Reading Steve Jobs’ Biography by Walter Isaacson over the holiday, I became impressed by Jobs’ emphaty for creativity and creative fields (in contrast to his obvious lack of emphaty for the people). His encouragement of and vision in sustaining creativity is palpable in Pixar Studios’ design. Using his wording, a design for”unplanned encounters and collaborations.”
I think the whole structure and Jobs’ mindset behind it describes the way flaneury can work at an office space, how the building can act as a space open for possibilities and spontanity rather than the dreary we often associate with workspaces . Possibilities are the major source for imagination, story telling and ideas as well as keeping a routine seamless and everyday fresh.
Photo from officesnapshots.com
‘ “There’s a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,” he told me. “That’s crazy. Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussion. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘Wow,’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas.”
He had the Pixar building designed to promote unplanned encounters and collaborations. “If a building doesn’t encourage that, you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic that’s sparked by serendipity,” he said. “So we designed the building to make people get out of their offices and mingle in the central atrium with people they might not otherwise see.” The front doors and main stairs and corridors all led to the atrium; the café and the mailboxes were there; the conference rooms had windows that looked out onto it; and the 600-seat theater and two smaller screening rooms all spilled into it. “Steve’s theory worked from day one,” Lasseter recalls. “I kept running into people I hadn’t seen for months. I’ve never seen a building that promoted collaboration and creativity as well as this one.” ’
~ Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
officesnapshots.com has a good article and more georgious photos from Pixar offices.>