By Carole Hawkins, Staff Writer
When Dixon Hughes Goodman moved from its Southside office to Riverside Avenue in October, it opted for an interior makeover as well.
Gone were the walled offices with heavy old-style wooden desks. Replacing them were groups of low-walled workstations, topped with transparent panels filtering light from floor-to-ceiling windows.
"I feel like I work in a different place," said Hannah Hut, marketing coordinator for the accounting firm. "Before, my office didn't even have a window — it was almost like a dungeon. Here, everything is fresh and clean."
Downtown developers for decades have been re-imagining business districts into more flexible mixed-use types of layouts. While they were doing so, the look of real estate indoors has also been changing.
Office cubicles are out. Workstations are in.
Walled executive offices are out. Glass is in.
Desks are smaller. Employee cafés and collaborative meeting spaces are larger.
Sunlight shines everywhere, not just on the desks of corporate partners.
The trend, which began more than a decade ago, was accelerated by the recession, as downsized companies converted to a leaner office footprint, said Leith Oatman, senior vice president of design firm Gresham, Smith and Partners.
"The open office layout is the most efficient way to use real estate," she said. "The cost of real estate for most businesses is a big number, right next to employee salary."
Also driving change is the millennial generation's demand for a work environment that's healthier, more pleasant and more collaborative.
Access to sunlight
Traditional designs put upper management in closed offices flanking the windows, while the workforce sat at cubicles on the inside. However, studies show the amount of time senior managers spend in the office is often significantly less than the workforce, Oatman said.
Access to sunlight is important to employee health, she said.
"People don't have to see if there's a purple car outside," Oatman said. "But do they have to sense if it's a sunny day or rainy day, or even if it's dark outside versus daylight."
When Jacksonville insurance company US Assure relocated two years ago, Oatman was in charge of updating its interior design.
She surrounded executive offices with glass walls and moved them to building's core, placing employee workstations at the outer edges.
More collaboration
The leaner workstation, besides opening the space to sunlight, also promoted employee collaboration, Oatman said.
"It's a myth that higher panels provide more acoustical privacy," she said.
As workstations became smaller and brighter, company cafes and meeting spaces expanded and became more multifunctional.
At its new Riverside office, Dixon Hughes Goodman designed a company café that features a host of healthy food selections, bar seating, lounge chairs and long tables. The break room doubles as a meeting room.
Lance Windley, office managing partner, said the company's leaner, team-oriented interior parallels a shift in the way the company operates — one that places more trust in its workers.
"Our workspace is designed so our employees can come in here, work more collaboratively and more efficiently, and then leave," he said.
"We spend as much time attracting the right people to work here as we spend attracting our clients," he said. "If you have smart dynamic employees, then getting good clients is easy."