The most dramatic change in the history of American office since... the invention of Dilbert's cubicles?... is gathering force, as interiors are being ripped out in favor of "creative space." That's why we're holding a special summit on the subject on March 31.
Headlining our conference will be WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey, whom we snapped last month. WeWork, started in NYC in 2011, has emerged as the leading pioneer in the field. It leases large amounts in existing buildings, then transforms them into state-of-the-art co-working hubs for its "members," who can rent out desk space or private offices for anywhere from $325 to $3,300 per month.
We snapped WeWork's other co-founder, Adam Neumann, at a Bisnow event in Las Vegas last fall. Our summit this coming Monday will be held in Crystal City, where WeWork will be working with Vornado to radically change interiors for a 2014 tech crowd.
At our event site of 251 18th St, attendees will be able to see six different experimental spaces designed by six architecture firms Vornado selected to show the stuff of their Millennial imaginations. Here we snapped SmithGroup's Amy Adye and Rob Moylan (right), with Peabody Office's Stephen Peabody and Rachel Acevedo.
Even huge corporations are buying in, as we saw when we toured Marriott's Bethesda HQ a few weeks back. Its newly renovated cafeteria is designed to create "collisions," or random but productive run-ins among co-workers. (Some of our best ideas come from interactions in the buffet line at Cracker Barrel--namely, we should make fewer visits to Cracker Barrel.) Marriott's head of corporate facilities and real estate will be among our speakers.
Gaithersburg's Sodexo (here's its Washingtonian Boulevard HQ) recently produced its Workplace Trends Report, from the input of 800 end users, and found that right now, collaboration is king. Sodexo workplace strategies guru Debra Dailey will be on one of our panels to explain the big picture of how to keep employees engaged, healthier, and happier in their worklife.
Even, gasp, Bisnow, is a creative office convert. Here's our NYC office where 20 of our team members work in a fevered pitch of collaboration and Millennialism to produce our brilliant product. And for the record, we have many women colleagues in our NY office, but evidently they had the good sense not to be pictured. (If you disagree, we're guessing you must be over age 21. Join us this coming Monday to restore your hipness. More info here.)
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