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Toward a Creative Ecology of Workplace Design

Margaret Portillo and Jason Meneely

Introduction

In a single day, we sometimes work in what may be considered traditional offices, but increasingly find ourselves working in cars, airplanes, coffee shops, and at home. Some work happens in solitude while other tasks get done face to face or transpire virtually. This essay recognizes the evolving ecology of workplace design. How does a contemporary work environment shape our work and, more importantly, influence innovation? Conversely how does the way we think, engage, challenge, and build consensus impact the workplace? The complex relationships between people and place can no longer be explained in positivistic terms of stimulus and response. Rather, we see the need for a new model, inspired by ecological concepts, that acknowledges the creative workplace as an interrelated system of dynamic, complex, and varied human–space interactions sustaining individuals, groups, and organizations.

In this essay, we introduce an ecological model that speaks to conditions for creativity as well as recognizing obstacles preventing innovation from occurring. Importantly, this ecologically based model applies to work occurring across diverse habitats; from dedicated workspaces to temporary bivouacs, from on-site hubs to off-site refuges, from physical workspaces to virtual ones. Across environments, a goal remains the same: optimize individual and team performance while strategically strengthening the organization. Creativity penetrates a range of workplace attitudes, motivations, behaviors, and outcomes. The ecological model presented in this chapter fosters an increased understanding of adaptations and innovations in workplace design. We begin by discussing one example of the evolving workplace influenced by technology, new work processes, and expectations; in this case, comparing knowledge transfer and technology-based workplaces to mid-century precedents.

The discussion next turns to the need for adaptability in the individual and across groups defining a work environment. We then proceed to share insights from a multi-methods study exploring job satisfaction, climate for creativity, worker characteristics, and the physical workplace. The essay concludes by drawing conclusions about ways to cultivate a creative ecology in the workplace and raises questions for additional thought and study.

The Evolving Workplace

Both focused adaptations and paradigm-shifting breakthroughs contribute to novel and appropriate workplace designs. For example, in some sectors play is now explicitly integrated into the seriousness of work. Understanding the evolution of fun in the work environment offers insights into ecological strategies for a changing the workplace: adapting to new ideas of work, diversifying physical workspaces, and maximizing creative energy exchange.

The origins of this trend can be traced to Silicon Valley in the late 1980s and 1990s, where a spirit of entrepreneurship coupled with rapidly accelerating technological and work process shifts produced the dot-com era. West coast start-ups formed by entrepreneurial upstarts began forming a new type of work culture that grew rampantly, declined sharply, but nevertheless has had staying power and influence in the workplace today (Van Meel and Vos 2001).

Spending significantly more time at work than home, the typical dot-com employee not only began dressing more casually in the workplace but began morphing their offices into work-play spaces, replete with ping-pong tables, golf greens, dartboards, basketball hoops, and fully stocked break rooms. With a radical break from modernist workplace ideals, these dot-com settings often incorporated found signature pieces into their interior spaces, marking their individuality and aspirations to change the world. For example, founder of IDEO, David Kelly, frequently made it a point during his tours of the firm to comment on the full-scale DC-3 plane wing suspended from the ceiling.

Symbolizing one of the most precedent-setting aircraft ever invented, the “Douglas,” in no uncertain terms drew a parallel with one of the most innovative aircraft ever invented to a level of innovation sought after by IDEO in designing products, services, spaces, and interactive experiences. Yet if a wing of a DC-3 became a commonplace fixture in knowledge-transfer workplaces, its symbolic poignancy would be greatly reduced. Creativity exists in context.

Likewise this essay does not offer a one-size-fits-all prescriptive approach to the creative workplace. Design does not (and cannot) substitute for indecisive leadership, defective products, inefficient processes, micromanagement, or failure to adapt to a changing marketplace. What good design can do, however, is support the evolving workplace ecology and even sometimes provide strategies to adapt to a changing world.

