Julie Michiels

Sr. Associate Principal, Interior Design Leader

SOM

Cecilia Ramos

Senior Director, Architectural Market

Lutron

Workspace design is no longer an afterthought. For many companies, in-office presence is not mandatory. As such, an office should be commute-worthy, drawing people in to collaborate, create, and build relationships.

Designing for visual appeal is not new. But it’s no longer enough. Anyone who has toiled under the glare of fluorescent lights can attest to the importance of good lighting. From indirect light sources to architectural fixtures, energy saving motion sensors to circadian rhythm-driven illumination, well-executed lighting is paramount.

Two design leaders share their perspectives.

Transcript

Max Chopovsky:

Welcome to the future of work in a space for the census. My name is Max Chopovsky. I help companies around the country find and negotiate the leases for their office space, ensuring that the space they have is the space they need and reflects and supports their company culture. The future of work is a series exploring our evolving relationship with work, the how, where, and why, the trends and technologies disrupting the workplace and perspectives from executives leading their organizations into our new normal. Every time we talk about the office, the conversation inevitably goes to the shifting role of the office. It's no longer just the place to do heads down work since that usually doesn't justify the commute. For most people though, it's evolving into a place to collaborate, build relationships, and do the things that can't really be done well on a video call. But the involves many disciplines from interior design to lighting. These two in particular are critical to creating the kind of space that people want to come to. So joining us today are two people who spend their days thinking about this very subject. Julie Michaels is a senior associate principal and Chicago interior design leader for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. She has worked on various award-winning projects from 330 North Green and 800 Fulton Market in Chicago to high rises in Kirkland Hall and Cecilia Ramos is the senior director of the architectural market for Lutron Electronics. Having spent time designing the lighting of luxury retail brands like Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and Hublot prior to her time at Lutron, she now leads Lutron's expertise in the architecture and design community. She's also the co-author of the book Architectural Lighting, Designing with Light and Space. Ladies, welcome.

Cecilia Ramos:

Thank you, Max.

Julie Michiels:

Thank you.

Max Chopovsky:

So

Julie Michiels:

Thanks for having us.

Max Chopovsky:

let's talk about how your individual companies actually sort of started adapting your approach to work. How did that look as a result of the pandemic? Julie, why don't you kick us off?

Julie Michiels:

Sure. It was interesting because there were some things that we were thinking about just prior to the pandemic for ourselves and sort of rethinking how it is that we work. So we were kind of in process when that happened. And in a lot of ways, it just helped us to accelerate things that we were already thinking about. So to give a little bit of context, we actually were renovating our office. We had just completed design. completed construction actually on our office the week that the city shut down for the pandemic. So on Friday we all packed up our little orange moving crates with the intent that we were moving out of our swing space that we were in and on Monday we were going to come back to work and we were going to move into this great new office that had rethought a lot of the things about how we work and instead we all worked from home for two years. We never really set foot into the office. for us in particular in rethinking how we work. And we had thought a lot about flexibility in the redesign of our office space. And we had thought a lot about collaboration and how teamwork is really the key to success and innovation and the type of work that we do. And we're a multidisciplinary firm, so that collaboration has to happen across architecture, interior design. As you sort of said in the intro, there's a lot of people coming together problems of workplace and other project typologies as well. So it was really important for us to kind of think about putting that work on display and allowing for people to have those sort of chance interactions. And so I think luckily in a way we had the foresight to be thinking that way, but over the pandemic, our technology had to improve to enable that flexibility. We had no choice, but to make that flexibility possible sort of supported that. And so in a lot of ways when we came back to the office, and we are back three days a week, so I can talk about that more later, but it helped us to use the space with the choice that we intended, right? Like you said, there's sometimes heads down work, sometimes there's group work, sometimes there's small teams that need to get together, and so that improvement really helped. And I would say one other thing that was like but in personal needs. And I think there's a lot more empathy and understanding for family and personal needs

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

and flexibility that came out of that in ways that, I mean, you saw it in the background of people's lives, right? You got this little Zoom window into people's kids running by and pets and family members, and you kind of can't then go back and walk away from all that, right? So I think there's a lot more empathy and understanding personal needs.

Max Chopovsky:

Totally,

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

totally. Yeah, Cecilia, what about you?

