woods’ architectural plant shelf units are the perfect and simplest dividers within open plan environments. p.40

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Plants create a healthier interior environment.

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When the office is buzzing with a good level of background chatter, we can work and talk in close proximity to each other.

Woods is a clever way to introduce basic low cost worktables into our portfolio. p.46

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Be lost in your own concentrated world of work.

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‘ We want to return to nature and

be there for a while.’

Plants make us more

innovative & creative. p.56

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Woods reinvigorates the AftD bench system

+

introduces low cost worktables

+

updates new table tops onto the AftD units.

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Ø240

360

1830

150 (~6 L)

230

1150 920

1470

345

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15 25 25

40

450

700

1050

730

Electrical conduit

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570

1470

Electrical conduit

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A NEW GENERATION office system

“ We need to continually engineer space between Orangebox and the marketplace by introducing new, more ownable product typologies... ” Gerard Taylor for Orangebox Autumn 2017

Design – Russell Warren-Fisher

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|

Gerard Taylor for Orangebox Autumn 2017

Creating Great Collaborative Workspaces

GERARD TAYLOR / Design Studio 1 Butler House, First Floor, 51 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3PT T. 020 7739 8208 e-mail. gerry@gerardtaylor.com

www.gerardtaylor.com

A NEW GENERATION office system

WOODS – A NEW GENERATION office system

®

A NEW GENERATION office system