The modern office is starting to look more like a Rainforest Cafe than a place of business. Amazon.com Inc.'s new Seattle headquarters has 40,000 plants. Down the coast, every other floor in Samsung's two-and-a-half-year-old San Jose office space is a garden. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. wants all employees in its Hangzhou workplace to be no more than a one-minute walk from an outdoor green space.
In a bid to keep workers happy, productive and, most important, in the office for as long as possible, companies have flocked to all sorts of design trends over the years. Last decade it was kegs and pingpong tables; now Mother Nature is in vogue.
The trend, called "biophilia," is based on the idea that humans have an innate connection to nature. "We see it as returning to what our bodies and our brains need," said Ryan Mullenix, a design partner at NBBJ, the architecture firm that worked on the new Amazon office. It's like Paleo, for the office.
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
