that word again...serendipity and the water cooler

[Pannwitz, Michael M]

This is a great story, Paul.
I am passing it on to my coop colleagues who keep coming up with the
idea of creating spaces especially receptive to open space...although
it seems to be common experience that it works in all sorts of odd
places....
greetings from berlin
mmp

--Original Message Text---
From: EVERETT813 at aol.com
Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 15:22:46 EST

Comments on the 'water cooler' phenomenon:

Steelcase (major office furniture manufacturer in the United
States---does beautiful wood furniture, too) has an R&D building
which I recall being in Grand Rapids, Michigan (I could be wrong on
that).  This building is a pyramid (4 sided) of about six floors
(I've been there once 15 years ago).  Several things are unique about
that building.  There are only tiny, tiny elevators because 'people
don't talk in elevators' (they're forced inside personal space,
people turn and watch the floor numbers passing) but the DO talk on
escalators.  Hence, every floor is reached by inside escalators.
This facilitates 'serendipitous' conversations and the 'seeing' of
people as they move from floor to floor.

At the center of each of the four sloping walls on several floors
(all floors I'm not sure about) there is a 'water cooler station'
complete with water, coffee, tea, etc. AND a set of round tables of
bar height, with appropriate 'bar stools' and fully supplied
whiteboards/easel paper/pens, etc. for 'serendipitous' conversations.

What they have done, in these two and many more ways, is create an
open space (the inside of the building is open from the tip of the
pyramid to the bottom floor and has this enormous pendulum that
swings and turns with the turning of the earth) for 'happy
accidents', for the unexpected, surprising conversation.  For
'serendipity' to emerge.  I thought the thinking about, and design
of, that building was of a new and different order, creating
something I'd not seen anywhere else in my travels.  A container for
creativity if I've ever seen one.

Paul Everett
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Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eG i.G.
Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin
++49 - 30-772 8000
www.boscop.de   www.michaelmpannwitz.de


Seit dem 17. August 2004 ist die Open Space World Map online. Stand: 109 Teilnehmende in 27 Ländern, davon 39 aus Deutschland. Werft mal einen Blick in
www.openspaceworldmap.org


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