A survey released by international real estate advisor Savills and the British Council for Offices (BCO) has revealed that 66% of workers in Glasgow value the interior layout and design of the workplace as important, the highest number recorded in the UK along with Edinburgh. However, only 19% of employees in Glasgow feel that the layout and design of their current workplace increased their productivity. The What Workers Want poll of 1,132 office workers across the UK investigates the factors that are important to employees in the workplace, and how much they believe that their current environment satisfies those requirements. Glasgow workers also valued the cleanliness of the office more highly than anywhere else in the UK, with 86% citing it as the most important feature of their working lives, along with workers in Edinburgh. Additionally, although not ranked as a top 10 most important factor, Glasgow had the highest percentage of workers who believe it is important to have a crèche in the workplace, at 19%, and the highest number, at 50%, of workers who want access to a variety of local retail and leisure facilities. David Cobban, director in the business space team in Savills Scotland, says: “This survey successfully outlines what workers really want from their workplace and highlights the importance of  thoughtful office design.  We are working with a number of office occupiers who are moving away from the notion that ‘one size fits all’ in terms of what  workers want from their fit-out and this mirrors the results of the survey. Fit-out design needs to be sympathetic to the wishes of the employees in building if it is to be credited with improving productivity.” According to What Workers Want, there seems to be a significant mismatch between what Glasgow office workers deem important and current levels of satisfaction. By comparing these, it is possible to identify the size of the ‘frustration factor’ and thereby what organisations need to address in order to attract and retain staff. Steve Lang, director in Savills research and author of the report, adds:  “That 66% of Glasgow workers think that the design and layout of their office is important, but that only 19% feel their current office design helps productivity, should be a wake up call to employers. The frustration levels reported show that if organisations don’t get the basic office design and infrastructure right it can be a major drain on productivity and risk frustrating and alienating the workforce.” Bill Ritchie, incoming Chairman of the Scottish Chapter of the BCO, comments:”What Workers Want is a very important piece of research as it allows both office developers and employers to fully understand what their employees actually need. This in turn could significantly help with attracting and retaining staff. Our survey of Glasgow employees has thrown up some fascinating insights, such as the fact that Glasgow workers are the least likely in the UK to feel that the layout and design of their current workspace helps productivity. This finding in particular should certainly inform building designers and employers going forward – if current layouts are not working, businesses need to rethink them. Glasgow workers also voiced a clear demand for workplace crèches and access to retail facilities. “Another clear finding, which has featured heavily throughout the UK, is a dissatisfaction with the availability of quiet spaces to work. Glaswegian workers have made their views clear – and businesses now need to use these findings to make positive change.” Top 10 factors Glasgow office workers are most dissatisfied with Top 10 factors most important to Glasgow office workers Source link

The winners of the 2014 RIBA President’s Medals were announced this evening (Wednesday 3 December) at a ceremony at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in central London. The prestigious RIBA President’s Medals, which date back to 1836, reward talent and excellence in the study of architecture, and this year invited nominations from 317 schools of architecture located in 61 countries, the highest number ever in the history of the awards. Nick Elias, from the Bartlett School of Architecture (University College London) received the highest design prize of the evening, the RIBA Silver Medal (awarded to the best design project at Part 2 – Diploma/Masters level) for ‘PoohTown’. While revisiting Slough and the industrial growth and social inequality the town experienced during the 1920s – the decade when A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories were first published and became popular for their accounts of a fictitious happy world – the project re-evaluates covert responses to socio-political exclusion. This is achieved by reinterpreting the underpinning state of contentment that typifies Milne’s protagonist in order to propose ‘happy’ architectures where residents can live, work and play together in a sustainable economic network. By doing so, ‘PoohTown’ establishes the grounds for a subtle critique of today’s cities potential to prescribe policies of happiness alongside familiar amenities (a concept, in the author’s opinion, worryingly absent in current city