Cecilia Ramos:

You know, it's interesting because I think the personalization of space, Julie, was one of the critical things

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Cecilia Ramos:

that emerged out of those months and years working from home. And if you kind of extrapolate that to what it means to the business that we're in, which is the business of lighting, Lutron invented the dimmer switch, you know, more than 60 years ago. And we're really in the business of experience. We're in the business of moods and atmospheres and how you can transform space through light. I think one of the more interesting things that it challenged us with was, I think we had the understanding of how light and atmosphere influences physical spaces. Pretty down pat, I mean, of course, we're considering the concept we learn and evolving, but all of a sudden it became, how can you create that moment of shared experience across digital and physical platforms? And we had to rethink the way that we did business, to re-appropriate our experience centers so that we could have clients understand the impact of light on space through a screen in their own home, drawing analogies to home life as well. And then we also had to think through how do we design moving forward in a time of uncertainty where what we know now isn't necessarily what it's gonna be in two months from now. And I think one of the biggest examples of that is the first three months of the pandemic. questions about touchless technology because there is that fear of what happens when you

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Cecilia Ramos:

touch a light switch. Are you going to get COVID?

Max Chopovsky:

Right.

Cecilia Ramos:

And our presentations and our education is really focused on that. You know, fast forward two years, that's kind of fallen by the wayside. And now it's all about that human experience and bringing communities together, as Julie mentioned. So I think we were constantly evolving and constantly learning. But truly, know and then creating experience both physically and digitally became some of the fourth most themes that we focus in on.

Max Chopovsky:

So let's, let's stay on that subject for a little bit. So as we talk

Julie Michiels:

Thanks for watching!

Max Chopovsky:

about the evolution of technology, um, how has lighting technology evolved to sort of meet workspace needs, if you think about, you know, starting with that movie, you know, if you remember like office space, how they all sat into that terrible fluorescent lighting, right.

Cecilia Ramos:

Right.

Max Chopovsky:

And it's almost comical now thinking about it,

Cecilia Ramos:

Yep.

Max Chopovsky:

but how has technology sort of evolved to meet workspace needs?

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah, I think if you think about the office of the past, it was static light that was overly bright, that almost chained people to their desks in a way. And now what we're seeing is a demand for lighting as an amenity, not just as a necessity, but truly something that can do more for the space and the people. And that might mean having people connected to the space outdoors through light and introducing the concept of dynamic light that transforms throughout the course of the day sun, such that if you work in the office at noon and then stay until 8 p.m., the light lane kind of carries you through that experience and warms and dims as the night goes on, which also speaks to the changing needs of the workplace now, where it's not a fixed time that people are present. There's a lot more flexibility both in the days that people go in and out as well as the time that people are there. So I would say lighting as an amenity where it's not levels, but creating moments of experience, light, connecting us to nature and those rhythms of daily life. And then also the concept of being able to personalize it. So when you walk into a conference room, perhaps you press the button that goes right to the settings that you like or scan a QR code, which triggers the warmth and intensity that feels right to you to present digitally, whether it's in the same country or maybe in a different country of the world. opportunities to use lighting to kind of tie together different cultures and different experiences. So that's a few ideas, but I'll pass it off to Julie and hear from you what you've heard and thought about.

Julie Michiels:

Yeah, no, I think a lot of the same, actually. And I think a couple of interesting things to build on those ideas. I actually recently had the great opportunity to spend time with Cecilia and her team in New York at their Lighting Experience Center. And actually, that user interface and that ability to personalize and customize is really easy with their products. And it was really cool that there's even I could tweak or adjust or make last minute changes to some preset settings or I could flip between preset settings. And I think the very first thing that you just said, gone are the days of this big static office environment, whether that be lighting, thermal comfort, furnishings, anything, there's choice and there's control and there's permission to have that control. I think there's been also a past where we've implemented these sort of things. amenities, but everybody's afraid that they're going to get in trouble for actually using them. And so I think that permission is an important part of our culture now, too, to be able to and encouraged to personalize space in those ways. We and also another project that we're working on now and that we're just wrapping up, John Deere has taken space in 800 West Fulton Market, which is one of the buildings you mentioned in my bio. And it's a building that SOM designed and that opened during the pandemic. And thankfully did have the foresight to make a lot of strong connections to the outdoors. There's a series of terraces that go up the building and John Deere's office is on one of these floors. So they have this very strong, both visual and physical connection to the outdoors. And so it was important for us from a lighting perspective on that project to also be able to connect to that changing daylight throughout the day, like Cecilia was talking about. So in that project, including dynamic tunable white lighting in the open office spaces so that that color temperature tracks more closely with the change in lighting throughout the day so that people are more connected to the outdoors and it's more in sync with sort of natural circadian rhythms. I know that's a little bit of a tricky topic and I know that's kind of different for everybody but there are certain sort of overall benefits to having that that connection.

Max Chopovsky:

That's a lot to think about.

Julie Michiels:

I'm sorry.