Again, creativity demands comparison. It cannot be judged without informed precedent. In the past, a mid-century ideal of the workplace offered elegant high-rise offices, manifested in glass, steel, and granite, designed to impress. The first perception of classic international-style work settings, for example, was one of a well-appointed lobby, containing a symmetrically organized grouping of Mies' Barcelona or Le Corbusier's Piet L2 chairs in an architectural enveloped in a beautifully proportioned space containing a truth-to-materials palette of glass, metal, exotic words and stone. This office form represented the epitome of modernist good taste (Van Meel and Vos 2001). Here the presence of an expansive corner executive office with a sprawling mahogany desk was not questioned. Transcending local vernacular or even the organizational identity of the corporate client, this approach to workplace design spoke volumes to success, power, and hierarchy.

In contrast to this mid-century prototype, “a fun in the workplace” approach centers on anti-establishment, unconventional and iconoclastic spaces where social hierarchy has been somewhat flattened and status is only given to good ideas. Both orientations create a shared identity and sense of purpose; one draws strength as establishment while the other celebrates the anti-establishment. Commitment to excellence may well be the same across approaches, but the physical and social manifestation of the organization is quite different. Play aligns with an explicit fostering of creativity, even willingness to experiment and fail, at times, placing a premium on challenging conformity and existing norms.

While the historical roots of the workplace were aligned with a commitment to production, efficiency, and appropriateness, we see play in the workplace not as a replacement for the seriousness of work but as a vital counterpoint that pits novelty against appropriateness – two key ingredients for innovation. As Gardner noted, “creativity is best described as the human capacity to regularly solve problems or to fashion products in a domain, in a way that is initially novel, but ultimately acceptable in a culture” (Gardner 1989). We are not advocating frivolous play; rather, we are talking about serious play or challenging fun where novelty and acceptance collide.

While the heyday of the dot-com era clearly is past, the approach to fun in the workplace is still alive and well. In 2010 Fortune magazine ranked Google as one of the best places to work (Tkaczyk 2010). This workplace campus, affectionately dubbed the Googleplex, speaks volumes to a new form of corporate culture. At Google, first impressions note a chaotic vibrancy of lava lamps contrasting with a grand piano in a space where search queries are prominently projected on the walls. Where long hours are coupled with intense performance, demands to best the competition are expected. So how do Google staff decompress? Throughout the Googleplex, employees can enjoy workout spaces filled with weights and rowing machines, and after the workout they can schedule an in-house massage. Long hours spent at work prompt the use of on-site washers and dryers to catch up on laundry. Others refocus by playing in the video arcade or challenging co-workers to a game of foosball or ping-pong. So how does this new emphasis on fun in the workplace relate to creativity?

Adaptability: The Push and Pull of the Creative Individual

Early research into the creative person was primarily focused on identifying the characteristics of highly regarded eminent creators – creativity with a big “C.” However, a trajectory of contemporary research has emerged which examines everyday creativity – creativity with a small “c.” A primary assumption of this perspective is that creativity is a self-actualized ability achievable by all humankind, rather than a God-given trait (Davis 2008). While personal traits do play a crucial role in creative performance, self-actualized creativity relies on identifying and overcoming personal and environmental roadblocks to creative behavior, as noted by Cohen and Ambrose:

External transformation involves sensitivity to a context as well as awareness of the limitations of a field and the desire to work hard to transform it.…Internal transformation involves sensitivity to one's self and the openness and willingness to modify one's present ways of thinking in order to construct a unique point of view.

(Cohen and Ambrose 1999)

Psychological inquiries into the characteristics of creative people have identified numerous traits that comprise the creative personality. They include a willingness to fail and take risks, high energy levels, attraction to complexity and ambiguity, independence, openness to change, and a sense of humor (Barron 1963; Barron and Harrington 1981; Cohen and Ambrose 1999; Domino 1970; Eysenck 1993; James and Asmus 2001; Mackinnon 1965; Plucker and Renzulli 1999; Sternberg and Lubart 1995).

