eSpaces Program Statement

eSpaces

Program Statement

A program Statement is more than a listing of the utility and basic relationship between the functions of a building. While these are important and should be addressed in detail, they fail to provide sufficient design criteria necessary to the making of a satisfying human space. Design is more than applying some clever ideas - which randomly come to mind - to a specific situation. Design is the complex process of digging for the context and deeper essence of a circumstance and intention and finding the unique aspects that can be shaped into an authentic utility and expression of what is desired. This allows every aspect of the result to connect to every other aspect and to the social context surrounding a work. In business, when this is done properly, the design - in this case of the space and its artifacts - and the brand of the enterprise merge into one coherent message which conveys to those using the space what this experience is to be and the reasons why it is what it is. This metaphysical reality is essential to the making of physical place. While good architecture is universal and remarkably timeless, every work is built some time, some where for some exposit purpose. The making of PLACE is always important. For eSpaces it is critical because this is the main value offered.

The Program Statement starts before the design of the object itself and establishes the design challenge. As time progress, and the design/build process proceeds, the Program Statement does not become a fixed-in-stone and increasingly irrelevant document. It must remain a living document informing the design while the emerging design informs it. This dialog continues, through multiple iterations and long past the opening of the space. Architecture is built idea. Building the right ideas and building them with clarity is what brings a space alive.

The SolutionBox Model outlines a 7x7x7 matrix of steps that document the path from idea to use. This is not rigid and linear. It involves a back and forth process yet proceeds, generally, from Philosophy, Identity, program to Use, evaluation and feedback.

click on the graphics to go to more detail

eSpaces is a child of the experience economy and a place for the experience economy. The experience of being in eSpaces is the primary value add. This Program Statement will begin with an exploration of the types of spaces and functions which make up an eSpaces environment and what the experience of them means to those who frequent these habitats. This gets at the core of the offering and identifies the primary basis of its success.

User Exprience Matrix

There are six major kinds of spaces in an eSpaces environment each with several subordinate areas. These relate, generally to zones yet the different kinds of spaces are not walled off from one another and they commingle in several areas. For example, there is a PRODUCTION zone for printing and preparing documents and media and this is a distinct and acoustically protected space, this does not prevent small printers being in the PRIVATE WORK area nor does it prevent someone rolling their work top into the PRODUCTION area nor into the COMMONS. These Zones do have rules-of-engagement which define a culture of use and ways of acting in each. I have been working in shared creative work spaces for 53 years starting in a drafting room and now in - over the last 20 years - collaborative work environments of my own design. Nothing is worse than a shared space without proper social protocols. One may ask why a coffee shop like a Starbucks has become so popular for migrant workers. I will argue: nice environment, active social space yet easy to maintain anonymity, usually the ability to find a niche with just the amount of inclusion-exclusion you want now, and, the prospect of a serendipitous meeting. In this case, in-place social norms work. Change the setting a little and they may not. In the e-Spaces Zones, their architectural symbols and gently induced social protocols can combine to make active alive social spaces which also promote and protect a variety of interactions and productive activities.

The major eSpaces functional space Zones are: ENTRY, STREET, COMMONS, PRODUCTION, SHARED WORK, and PRIVATE WORK. There are also functional areas such as Restrooms, Food Preparation, Storage and Phone Booths. These will be described later, will be done well and integrated into the whole of the environment yet are not the essence of the offering and not necessary to focus on here.

Generally, the footprint being long and linear, these Zones proceed from front to back in the order they are described here. This creates a natural graduation of privacy while maintaining an open environment full of many areas with a different mix of prospect and refuge.

ENTRY, a critical Pattern Language value, starts outside the building on the open balcony and proceeds into the eSpaces environment. ENTRY, is a ritual which cannot be ignored. Fail here and you fail everywhere else.

The STREET starts outside at the open-air Patio and weaves its way through all of the environment touching and connecting all of the major and minor zones. This is a safe and stimulating ribbon-space from which all of the eSpaces environment can be touched without interfering with the functioning of any Zone’s activities.

The COMMONS is the “coffee shop” environment and is adjacent to the ENTRY in the front corner of the footprint with “windows on two sides” - an important Pattern language for this function.

PRODUCTION is close to restrooms, Food Preparation and Storage and form a phase transition between ENTRY - COMMONS and SHARED WORK - PRIVATE WORK zones.

SHARED WORK is where people come to collaborate, learn, present, “publish,” dialog in larger groups, work on common issues and projects of interest, and do ad hoc work together. This will be a media intense area.

PRIVATE WORK is a quiet place for personal work and small team work. It will have open and screened workstations, media PODs and access to the opening and closing Office-Break Out Rooms which will populate the transition area between SHARED WORK and PRIVATE WORK. It will have rolling “lap-work-tops” and fixed-at-window fold up-down work tops. These will also be found throughout all of the Zones at a lesser density.

