CHAPTER 13 On Creative Spirit
Brief Encounter
We’ve all experienced that moment when bumping into someone in the
corridor, or running into them in a coffee shop, sparks a conversation that
brings together the different pieces that lead to something new. These
chance collisions — when, before you know it, you’re having a two-hour
conversation, conjuring up plans for world domination — are where magic
happens.
Companies like Google, Pixar and IDEO understand this all too well
and arrange their spaces to encourage these fortuitous interactions. Power
outlets in the stairwells, beanbags in open-plan spaces, seemingly un-
owned desks dotted around... these are all facilitators. Good ideas need
creative, chaotic environments; surroundings which aren’t based on strict
hierarchies; settings which embrace flexible and spontaneous workflows.
Getting the physical environment in which a team works right is a
challenge. It’s one that can, however, when approached intelligently, lead
to a multiplication and amplification of ideas. While different people will
hold different pieces of the jigsaw, truly insightful thinkers realize that
only when they come together is the picture formed. The best way to do
this is through shaping space to encourage brief encounters.
By designing workspaces to harness chance meetings and facilitate
new patterns of work, we can ensure our primed brains collide to create
unexpected ideas with potential. You don’t need to have the budget of
Google to put these pieces in place; you can instead foster a more freeform
office culture or perhaps — heaven forfend — permit your employees to
occasionally work off-campus.
It’s no surprise that we’re beginning to understand the creative poten-
tial of spaces to excite idea generation. After all, we now have no shortage
of companies to draw inspiration from. Whether it’s the giant atrium
of Pixar, which Steve Jobs insisted on to encourage chance collisions, or
Google’s ladder chutes in its New York City offices, designed to encourage
Googlers to “casually collide” throughout the working day (presumably on
the way down), we have a wealth of spaces to learn from.