Taken as a whole these traits describe a person who is poised to be adaptable. Expanding on these adaptive characteristics Csikszentmihalyi's study of over 90 eminent creators identified several bipolar or paradoxical traits, including a capacity to be: smart yet naive, playful yet disciplined, imaginative yet realistic, humble yet proud, masculine yet feminine, rebellious yet conservative, passionate yet objective (Csikszentmihalyi 1996). Similarly, in research examining personality correlates of eminently creative individuals Mackinnon found that creative male architects displayed increased levels of self-awareness, openness to emotions, and intuition which typically represent a more female orientation (Mackinnon 1962). Mackinnon concluded, “It would appear that the creative person has the capacity to tolerate the tension that strong opposing values create in him, and in his creative striving he effects some reconciliation of them” (Mackinnon 1962, 1970).

Adaptability as a correlate of the creative person also emerged in a study conducted by the authors that examined relationships between cognitive styles and creative performance in a sample of beginning design students (Meneely and Portillo 2005). As a whole, the sample displayed a right-brained thinking style indicating a preference for big-picture issues and generative thinking. However, those students whose projects were judged to be more creative, by an expert panel of judges, also displayed an additional preference for a left-brained thinking style. These findings suggest that creative performance was linked to flexibility of thinking. While creativity originates from the individual, it is more than individual traits or characteristics; it involves social-psychological dimensions, diversity, and context in the case of interior design (Portillo and Dohr 2000).

Diversity: Maximizing the Interpersonal Side of Creativity

While creative individuals typically display adaptable personality traits, highly creative teams often comprise diverse individuals with varied backgrounds, mindsets, and behaviors. Some scholars observed that the creative capacity of individual team members does not matter as much as finding the right combination of individuals. Leonard and Straus advocated for working with people who think differently to diversify ideation and reduce team entrenchment (Leonard and Straus 1997). Similarly Herrmann, as well as Basadur and Head, argued for assembling cognitively balanced or “whole-brained” teams where flexibility among thinking styles ensure that problems are examined from multiple perspectives (Basadur and Head 2001; Herrmann 1989). Ultimately, diversified teams increase the potential problem-solving space for developing creative solutions by expanding the gamut of behaviors, thoughts, and experiences beyond a sole creator.

Creative solutions challenge the status quo; therefore, a team that constructively leverages interpersonal conflict during problem-solving will often outperform a team that easily agrees. In fact, Schweiger and Sandberg found that teams who employed dialectical inquiry and devil's advocacy outperformed teams who employed a more consensual approach (Schweiger and Sandberg 1989a, 1989b). While devil's advocacy provides a counterpoint to a single idea or assumption, dialectical inquiry involves two or more people who hold differing views, yet desire to come to some resolution or find a higher truth through a dynamic process of exchange or reason (Schweiger, Sandberg, and Ragan 1986). Leonard and Strauss termed this process “creative abrasion,” where the friction of opposing ideas can be transformed into a force for innovation.

While the potential for creative abrasion increases with team diversity, people with different backgrounds, disciplines, and mindsets often have a hard time understanding one another. According to Leonard and Strauss, “If abrasion is not managed into creativity, it will constrict the constructive impulses of individuals and organizations alike. Rightly harnessed, the energy released by the intersection of different thought processes will propel innovation” (Leonard and Strauss 1997). In a creative ecology, tension – a healthy antagonism – creates a culture in which to innovate. The creative ecology thrives on diversity across individuals, teams, and physical spaces within an organization.

While many companies already understand the benefits of interdisciplinary problem-solving, it is important to realize that team diversity can also span cultural and generational divides. One emerging interpersonal tension involves the rise of the millennial generation into the workforce. Perhaps the by-product of a rapidly advancing society, the exponential rate of social and technological change appears to have increased the generational divide between Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials.

Although many contend that the generational divide threatens to disturb workplace interactions (Hill 2002; Jacobson 2007; Myers and Sadaghiani 2010), we argue that intergenerational diversity can be tapped as a potential resource for fostering creativity in the workplace. BrainStore, a Swiss consulting company, intentionally crosses these intergenerational divides by inviting local teenagers to join creative workshops with seasoned client company executives. In an interview with Muioi, BrainStore founder Nadja Schnetzler stated, “One of the ideas behind the company was to blend the professionalism of experts with the unbridled enthusiasm of kids” (Muioi 2000).