Max Chopovsky:

If you sort of think back, Julie, on the evolution of the workplace, the design of the workplace and how it's evolved from office heavy to lots of cubes with tall walls to the open space to now, talk about that a little bit and where you think it's going in light of the pandemic and some of the trends accelerated.

Julie Michiels:

Sure. I think you said it in the beginning, and I think we all kind of know this now. You have to give. People need a reason to be in the office. Like, why am I coming here if I think I can do my job at home? And I think that connection to people is a strong one. I think sometimes even people looking for work-life balance need a little bit of that separation. The workstation set up at the end of your dining room table is not the answer to work-life balance.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

So that idea of flexibility and user control and user input is, I think, a big shift. Thinking back on office spaces, you know, maybe earlier in my career, I've been focused on workplace for, let's see if I do the math quickly, a little over 15 years of my career. branded kind of experience and it didn't always take into account individuality. It didn't take into account culture of an individual city that folks might be in and it certainly wasn't personalized in any way and I think that there's been a shift away from that and I think more closely tied to like if we're trying to bring people together right thinking about spaces that have historically done naturally. So like civic plazas or cafes. Like even now I think it's a little bit, this is maybe more recent in terms of development, but like hotel lobbies and bars and restaurants, right? Like places that sort of net people naturally gravitate to to be with other people. And how do we you know find those characteristics and bring those to our work and bring amenities to people that they don't have at home and that makes them want to get out and take advantage of that. I think we can't pretend that all the talk about water cooler interactions, those chance interactions leading to innovation, just evaporate it and we can all work from home. That is still, I think, very real. And us being together and coming together is still very critical to successive companies. And so creating a craveable office space for the success of businesses in the future.

Max Chopovsky:

Craveable office space. I love that. I'm going to write that down. Um, you know, the, it's interesting because when you talk about spaces where people come together, one type of space that comes to mind is the lobby of a hotel. designed, thoughtfully designed hotel lobby, your mood almost changes. Right. And so what I, what I've seen is there are some influences around, you know, from the hospitality world and from other, you know, even from the residential world that are now impacting, uh, you know, space design and lighting with, you know, Cecilia, even in your world, um, warmer temperatures, right. of the lights, right, more incandescent versus fluorescent. So I'd love for you to maybe talk a little bit about how some of those hospitality and maybe residential design trends are influencing the work that you're doing.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yes, I think with hospitality, it's a huge influencer right now in the corporate office space. And I can think of a project that we worked on in the Pacific Northwest, where they had originally installed moody lighting in a beautiful lobby. And it was amazing by night. It was a sexy cocktail lounge type environment where people gathered. But then during the daytime, it was dark and uninviting. And it wasn't being used as that coffee shop, you know, collaborative laptop environment And so we, Lutron, got called in with our line of lighting called Ketra that does dynamic light and we retrofitted the light fixtures and the decorative lighting in that lobby. And it was almost instantaneous, the change that it produced for the hotel, where all of a sudden that became that active communal space where people came together and wanted to be at. And I think we can all draw parallel to that to our favorite restaurants. Like if you walk by an amazing restaurant by night, but it's brightly lit and it's the cool and color temperature, no one's going to go there, no matter how good the food is.

Max Chopovsky:

Yep.

Cecilia Ramos:

So I think that change that or maybe the embracing of a space having a multiplicity of purposes throughout the course of day, and then the use of lighting to further enhance that, I think are hospitality trends that we're now seeing in corporate office. If we look at I mean, that's another form of lighting, right? The entrance of natural daylight

Julie Michiels:

Mm-hmm.

Cecilia Ramos:

into a space that has to be calibrated with electric light. I think in a lot of hospitality spaces, there's like an embrace of softer finishes, ripple fold curtains, materiality that helps also deaden sound in the space and provide good acoustic conditions. We're seeing that also translated into office spaces because as people may or may not like or employ ACT tile on the ceiling, right, there's other ways to make spaces beautiful and acoustically sound. To use drapery and curtains as another materiality or methodology to add kind of texture to a space and acoustical control and also access to natural daylight is another thing that we're seeing translated.

Max Chopovsky:

Julie, before you answer, I have a funny story. I used to have a video production company and we were shooting in an office. And we were just, it was just kind of a small scripted video but of course it took longer than we thought it was gonna take and it started getting dark outside. And we knew that if we got dark enough then it would impact the continuity of the scene, right? And so we literally took all the lights we had and put them right by the windows to try to light this one person. close to them because you could see that those lights were barely impacting kind of the bigger area. And it's, it was just such an interesting reminder of just how powerful it is to have natural daylight coming in through big windows, because once we had to replicate it, it was damn near impossible.

