![\"SLIDE\"](\"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/SLIDE.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI began with some high-level findings from the insightful BCO piece Nicola Gillen<\/a> and June Koh produced (<\/em>Technology, Media and Telecommunications<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>BCO)<\/em>, followed by a couple of case studies where we delivered both the strategic vision and design, pointing out the link\u00a0 between the influence of new ways of learning<\/em>\u00a0and what the next generation are expecting in the workplace<\/strong>.<\/p>\n I also highlighted a point very dear to me \u2013 good design (can be playful and) needn\u2019t be expensive.\u00a0 The age-old clich\u00e9 holds true: \u2018it\u2019s all in the detail\u2019<\/em> \u2013 I often discover great examples of doing a lot with little, for example the \u2018DO NOT FEED THE RECEPTIONISTS\u2019 sign pinned up in a leading advertising agency\u2019s reception.\u00a0 It\u2019s a simple A4 printed piece of paper mounted with blu-tak, super-cheap yet very effective, instantly describing the culture and tone of voice of the organisation, the minute you walk through the door.\u00a0 In our own office here at ArchTam, we have a completely un-high-tech<\/em> solution for seeing who is in and who is out-and-about: little printed portraits of everyone in the team, magnetically pinned to a writable surface (see image below). I\u2019m not suggesting either of the above are right for every organisation, but I am certain that low-cost, meaningful design touches can <\/em>be tailored for every organisation.<\/p>\n My final point to make was the notion that \u2018playful\u2019 design needs to have more substance than the clich\u00e9s. When we were children, we spent the vast majority of our time playing, in particular role-playing \u2013 we created and imagined scenarios, environments, characters and even whole worlds. When you think about life as a designer, we continue to do this: we spend our days pretending to be the client, customer or user, in order to propose the best design solutions. The most successful of these, in my opinion, are the collaborative spaces where you get the \u2018right\u2019 people coming together to do the \u201c5 Ds\u201d\u00a0\u2013 discuss, discover, design, develop and deliver.<\/p>\n To do all of this, we need to create environments that encourage creation and discovery, without fear of failure or rejection, because it is precisely this fear that leads to conservative solutions and a lack of innovation.<\/p>\n Tim Brown (CEO of IDEO<\/a>) discusses this notion of \u2018play\u2019 and its importance in a talk from a few years back \u2013 I\u2019m not sure I particularly agree with everything he\u2019s saying but he raises some interesting points (watch it here<\/a>).<\/p>\n I\u2019d be interested to hear more thoughts on this \u2013 please comment below and feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the talk or the subject.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The clich\u00e9d foosball table, dreaded bean-bag or obligatory slide \u2026 some people think of these when you say \u201cplayful office design\u201d. I wondered how we could get beyond these when I was recently invited to give a talk, in the heart of the London design community in Clerkenwell, on that theme. I began with some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":2707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,141],"tags":[139,147],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-environments","category-tomorrows-workplace","tag-people-place-performance","tag-workplace-design"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2706"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.archtam.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Gavin Hughes (gavin.hughes@archtam.com) is an associate director of design with ArchTam’s Strategy Plus<\/a> practice in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"