A Classic Loft Story

The building at 5 West 19th Street was converted to a commercial coop in the early 80’s. Converting buildings to coop back then was very popular, more so in residential buildings, but still, in a few commercial buildings. I don’t know how many commercial coop buildings there are exactly, but it’s less than 1% of the overall total of office buildings in NYC. These conversions afforded small business owners the opportunity to control their future in a way they couldn’t have otherwise and some industries gravitated toward them more than others. Photographers were one group that seemed to buy these coops (printers were another) probably because they typically needed larger open spaces and would pioneer in areas that tended to evolve from downtrodden to fashionable where they were constantly getting priced out.

By buying, they could control their destiny.

This worked well for many years and the photographers at 5 West 19th Street prospered.  What they couldn’t have known was the sea-change that would occur when digital photography caused the cost of a photograph to plummet, leading many photographers to have to change their business models. One of the changes was that a large studio space would become a luxury.

The lucky few who had purchased their space at 5 West 19th Street have been able to convert what might have been a burden into a valuable asset: a large loft floor in a very fashionable area of Manhattan that many companies were eager to occupy.

I’ve been fortunate to represent several of these photographers throughout the years and I have one now. In the accompanying picture, you can see the  gorgeous wood floor, windows on all sides, and generous column spacing.  It’s a classic loft in every sense of the word.  

OPEN vs CLOSED / PUBLIC vs PRIVATE #2

A workplace must support the business activity. It doesn’t matter if the workplace is primarily open or closed as long as productivity remains high. How do we measure lost productivity in the knowledge market though?  With a factory it’s easier.  A recent article in the New York Times about a Harley Davidson factory in Pennsylvania described how the extra 1.2 seconds it took to attach a poorly designed part led to lost productivity equivalent to 2,200 motorcycles annually.  An open environment where most workers don’t have private space can seem appealing on the theory that interaction equals spontaneous collaboration equals innovation equals productivity.  But when employees are distracted from their primary activity, the longer term goal of innovation may become a moot point because the company isn’t keeping up with its current work.  A recent survey of workplace satisfaction by the architectural firm Gensler, suggests as much. 

“When focus is compromised in pursuit of collaboration, neither works well.”  

It also makes the not-startling assertion that “Employees who can focus are more effective, higher-performing overall.”

A survey of the attitudes of employees is a loose measure of actual productivity, but it does provide some insight.  The survey reports, “Those who can focus are more satisfied, higher performing, and see their companies as more innovative.” So perhaps that is the key to all workplace design: creating an environment that promotes the ability to focus, be it primarily open or primarily closed. Neither one is a panacea.   In the tech industry, putting a programmer in the desk next to a sales person isn’t going to improve the programmer’s ability to focus on writing new code. 

Once a company reaches past the start up phase where every day seems like a struggle for survival and good design seems like a luxury, it needs to consider the various work processes it requires and creatively promote focus as the key to a satisfying work environment, rather than just reflexively following the trend toward openness.  As I said in my last post, I think open is overall better than closed, but the reasons for it need to be thoughtfully examined or simple chaos can ensue.