Cecilia Ramos:

Right.

Max Chopovsky:

Like it's just, it's just crazy.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

Right. Um, so, uh, what about you, Julie? How is, uh, how's hospitality design, uh, um, how, you know, sort of the influencing what you're doing.

Julie Michiels:

Yeah, I mean, they definitely are. I think there's, and it's been happening for a while now, but I think it's that it's trying to get that vibe of, like you said, it's transformative to walk into these great hotel lobbies, not every hotel lobby out there, but it's definitely been a movement. And I think it's that feeling of, there's sort of a buzz or a vibrancy, right? And that's not good for an entire workplace, but a moment of workplace. that arrival moment, that's where it's important, to give your staff or your visitors and guests this great moment where you come into the space and it feels active and it feels vibrant, but it also at the same time balances out with feeling comfortable and welcoming. And you wanna just come in, sit down, grab a cup of coffee or grab a cocktail even. And we're seeing a lot more program requirements, like from the get-go with our clients, that kind of a space needs to be incorporated somewhere. So it takes on different names from the hub to a pantry, to a den or a lounge. There's different ways of incorporating that. But I feel like every project lately, our clients are on board and educated about that. It's not even us bringing that idea to them anymore. It's a must have. So I think finding that balance, like you also mentioned residential, and I feel like that goes back to this idea of, Is it really from a residential environment that we want to bring to the office that we're not, again, a big believer in striking work-life balance. There needs to be some separation. But coming from home where you were able to fully control your environment,

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

if I want to put a set of fluffy pillows all around me and crank the heat way up and turn the lights off, I could do that. And so how do we give some of that control in the office space, I think, is the key thing. and maybe some snacks, right? Who didn't spend half of COVID rooting around in their kitchen looking for snacks in the two minutes they had between meeting between Zoom meetings? So.

Max Chopovsky:

It's, you know, it's funny, um, for sure snacks and the, and the control piece is so interesting because, you know, if you, if you think back, I don't know, 10, 15 years, the AC controls in the offices, how they had that plastic box over them with a key that you couldn't control it. That to me was the epitome of a lack of control and ability to personalize a space for somebody.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

And, you know, I'm with you. don't, you know, it obviously doesn't have to be all couches in your office, but certainly the creature comforts of home help bring people in because they're, they kind of reduce the friction that people might have between them and their work. And, uh,

Julie Michiels:

great.

Max Chopovsky:

one name I've heard for the role of the office, if it's a place for people to come together is, um, like main street,

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

main street, the town square because that's where people come together it's where they have all hands it's a really interesting way of looking at it. You know when we talk about building amenities there are obviously some of these items that tenants look for more than others so what are some building amenities that you're seeing that are resonating most with your clients?

Julie Michiels:

I'll jump in first on that one. I think that the access to outdoor space feels like a must. I feel like before COVID, it was a growing need, but it was maybe in smaller demand, or it was OK if you had one terrace somewhere. And I think that in Chicago in particular, people questioned the validity of it. Like, oh, you can only be outside weeks a year with the weather.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

And people couldn't also couldn't really envision how you work outside so it was viewed as like people are sitting outside lounging around you know like having a coffee break all day or whatever

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

the perception might have been and I think now uh you know people figured out ways to work outside on their their patios or their decks or their balconies or even at a coffee And also people were really concerned about fresh air and access to fresh air. And I think our like our sustainable engineering studio like really drove home that point. For us, we did a lot of studies and work on airflow and exchange of fresh air in a workplace and how important that is to creating a healthy workplace. So COVID or other, you know, health included, that was really important. So I think in terms of amenities, like access right now and in multiple climates. Not just, because warm climates have their concerns too. Like we're working on a project in Miami and they don't want humidity and mosquitoes coming in.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

outdoor air concerns just because it's warm somewhere doesn't always mean they want to connect to the outdoors that strongly either.

Max Chopovsky:

100%

Julie Michiels:

right. So maybe some shade. And that's like, I think a thing that we need to work on is like, through controls, through our infrastructure, like what do those connections look like through thermal comfort, through lighting, through shading, through, you know, like, how do we make those connections stronger and more meaningful and not negate the fact that we work in enclosures for a reason?

Max Chopovsky:

100%.

Cecilia Ramos:

Right.