planning) and alerts for the need to design for emotions as a way to find architecture’s purpose in a changing world. Nick was tutored by CJ Lim and Bernd Felsinger. Simon Dean, tutored by Jane Houghton and Stephen Baty at Kingston University, was awarded the Bronze Medal (for best design project at Part 1 – degree level) for ‘Flow, 1944’. On the surface, the project proposes a design for a bathhouse located on a quarry carved into the rock created by solidified lava that erupted from Mount Vesuvius in 1944. As it develops this idiosyncratic space of transience on a shunned landscape, ‘Flow, 1944’ highlights the importance of the notions of ephemerality and the passing of time in the formation of built environments as they are conceived by architects and inhabited by users, thus alerting for the role played by architecture in constructing historical layers of physical strata and collective meaning. Jasper Ludewig was awarded the Dissertation Medal for ‘Made Ground: A spatial history of Sydney Park’. Produced under the supervision of Ross Anderson and submitted by the University of Sydney, the dissertation focusses on Sydney Park as a case study of ‘Spatial History’, a method of historical inquiry developed by Australian geographer, historian and architectural theorist, Paul Carter. Each of Made Ground’s six essays discusses a series of practices, beliefs and tools in the historical production of Australia’s physical and social space to, ultimately, illustrate the postcolonial capacity of interpreting the texts and records of the past as a way of destabilising assumptions about Australia’s places of the present in which architects, planners, urban designers and artists intervene. RIBA President Stephen Hodder said “Congratulations to the winners of this year’s RIBA President’s Medals whose talent and hard work remind us all of the important part that architecture plays in creating a better world and the key role performed by the architect in the process. “Without a doubt, the projects deserve to be rewarded not only for their accomplished words, images and models, but also for revealing the intellectual and experiential dimension architecture brings to daily life.” Other student awards presented at this evening’s ceremony were: Silver Medal High Commendation: Justin Cawley from the University of Sydney for ‘An Ark for Endangered Atmospheres’ Silver Medal Commendations: Yannis Halkiopoulos from the University of Westminster for ‘Brooklyn Co-operative’ Louis Sullivan from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘The Living Dam’ Bronze Medal Commendations: Samuel Little from London Metropolitan University for ‘City Frame: The reappropriation of Maple House’ Emily Priest from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘Rong Xhan Safehouse’ Ho Yeung (Howell) Tsang from the University of Hong Kong for ‘Urban Living Transition: Vanishing heritage of Hong Kong residence’ Dissertation Medal High Commendation: Ekaterina Tikhoniouk from University College Dublin for ‘Towards a Common Ground for Play: Examining the history of play and playgrounds in Dublin’s Liberties’ Dissertation Medal Commendation: Leon Fenster from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, for ‘Exilic Landscapes: Synagogues and Jewish architectural identity in 1870s Britain’ Serjeant Awards for Excellence in Drawing Part 1: Oliver Riviere from the University of Brighton for ‘The Institute of Concrete Poetry’ Part 2: Adam Bell for the University of Greenwich for ‘The Restored Commonwealth Club’ The UK office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) also awarded the SOM Foundation UK Fellowships selected from this year’s entries for the RIBA President’s Medals. SOM Foundation Fellowship Part 1: Kent Gin from the University of East London for ‘Cultural Perforation of Madrid, Disruption of the Defined’ SOM Foundation Fellowship Part 2: Mike Lim from the Royal College of Art, for ‘Untitled, 2014. Mixed Media’ The 2014 President’s Medals Student Architecture Awards Show, a free exhibition celebrating this year’s best student architecture and showcasing new ideas and from around the world opens to the public in the Practice Space,  RIBA, 66 Portland Place W1 on 4 December 2014 and runs until the 31 January 2015.  http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/December2014/TheRIBAPresidentsMedalsStudentAwards.aspx   ENDS Notes to editors For further press information contact Howard Crosskey in the RIBA Press Office: 020 7307 3761 howard.crosskey@riba.org To download supportive images from this year’s winners visit: https://riba.box.com/s/8uxph82tarxrefgfuom5 A full list of this year’s entries can be found at http://www.presidentsmedals.com/, the awards website, which also holds an archive of images and dissertation synopses from nominated projects and dissertations since 1998 This year’s judging panels included: Bronze Medal / Part 1 Design Projects: Chair: David Gloster, RIBA Director of Education Roz Barr, Roz Barr Architects and RIBA Vice-President Education Paolo Desideri, ABDR Architetti Associati and Professor of Architecture at University of Roma Tre, Italy Mary

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