We are all in search of answers that don’t quite exist yet. We’re juggling jobs and family, reading and research, wellness and productivity. We’re coworkers, psychologists, forecasters and medical experts, not to mention whatever our job titles say we are.
The Salve was created to be your partner. A collective of people under similar circumstances trying to fulfill similar roles, who are willing to share their findings to help shoulder the unreasonable workload of today.
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It’s almost here. Businesses are now preparing to reenter into the workplace in the coming weeks in what many consider step one into the “new normal”. Every landlord and tenant will have their own dates and timelines, but talk is finally beginning to turn to action.
To help, we wanted to focus on a few short term, cost-efficient tips that tenants and landlords can implement easily to increase both the mental and physical health of tenants and employees in the fight against the spread of COVID-19.
Breathe Easier: A Pandemic Office Cleaning Primer On Air Quality
- Implement air purifiers
- Use HEPA or high-MERV filters for AC systems
- Integrate bipolar ionization (read more)
- Control humidity (relative humidity of 40-60% recommended)
- Construct active green walls
- Add jade plants, spider plants, English ivy, Lady palms or Areca palms (read more)
- Open the windows!
How To Repurpose Open And Collaborative Space
Fast Company brought in experts to discuss how to repurpose open and collaborative space, and of course Gensler offered a great diagram to help reimagine some of offices’ most popular types of common spaces, such as cafes, kitchens and conference rooms. Take a look.
Future of Open Office Design Will Focus on Occupant Health and Personalization
This article by interiors & sources might have been published at the end of 2019, but it’s relevance to our current situation is uncanny. Here are a few highlights.
- Consider adding biophilic design elements (read more)
- Active green walls help increase productivity and remove contaminants from the air
- Bright light during daytime hours can help promote productivity and alertness
- Even better, lighting systems that simulate natural sunlight or actual natural sunlight can help maintain circadian rhythm and improve energy, mood and productivity during meetings
We’re Listening To
Convene CEO, Ryan Simonetti, recently sat down with Bisnow to discuss his company’s plans and preparations for reopening their portfolio of locations (see Convene’s Updated Operating Standards here).
Of course, the conversation eventually came to Mr. Simonetti’s thoughts on how he saw the conferencing and events industry operating in a pre-vaccine world, to which he provided the two points of focus Convene is targeting:
- Hybrid Conferencing (In-Person & Virtual) – Small component onsite (ie. speakers, presenters, facilitators) virtually broadcasted to a larger audience with professional recording and audio equipment made available.
- Virtual Conferencing – Convene has a new user interface (UI) or user experience (UX) on top of Zoom that drastically improves the presentation audio and visual quality. Convene professionals actually host and run events for their client/member.
Make Yourself At Home w/ Bisnow featuring Convene CEO, Ryan Simonetti
Checking Back In On
Our May 13th issue of The Salve focused on the strategic value flexible offices as well as suburban satellite offices would play in a company’s real estate plans in the post-lockdown, pre-vaccine stage of this COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, it is currently a topic of great discussion. Here are a few recent highlights:
Satellites & Metroburbs – RE Journals
Bell Works Chicagoland | Bell Works Holmdel
The Weekly Take Podcast w/ Spency Levy
We’re Thinking About
In his most recent blog post, author and advisor Dror Poleg (who we quoted extensively in last week’s owner/operator issue) referred to an excerpt from Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, who once pondered whether early car executives could have predicted that horses would become so obsolete and that cars would become so dominant:
Had the infant automotive industry, in 1910, seen fit to call a conference to consider the future of the horse, the discussion would have been concerned to discover new jobs for the horse and new kinds of training to extend the usefulness of the horse.
The complete revolution in transportation and in housing and city arrangement would have been ignored. The turn of our economy to making and servicing motorcars, and the devotion of much leisure time to their use on a vast new highway system, would not even have been thought of. In other words, it is the framework itself that changes with new technology, and not just the picture within the frame. Instead of thinking of doing our shopping by television, we should become aware that TV intercom means the end of shopping itself, and the end of work as we know it as present.
We Second That Take
Work Design Magazine – “Working Outside The Box Post-COVID-19”
by George Athens, AIA