Interestingly, Csikszentmihalyi identified that highly creative individuals across fields typically exhibited apparently paradoxical traits in their personalities such as being both disciplined and playful; having an expert knowledge base and also remaining naive, drawing upon both masculine and feminine characteristics (Csikszentmihalyi 1996). Yet the individual worker, no matter how creative, does not operate in a vacuum. Gifford maintains that to understand human behavior in the workplace requires an understanding of worker characteristics, management style, and physical work setting (Gifford 2002). Likewise, multiple dimensions come into play in defining creativity. Evidence for the coexistence of paradoxical traits has been found in highly skilled designers (Portillo and Dohr 2000).

Interrelated: Framing Creativity from an Ecological Perspective

The phenomenon of creativity transpires as a complex system of relationships among people, their environment, their processes and products. We choose an ecological model to frame creativity since it allows us to examine its contributing components without isolating them from their broader interrelated context. In other words the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

While scholarly research into the phenomenon of creativity has increased over the last 50 years, earlier studies tended to focus on parts and how they connect for immediate creative performance. For example, early psychological studies on creativity focused on correlating certain personality traits, such as risk-taking ability, to creative performance. However, social psychologists later challenged this orientation with convincing arguments, showing how the social environment could destroy creative potential of the individual, citing cases where children are raised in overly corrective environments or where employees work in overly hierarchical offices (Amabile 1992, 1996).

It follows that individual creativity is necessary, but not sufficient for creative performance in the workplace. This truth is recognized by our ecological model that frames creativity as an open system adapting over time. Physicists studying how matter and energy flow within complex systems developed a theory of dissipative structures, which are open systems that maintain themselves in a dynamic or chaotic state, yet remain structurally stable over time despite flow and change in the components which make up the system (Prigogine and Nicolis 1977). In other words, the system, despite being chaotic, remains self-organizing. As Fritjof Capra noted:

The dynamics of these dissipative structures specifically include the spontaneous emergence of new forms of order. When the flow of energy increases, the system may encounter a point of instability, known as a “bifurcation point” at which it can branch off into an entirely new state where new structures and new forms of order may emerge. This spontaneous emergence of order at critical points of instability is one of the most important concepts of the new understanding of life. It is technically known as self-organization and is often referred to simply as “emergence.” It has been recognized as the dynamic origin of development, learning and evolution. In other words, creativity – the generation of new forms – is a key property of all living systems. And since emergence is an integral part of the dynamics of open systems, we reach the important conclusion that open systems develop and evolve. Life constantly reaches out into novelty.

(Fritjof Capra 2002)

Likewise the workplace offers a dynamic model. We define a creative ecology as an interrelated system of dependencies which supports the movement of creative energy through a given habitat, ultimately resulting in the adaptation of the entire system. Just as nature depends on biodiversity for ecological health, so too do creative ecologies. In nature biodiversity enables energy – usually food energy – to be transferred and transported rather than consumed by the system. Similarly a creative ecology depends on the diversity of its organisms (people with diverse skills and thinking styles), the diversity of its habitats (diverse environments, disciplines, and domains), and the diversity of its processes (risk-taking yet safe-keeping, playful yet judgmental) to keep creative energy moving through the system.

Figure 7.1 illustrates the interaction between individuals, teams, and organizations. The model recognizes creativity as adapting over time in a system which can grow, stabilize, or stagnate. The model embraces diversity and paradox as key elements to fueling creative growth. Within this model, the act of creativity draws on the iterative phases of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification defined in classic work by Graham Wallis. Person in concert with process contributes to the development and maturation of the system. Finally, the model recognizes creative press and product as tangible outcomes of creativity. The model can be useful across a range of domains, organizations, and settings.

Lessons for a Creative Ecology

The research study on creativity and the workplace offers insights into new ways of working and offers a model of creative ecology. This study, headed by Alexandra Miller, focused on the workplace and employed mixed methods research to explore the relationship between job satisfaction, climate for creativity, and workplace design (Miller 2005). The research approach facilitated holistic assessment and the forming of patterns emerging from quantitative and qualitative data (Miller and Portillo 2006). PUSH, the workplace under study, offered insights into how an award-winning advertising agency optimizes innovation. Offering a creative ecology of workplace design for study, PUSH explicitly positioned “fun” as a core organizational value (arguably creating a much-needed foil to toil).

