Award-winning Australian property group Mirvac has launched a new ‘Adaptive Workplace’ pilot at their headquarters in Sydney. Created in response to feedback from customers, new business trends and deep research, the 1,300-square-metre Adaptive Workplace is a hybrid, dynamic test and learn space that explores the office of the future in a post-pandemic era.

“Our research has uncovered significant shifts in worker typologies post-COVID, with employees spending less time at their individual desks and wanting 80% of the workplace dedicated to collaborative spaces. It reinforced our belief that businesses need a workplace that is hyper-flexible and can adapt and respond in real-time to a specific task or the needs of the team and employees using it,” Campbell Hanan, head of Mirvac’s Integrated Investment Portfolio, says.

“We know that flexible and hybrid work is the new norm for the vast majority of Australian workplaces, yet office spaces haven’t yet adapted to effectively suit this style of working. The office does not play the same role it did pre-COVID; it’s now somewhere to collaborate, innovate, learn and socialise – things that are difficult to do from home.

“As a landlord, our priority is to deliver the most successful environments for our tenants, and that includes listening and responding to feedback and providing ideas for how our workspaces can solve issues they’re experiencing, better serve business objectives and encourage their employees back into the office.”

Observing that the Adaptive Workplace pilot would set the standards for workplaces going forward, Paul Edwards, general manager of strategy & customer at Mirvac says, “Mirvac’s Adaptive Workplace pilot has been specifically designed to facilitate modern ways of working by providing cutting edge technology and emerging design solutions that allow employees to use them the ways they want to – for team discussions, socialising, and brainstorming, as well as quiet focused work.

Workplace design has been continuously evolving over the years to facilitate the working styles of that era, Edwards says. “Our Adaptive Workplace pilot has been designed as a responsive workplace that can flex to meet working styles of today as well as of the future.”

Early feedback from the pilot indicates that it could help change ways of working. “In-person meetings can be so valuable when it comes to problem solving and creativity and having the right workspaces can help employees make the most of their time in the office,” he said.

“By allowing teams to work in the ways that best suit them, the Adaptive Workplace encourages and fosters positive behaviours and productivity as well as providing an environment that employees want to be in.”

For the Adaptive Workplace project, Mirvac started the design process by gaining a deep understanding of its tenants and clients, including significant research through employee surveys, qualitative interviews, literature reviews, customer interviews, ideation and user group workshops, the findings of which are in a new discussion paper, ‘The Adaptive Workplace: Designing the workplace of the future.’

In addition to Mirvac, the project also included award-winning architect, Davenport Campbell as well as leading technology supplier, XY Sense and other commercial suppliers.

Edwards noted that there were significant learnings throughout the whole design and building process, particularly the need to eliminate traditional office mandatories.

“What we already know is that people want the ability to plug and play anywhere in the office, often preferring to sit down and work in the breakout room or community space, so they also bump into colleagues. This needs to translate to the workflow and solutions in a space, so that it’s easy and intuitive, empowering the user to do their best work wherever they are,” Edwards says.

Over the six-week period since the launch of the pilot at Mirvac’s HQ, there has been an 18 per cent increase in utilisation, indicating that employees are enthused about working from a space that gives them the ability to work in the way that they desire.

Read Mirvac’s new discussion paper, ‘The Adaptive Workplace: Designing the workplace of the future’.

Architecture News & Editorial Desk

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