Does your office have the common areas it needs to thrive?
Jane Jacobs was a 20th-century journalist, author, theorist, and activist. She wrote about modern cities, their many problems, and how to make them better. One of her concerns was “the loss of the commons” — the erosion of shared resources in urban environments, things like public parks, swimming pools, and libraries. She was concerned that this erosion diminished the health of communities by tearing apart traditional connections and focusing instead on individual, private well-being.
How common spaces drive culture and performance
In my experience, “the commons” is also an important concept in commercial architecture. A striking example is the Best Buy headquarters in Richfield, Minnesota. It is an enormous, multi-story building with three giant wings — the kind of building that could easily lead to organizational fragmentation, with different departments each holed up in their corner of the building and rarely interacting with other parts of the company.
But the architects very cleverly designed the building with a central atrium — a large, towering, airy space that housed the only coffee shop in the building. In order to get from one wing to another, you had to go down to the ground floor, walk across the atrium, and then take an elevator up to your destination. And to get a cup of coffee, you also had to head down there.
I sat there sometimes when I had a break between client meetings, and it was fascinating. You crossed paths with everyone. The CEO and other C-suite execs mingled with department managers and new employees. Informal conversations took place that would never have happened otherwise. I labeled the area the “piazza,” after the public squares that are community meeting places in many Italian cities. I am convinced that this “commons” contributed to Best Buy’s lively corporate culture and business success for many years.
It's sad to think about what Best Buy’s piazza looks like since the pandemic. I haven’t been there in many years, but I’m guessing it’s pretty quiet. That is certainly the case in many of the half-empty corporate offices I visit these days.
I think Jane Jacobs was right. Communities, be they cities or companies, need shared public spaces in order to thrive. Looking at a bunch of postage-stamp-size faces on a video screen is not the same as chatting over a shared cookie. I don’t think all companies will go back to the 40-hour in-office workweek anytime soon. But leaders need to get creative about how to reclaim the commons and the sense of community it nourishes.
If you’re rethinking how to build culture and connection in your organization, get in touch.