Some early researchers investigating the manifestations of fun work environments, Robert C. Ford and his colleagues, defined this phenomenon as “A fun work environment intentionally encourages initiatives and supports a variety of enjoyable and pleasurable activities that positively impact the attitude and productivity of individuals and groups” (Ford, McLaughlin, and Newstrom 2003). The model of fun in the workplace showed that job satisfaction was significantly higher than average for the 31 participating employees of the 42 PUSH employees at the time of the data collection.

This study empirically tested the assumption that employees who perceive work as fun are more satisfied on the job that those counterparts who do not share this attitude. In addition to assessing employee job satisfaction with the 18-item standardized Job in General instrument, the study also gauged employee perceptions of workplace creativity with the KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity Instrument (Amabile, Burnside, and Gryskiewicz 1999; Balzer et al. 2000). This 78-item measure tapped into creative workplace characteristics and deterrents.

The positive sub-scales are organizational encouragement of creativity; supervisory encouragement of creativity; work group supports; freedom; sufficient resources; and challenging work. The negative sub-scales are organizational impediments and workload pressure. The remaining scales measured perceptions of overall creativity and productivity. Compared to normative data on the KEYS, employees perceived their work environment as conducive to creativity.

Interestingly, they recognized both organization support for innovation and the apparent lack of obstacles in the creative climate at PUSH. Scoring in the very high category were the scales: organizational encouragement, (lack of) organizational impediments, (lack of) workload pressure, and supervisory encouragement. All the scales of the instrument ranged from very high to moderate. A positive correlation between job satisfaction and a perceived creative climate was found at PUSH. Yet some differences emerged between departments and employee groups.

When considering PUSH's success in the field of advertising, the overall employee perception of creativity appeared somewhat lower than expected. Investigating this finding in greater detail was quite interesting. Specifically, those in creative departments actually scored very high in terms of their own perceived creativity; however, those working in business areas viewed the overall climate for creativity in more moderate terms. Within a creative ecology, differences emerge between perceptions of individual employees and in their collective work groups. That is, employees likely vary in their perceptions of the workplace. Even within a “creative” organization, this finding showed that some employees perceived themselves and their organization as significantly more creative than others working within the same domain.

Yet the case has been made that any type of work offers the possibility for innovation whether the task involves design or accounting. Expanding employee thinking about their own ability to problem-solve innovatively might even be more important in an organization that contains what might be commonly perceived as “creative” and “non-creative” work groups. However, the workforce as a whole viewed PUSH as supporting a creative climate integrating employee characteristics, a defined management orientation, and physical work. Not only does this study offer insights into the phenomenon of fun in the workplace, it also illustrates key characteristics of a creative ecology of the workplace.

Layering on the quantitative foundation of the study, site observations and employee interviews created a multi-layered representation of a dynamic workplace – brought to life through the construction of a narrative capturing a memorable instance of how fun fuels creativity at PUSH. This narrative, documented through the eyes of a manager orchestrating a high-stakes client pitch, described a process of intensive brainstorming, experimentation, and the transformation of the foyer and conference room to create the right ambience to ensure successful conditions for a significant client meeting.

On a day-to-day basis, employees work long hours and engage in serious fun. For example, it would not be uncommon to see a stress ball war break out between the cubicles. The overscaled “PUSH” buzzer over the entrance to the firm invites comparison to a humungous doorbell inviting clients to come play. The overlarge circular green “PUSH” buzzer symbolizes go, advance, fresh, currency. Their website entreats you to “push here”. The primary entrance to the firm is a revolving door; not selected for novelty's sake but to reinforce the concept that you always “push, never pull.” Playful design gestures continue in the foyer, open office plan, and conference room, where whimsical, biomorphic lighting fixtures and quirky furniture details continue the narrative. The intent of the saturated hues of the cubicles further underscores the feeling of fun.

