Design Speaks: Work Place/Work Life is a one-day forum that brings together Australia’s leading practitioners in design and workplace wellbeing. This year’s forum will take place on Tuesday 15 July at Melbourne’s Spring Street Conference Centre.

Presented by Architecture Media, this groundbreaking industry forum examines the issues shaping contemporary workplace design. Leading practitioners and analysts will discuss their experiences and research, and extrapolate on the future of the workplace.

The three keynote speakers David Gianotten, Remi Ayoko and Timothy Sharp, will address globalization, strategy and community. These talks will be interspersed with moderated panel discussions where audience members can join the conversation and debate.

Panel discussion 1: Creating places to work in the city of the future
Panel discussion 2: Addressing processes and satisfation through workplace design
Panel discussion 3: Connecting people to place – communities at work

Keynote speakers

David Gianotten, OMA launched the firm’s Hong Kong office in 2009, to lead OMA’s considerable Asia Pacific portfolio. His projects include the Shenzhen Stock Exchange headquarters, and the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing. He is a former principal of SeARCH in The Netherlands.

His talk for Workplace/Worklife – S TO XL workplaces across the globe – will examine projects from around the world to illustrate how architecture can define the workplace and offer new possibilities for working and living. “A workplace is not a static environment … It is innovation in architecture that brings innovation through architecture.”

Remi Ayoko, senior lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School, is an educator and consultant with tertiary experience across three countries. Specializing in conflict management, leadership development and strategic human resource management, Ayoko’s research has been published and presented internationally, and she is a regular invited speaker on workspace issues.

Her talk – Productivity, territories, wellbeing and the workplace – looks at how office configurations can impact on employees’ territorial behaviours, productivity, and ultimately their wellbeing. Drawing on international research, Ayoko will examine how workplace configurations either constrain or improve employee processes and satisfaction.

Timothy Sharp, best-selling author of The Happiness Handbook and 100 Ways to Happiness: a guide for busy people, is the founder and chief happiness officer of The Happiness Institute, Australia’s first (and largest) organization devoted to enhancing happiness in individuals, families and organizations. He runs a respected clinic of psychology and an executive coaching practice.

His talk – Positive places – integrating happiness research into design – shines a light on something we all intuitively know – that the physical environment can promote positive moods, motivate us and even have a healing effect on us. Drawing on positive psychology research will illustrate not only why this is important, but how it can be achieved.  

Panel chairs

Bill Dowzer is the Sydney studio director at BVN Donovan Hill and design director of award-winning environments from public and cultural to educational and workplace. Dowzer is a guest speaker in April at the Legal Work Symposium in London, with Mark Rigotti, CEO-elect of Herbert Smith Freehills, whose Sydney offices – designed by BVN Donovan Hill – “put the client floors into the centre of the workspace”.

Tim Hooson leads the Workplace and Interiors team at New Zealand’s largest architecture practice, Jasmax. Considered a pioneer of workplace design, his workplace clients include the New Zealand Government’s Property Management Centre of Expertise, Fonterra, Westpac Bank, Vodafone New Zealand, KPMG and Auckland Airport. His approach is about enhancing human potential through deep design.

Natalie Slessor, head of workplace, Lend Lease, is one of Australia’s few environmental psychologists. Considered a “place user experience” expert, Slessor works directly with Lend Lease employees and tenants to build briefs for spaces of the future. Her fifteen-year background in property strategy and managing design processes stems from time at Woods Bagot and Macquarie Group – for which she was a key team member in the transformational workplace, One Shelley Street by Woods Bagot and Clive Wilkinson Architects for Macquarie Group (pictured top). The project has set new benchmarks for collaborative workplaces and activity-based working environments.

Panellists

Laurie Aznavoorian is a workplace design strategist, researcher and global trends forecaster in this arena. Her approach involves innovation and tapping into the power of a space to achieve its business, brand and cultural objectives, and maximise their impact.

Nicole Fitzgerald, is lead of Medibank’s Thrive program, which integrates Medibank’s people, property and technology strategies to transform the way the organization works. With a background in strategy, business planning and sustainability, her focus at Medibank has been to embed physical, social and mental health into the workplace design, balancing this with long-term economic outcomes.

Troy Roderick leads Telstra’s Diversity and Inclusion program, which reaches into customer, community and human resources practice. His background includes corporate and organizational development roles in the sectors of law and regulation, transport, retail, environment, local government and human services.

Work Place/Work Life is part of Design Speaks, a series of talks, seminars, forums and conferences on and about architecture and design, for design professionals and their clients and interested members of the wider community.