The function Zones along with the minor zones, all described in more detail below, provide a full service 21st Century workplace with the exception of prototyping spaces which are not in the present eSpaces plan but may well be considered for inclusion is future, large environments.

Restrooms and the food production areas will be fixed, leasehold-improvement units. There will be some additional fixed architectural elements. All the rest, Armature, WorkFurniture and partitions, will be movable so that the “mix” between these Zones can be modulated to stay requisite with user requirements over time. If necessary after a lease cycle, 80 percent of the physical capital investment can be moved and adapted to any location. This is an important economic, risk reduction feature of the design.

matrix and sub zone details to follow

Programs

evolution_of_offering

e_Spaces will be capable of providing a number of PROGRAMS in support of its members and their work. What Programs when and where is an emergent, evolutionary design decision. The objective now is to get the basic services in place and then add capacity and services as the market both can be educated to them and also expresses a desire for them. Many of the capabilities described in the e-Spaces Design Concept [link: espaces design concept] will come into being over time (these are so noted). It is important, however, in the first few environments to both allow for these features to evolve and to test them in the eSpaces market. When I say “eSpaces market, I mean this literally. There exists a market for this kind (in part) of facility, today, yet eSpaces is both creating a new market while serving both the existing and the new emegent one. This requires a different approach than does merely bringing a “new” approach to an already mature market.

An * is used throughout the eSpaces pages to indicate physical spaces, utility and tools, as well as programs which fall into this category of potential value-add elements of the eSpaces offering which extend the basic service. The purpose of this convolution with the market is to continually add customer value and enhance the distinctive nature of the eSpaces brand. If the design does not anticipate new offering of the kinds described below and in the Design Concept page, we will “trap” ourselves and truncate the opportunity for a rapid and organic growth of the concept which is so essential in early period after opening.

The following Programs and services are candidates, there are potentially many more. These are selected because they are obvious, they exist within the capacity of the eSpace ValueWeb Producer Network, and, by designing the physical space to provide for them, we are likely to be able to accommodate a broad range of other and not yet identified offerings.

all the following are *

eSpaces Chautauqua

This is a modern streamlined version of the 19th and 20th Century Chautauqua moment [link: chautauqua]. It is a regular program for eSpaces members and their guests providing lectures, media shows, discussions and field trips on elevating topics of interest.

ReBuilding the Future™

A course offered by MG Taylor employing Syntopical reading and dialog to review the concepts, issues, potential problems and their solutions which we face in the coming decades as globalization, weather change, technology and human augmentation and other present trends continue to accelerate.

Member’s Night

A regular schedule of weekly meting where members can present themselves, their enterprises, seek feedback and collaboration and generally network.

Tooling for the 21st Century

A regular series of workshops for members on knowledge work and learning to use the tools necessary to become an effective “21st Centery, knowledge wor hunter gatherer.” The economy has shifed rapidly on eSpaces users and they have adapted. They are no longer in the a coventional organization in a conventional office. Yet, there is much to learn, philosopically to the task and skill levels, about how to posper in this new global economy.

The Venture Capital Connection

A series of facilitated seminar with Venture Capitalists to help the entrepreneur to organize their business idea into a fundable enterprise concept. Graduates will be offered the opportunity to present their plans to investment groups.

Facilitated DesignSessions™

Periodic problem solving session for members employing the Taylor Method. These may be for a single team of mixed teams depending on subject.

RemoteCollabration™ Sessions

Members employ the mediaPOD for virtual meeting employing a unique protocol providing faciliation and documentation of the event.

RemotePresence™

A media wall whereby members can “see” into other eSpace facilities and talk with one another in real time.

This a short list of options. These and others which will be selected should be branded and made unique to the eSpaces offering. Some will be income generating others not. The purpose is to add to the member’s experience of eSpaces as a complete work environment and to build community among those members seeking it. This is a means of getting deeper into the Blue Ocean and mantaining Brand distinction from existing alternatives and future copy cats. Beyond business reasons, these activities seek to create an open and informed society something that many present trends do not promote. The immense gains of the 20th Century are not unrelated to the culture which was promoted and informed by the Chautauqua movement. The trend to retools schools to be solely focus on preparing for work (in the narrow sense of this concept), the ubiquity of popular culture and the balkanization of society needs balance. It can be argued that many in the eSpace demographics know this. eSpaces is a place. We want our customers to use this place and to bring thier associaets and friends to it. Ths can fuel a natural, organic growth of self-selecting members.

return to eSpaces INDEX

Matt Taylor
Elsewhere
August 22, 2007

SolutionBox voice of this document:
VISION • STRATEGY • SCHEMATIC

posted: August 22, 2007

revised: September 3, 2007
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note: this document is about 5% finished