However, some employees shared their concerns about the saturated yellows in the small cubicle. While the intense palette contributed to the feeling of vibrancy in the larger, shared spaces, the coloration did not appear as universally liked in the more private, focused cubicles. While some private offices surrounded the perimeter, most of these either did not have doors or had open doors, increasing a sense of connection.

The break space offers a place to gather, celebrate, and toast successes. Interestingly, all the employees interviewed for the study of PUSH commented on how the organization used the physical environment to share its passion and potential for client engagement. For example, for one client pitch, the conference room was laid in sod. For a major newspaper account, the main reception desk was transformed into a newspaper kiosk, prominently featuring the client's newspaper along with magazines, candies, and other items found at a newsstand. A freshly rolled newspaper was laid at the doormat outside the primary interior doors and the conference room was literally wallpapered with newspapers published by the potential client. The sense of intensity, creativity, and fun appeared to be infectious as the client signed on PUSH, Inc. by delivering a “one-off” newspaper mock-up with the headline “PUSH wins Sentinel account!”

Over time the relative success of the PUSH, of course, depends on many market and economic factors. Further, as an organization like PUSH evolves and changes over time, so too will the meaning of fun be translated into a design vocabulary.

Another study, with insights on a creative ecology of workplace, was conducted through on-site research at the DreamWorks Campus in Glendale, California (Portillo and Dohr 2000). At the time of the study, precedent dictated that the world-class animation studio typically had open office spaces, with pops of intense color, almost as though the animators themselves were being drawn into a cartoon. Yet to recruit top talent away from competing studios, the DreamWorks management and the design team, including Steven Ehrlich Architects and Gensler and Associates, decided on a different tack: create individual office spaces for the animators (known as artists in the industry). A private office with a view to a beautifully landscaped atrium celebrated each artist as a highly skilled professional.

In this workplace, the color and materials palette was not intensely saturated, but consisted of neutral shades, subtle and varied in texture. The creation of fun and whimsical animation films does not have to occur within a cartoon-like work environment. (Some artists found that type of environment patronizing.)

Yet by all accounts, DreamWorks was a fun workplace. Fun and discipline coexisted on the campus. The campus itself was landscaped with mature plantings and had a prominent central water feature with a stream that wound its way through the grounds. The artists observed during the study readily congregated at the pond on the campus. Stories abounded of artists and employees getting wet whenever possible, having fun, for example, through events such as nocturnal Koi releases. A sense of fun also permeated individual offices bursting with images, words, toys, lights, and craziness. Here the interior designers and architects made a conscious decision to hold back on “the design” by giving the artists a neutral architectural canvas to define their space in idiosyncratic and personal ways. By allowing the employee to personally contribute to the visual manifestation of the organization and its cultural values we see that “fun” can translate into a colorful work environment that does not have to be prescriptive and literal.

Lessons for designers extend beyond hue, value, and chrome to communicating a cohesive message where common areas make space for serious fun, directed and focused on a very serious bottom-line issue. Some clients may not care to engage with such unorthodox organizations. Some individuals may not want to work in a “fun” environment. A delicate balance between serious work and fun also must be maintained. Yet benefits may well outweigh the concerns in many instances (Meyer 1999). While this study showed much promise, more research is needed to flesh out the provocative findings emerging from Alexandra Miller's study (Miller 2005).

In their book The Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne describe cases of companies redefining their market and, thus, make way for significant innovation (Kim and Mauborgne 2005). For example, they laud Cirque du Soleil for creating an entirely new market space. At a certain point in time, organizational leadership, market readiness, and economic conditions came into alignment, making way for great success – whether or not this leadership and innovation will continue into the future is not known.

As designers turn their attention to addressing creativity in the workplace we present three fundamental lessons to facilitate the emergence of a healthy creative ecology. These lessons embody the evolving role of workplace design, to nurture and support adaptable and self-regulating systems while energizing creativity through the use of paradoxical and diverse spaces. These lessons also embody a new role for the designers, letting the workplace emerge from within the ecological system rather than from the prescription of the design team. To ensure a healthy ecology we argue that creative workplace design must support adaptability and diversity among people, processes, and place at all levels to effectively support the exchange of creative energy.

