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INDEPENDENT OIL & GAS CLIENT CASE STUDY

As we continue to strive for simplicity, it’s vital to remember that establishing a unifying vision at the onset of the project remains a crucial step of any real estate investment. A vision serves as a foundation and helps point strategy in the right direction, with benefits evident in the overall outcomes and impact.

At the onset of a recent project, our client was faced with a common workplace decision, to renovate or relocate. In this case study, we delve into the challenges they faced, strategies we implemented to tailor design solutions to their needs, and the benefits the solutions provided their team.

REACHING AN INFLECTION POINT

After 40+ years of steady growth, our client found themselves at a complex crossroads. Their workplace no longer supported their company vision and ideal culture. Its traditional design heavily favored individual workstations and fixed office space, making it difficult for the organization to shift as its team grew and workstyles evolved. Their space had become a hindrance to their ability to achieve their business objectives.

They needed to renovate or relocate. While each of the two options had pros and cons, both meant they’d be faced with myriad options for how to design their space without a solid understanding of their actual needs. Instead of trying to make sense of the wide range of possibilities, they needed to align around a core vision to bring simplicity to their decision-making process and help them shape the design of their future workplace.

SIMPLICITY & ALIGNMENT THROUGH VISIONING

To provide the organization with a clear strategy, our team partnered with the leadership team to guide them through a series of visioning workshops, allowing us to better understand their existing habits, functional needs, and desired future state. Multiple departments were included in these workshops, ensuring that all salient needs would be addressed in our proposed design solution.

The goal of these sessions was to outline the core company vision and pinpoint the Essentials and Advantages that would ensure their investment achieved its ROI while providing a competitive advantage. We also focused on understanding how design shifts could enhance each department’s work, and to help encourage the culture of collaboration and belonging that was core to the organization’s vision of a “home office.” This alignment around vision eliminated space options and designs that didn’t align with their key objectives, helping them save valuable time, avoid unexpected expenses, and create a successful workplace. Ultimately, these sessions helped the client’s leadership team feel more confident in their decision to move forward with finding a workplace to call home.

FINDING THE RIDDLE’S SOLUTION

Using the established vision, our team worked to create design solutions to further address the client’s core objectives. Through our proprietary Strategic Programming Tool, we leveraged data to create a modular planning system of workspaces. The design included individual closed spaces and open collaborative configurations, that could serve the current needs of the team while giving them the ability to quickly evolve to allow flexibility over the next 10 years.

To help mitigate future challenges and confirm our design solution had a positive impact on the team, we created a series of pilot spaces that were tested by multiple departments. These tests illustrated how the environment enabled the new ways of working and promoted the cultural behaviors they wanted to reinforce.

Using insights from the pilot, our design featured “neighborhoods”, where each department’s space had the necessary space types needed to execute their roles. These spaces also featured unique color schemes matching the teams’ personalities and incorporated soft furniture and neutral lighting, to evoke a sense of home through comfort.

EVALUATING THE IMPACT

At the onset of this project, our client was faced with an uncertain future. Without strategic direction, both renovation and relocation were a gamble. But, by leveraging a vision they were able to simplify their options and make a confident investment in their new workplace.

Additionally, the agility of a modular design and analytics leveraged from the proprietary Strategic Programming Tool provided additional benefits. The client saved an estimated $30 million in costs by eliminating two floors of expected office space, while still maintaining a design that can evolve as needed easily and without extensive cost.

Addressing these challenges allowed the organization to create a new workplace that resonates with its people and makes work feel like coming “home”.