A COMPANY'S EMPLOYEES are its most valuable and expensive resource. Its physical space is a close second, and the two are closely connected. Balancing space requirements with other corporate objectives, especially keeping the troops happy, loyal and innovative, is tricky business. <
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Few companies know these issues better than Deloitte & Touche, a giant accounting and consulting company that occupies 825,000 square feet of office space in Manhattan's pricey World Financial Center (WFC). Deloitte recently turned 175,000 of those square feet into SmartSpace, an open, completely reconfigurable office environment. The system helped Deloitte put more people in the same space by rethinking how it is used. Office assignments were based on tasks, rather than hierarchy.
Approximately 225,000 square feet of Deloitte's office space throughout New York, Connecticut and New Jersey has already been reconfigured in this way, and the rest of the WFC office will be converted during the next several years. Two teams of interior designers from Working Spaces: The Lauck Group in Dallas and "" Perkins & Will in Chicago, as well as office furniture group Steelcase, in Grand Rapids, Mich., helped Deloitte & Touche with its space configuration. Also, everyone in the company had input in the space planning, which ensured broad acceptance.
Deloitte chose Steelcase's Pathways system furniture, which usually costs between $130 and $150 a square foot. However, Stephen Silverstein, the tristate area's director of facilities for Deloitte & Touche in New York City, admits the company spent "slightly more" because it chose a high-end customization of the system. Still, the company sees its choice as a money saver when it factors in the productivity benefits. It also expects additional savings in rapid depreciation: The walls are movable, so the Internal Revenue Service considers them furniture.
The system is plug and play -- with cable embedded in the movable walls and multiple movable outlets. The outer skins of the walls can be customized with fabric or chalkboards, and the walls can be stacked. In short, everything can be changed and changed rapidly. It takes only a weekend to turn a suite of offices into a war room that accommodates as many as 25 people, for instance. Also, when the company moves, the entire office can go along.
At Deloitte's Manhattan office, the result is a handsome, low-key workplace with predominant earth tones. The potential cookie-cutter effect is negated with accents including woods and fabrics on the walls and visual distractions such as fresh flowers, contemporary sculptures and ceramics, paintings and photographs.
Deloitte gets a little whimsical in what it calls the Exchanges -- areas home to the mailroom, copier, fax machine, TV, lounge and kitchen. The mailboxes are just that -- old-fashioned, metal U.S. mailboxes lined up in rows. There's also a wheeled, adjustable coffee table with communications links.
Perhaps the most surprising aspects of Deloitte's SmartSpace are the tiny offices for concentrated, solo tasks -- some as small as 24 square feet. Cause for claustrophobia? Not really -- the facing entry panel is glass. The space is so well used that there's room for a chalkboard in back of the desk.
These are no closets, though: Across the narrow corridor, everyone shares a view of the East River, a perk once reserved for senior managers.