Lesson #1. Design for Support Not Control

Creativity in the workplace is anything but a closed prescriptive system. Creative systems emerge, shift, evolve, and die over time. Further, true innovation and impact can only be judged against precedent and with the passage of time. A company or organization lauded today for its innovation may not be as well recognized later; conversely an individual, collaborative, or system may be ahead of their time and may not even receive recognition within their lifetime.

Systems must be allowed to become self-regulating, attempts to over control – through design – can become detrimental and limiting to the natural evolution of the habitat. Interior designers would be best served not to design prescriptively. Forming productive partnerships with clients and stakeholders creates the foundations for design satisfaction and greater longevity. In a certain sense, it is the sustainable thing to do. For example, PUSH laid sod in their conference room for a client meeting; nighttime Koi releases helped define the culture at DreamWorks. The ecological model encourages us to design for process, not prestige.

In a certain respect, systems unfold organically. They resist design but emerge as a byproduct of process, management style, culture, and unpredictable economic and social factors. At times, designers can take a back seat to allow people and organizations to influence and shape their creative habitats. Meaning and a shared sense of identity are at risk when design becomes too prescriptive. For example, if a designer had laid astro-turf and papered the walls in the conference room at PUSH or if a designer thought a DC-3 wing would be a funky add-on to IDEO's workspace, the system would be robbed of inherent meaning and creative energy. Maturation of an organization or system must rise from within.

Does this suggest developing strategies to design malleable spaces to encourage diversity and participatory design engagement?

Lesson #2. Design for System-Wide Diversity

We present a model for the creative workplace that is both establishment and anti- establishment (see Figure 7.2). This model brings fun into the workplace as a counterpoint to the already established traditions of serious work – rooted in mid-century ideals. While we support bringing play in the workplace we also recognize that too much play becomes counterproductive, just as too much seriousness inhibits innovation. Adaptation is key to fostering the balance between novelty and appropriateness.

The root of the ecological model is based, in part, on a study done by Meneely. In this research Meneely surveyed 201 students in fine arts, architecture, interior design, and building construction to describe characteristics of their ideal creative environment. A content analysis revealed seemingly contradictorily yet creatively charged dimensions of such environments including: (1) individual and collaborative, (2) challenging and supportive, (3) familiar and changing, (4) introspective or planned and spontaneous, (5) calming and exciting, (6) chaotic and organized.

These exploratory findings suggest that perceptions of the creative environment appear more paradoxical and complex than universal. For example, some students felt they could be most creative working alone, while others felt they could be more creative working collaboratively. A third cohort felt that they needed to interlace both solo and collaborative venues to maximize their problem-solving. Some students also mentioned that they needed a supportive environment to be creative, while others mentioned that they preferred a more competitive environment where their ideas are challenged and questioned.

By providing paradoxical spaces at work, people, despite their diversity, can find their preferred ecological niche to support performance and, hopefully, job satisfaction.

While Figure 7.2 has ramifications for physical workspaces, we see applications for this model as offering utility in other design sectors.

Lesson #3. There Is No Creative Panacea

Designing a creative ecology is not a destination, it is a process. We apologize to readers who were looking for a prescriptive set of guidelines to design creative space; this model does not lend itself to off-the-shelf solutions. Creativity is steeped in context and we maintain that what work in one venue might well not necessarily work in another. Also, today's markets impose rapid demands for organizations to continuously evolve, limiting the shelf-life of the “perfect” solution. In this chapter we have argued for an ecological workplace to support adaptability at all levels of the organization. This calls for the thoughtful intersection of leadership and design.

This process suggests a new role for the workplace designer. No longer will interior designers be able to hand over the keys and say, “Voilà. Here is your new space.” Ideally, an ongoing relationship and commitment must be fostered, where the designer becomes one keystone species of many, one stakeholder in a complex, interwoven, and evolving creative habitat of workplace.

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