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Cecilia Ramos:

And I would also add, I think, you know, on the more technical side or technology side of things, I think clients are looking also to future proof their spaces a little bit because they don't know what's going to happen next and they don't know how the

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Cecilia Ramos:

needs might change. And so we're seeing a lot of demand for what we call digitally addressable fixtures and technology, which means that, you know, day one, you might have a grouping of lights and for a big room. like needs to actually be three small huddle rooms. You put up the partition walls, you can digitally address those fixtures and change the zoning on the fly. So you don't have to tear down ceilings. You don't have to rewire anything. You don't have to invest in that. So I think that flexibility through infrastructure is a big one. And then I think another concept relevant to future proofing is, you know, how can we learn from our buildings and how people use them? And whether that's through sensor technology what spaces are being occupied at what time of day, or even how people are using their shades to either cut out glare or give access to views throughout the course of the day, and then how that in turn affects the dimming settings of a light space or light system. It's like all these different components working together, and if you can employ a system that as a facility manager to extrapolate and then architects to make recommendations and space planners to make recommendations based on that data moving forward. That is a future proof or forward thinking way of building your system and building lighting into a system.

Max Chopovsky:

And it also helps with justifying the investment, right?

Cecilia Ramos:

Exactly.

Max Chopovsky:

If you can demonstrate an ROI,

Cecilia Ramos:

Exactly.

Max Chopovsky:

because of some of the efficiencies. Let's talk a little bit about health and wellness. We talked about the connection to the outdoors, which I think people just naturally crave. What other important features or products come together to make a space feel right to somebody from a health and wellness perspective?

Julie Michiels:

We've had some clients interested, like we were working on a project in Australia actually where they were very interested in the idea of chroma therapy and light. I don't know, I'm going to get the terminology wrong, but how do we use light to impact people's health and wellness and light in particular and color added into that. robust way of thinking about how you arrive to work and how you depart from work. And so they have these what are called end of trip facilities. And it's in some ways it's like a glorified bike room, right? But it involves like major locker room and shower facilities. And they acknowledge that like people go out after work, they come there to sort of, it's this threshold to start and end your day at the, in the office environment. and color and materiality and acoustics and all that sort of obviously create are the tools we use to create that threshold. And so they were very interested in the idea of color and how that might change throughout the day. So when you come in in the morning, and these are oftentimes subterranean spaces, you come in and you go down to these spaces so they're not getting a lot of access to natural light. So it's good in a way you have control over the full control over that environment from a lighting perspective. as a user maybe lose that sense of time of day in place when you're there. So what are you giving back through the lighting? When you come in in the morning, you're wanting people to feel energized about the work day. At the end of the day, maybe you're helping them transition into a dinner event that they're going to, or leaving to go pick up their kids from school or whatever, or they're going to the gym, whatever the case might be. and some interesting work that we've been doing around that.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's interesting because we're seeing a lot of crossover in even like the healthcare environments of needing to design spaces for break and pause and relaxation and reflection. And I was just with a general manager of our major senior living community center here in New York yesterday. And as she was constructing her project, she had her offices on the memory care light employed. And so she'd been living under catcher lights for numerous months of construction. And now she's just been, you know, put into her official office on the ground floor in a space that's without windows and with no dynamic light. And she's like at 3 p.m. every day, I just want to go home. Right. And so it's these anecdotal moments where you realize what the impact of light is on people's kind of mental well-being and how it can affect the day to day. are really interesting to pursue. And then like Julie was mentioning, designing those moments of pause, respite, you use the word threshold, which I think is a really nice word as well, because it's talking about bridging two different activities or two different spaces. And so that's kind of one trajectory of lighting and wellbeing, I think within the greater conversation of materialities. And I'm sure Julie can go super deep us, but within like our shading lines, we're seeing a lot more requests for PVC free fabrics. Just a general nod to the effect of physical materials on ourselves in our space. And if you look at the well building standards, there's a lot of different benchmarks to hit there for materiality or glare control or natural light. So it's absolutely a theme that we're if not all projects these days.

Julie Michiels:

Yeah. I want to go back. I just want to touch on kind of bring together two things that you guys have both mentioned. You just mentioned aging. And also, I think you had mentioned previously digitally adjustable lighting. And I think one thing that we're trying to keep in mind, too, is that the workforce is working longer in many ways, right? Further into their careers, into higher age brackets than we've seen before. And it's a natural progression of your visual acuity. doesn't receive as much light as you age. We're talking about all these great loungy environments, but at the same time, that doesn't functionally work for everybody all the time, either. One thing that we've been looking at, too, is how do we take our lighting that might have more uniformity during the day, and as the day progresses on, start to turn over that individual control? I'm looking out the window of the conference room I'm in because our open office general up lighting for uniform lighting throughout the office space. But then each desk has a track head over it. And each one of those track heads is individually addressable. And if you think about it kind of like your reading light on the airplane after the airplane's turned down all the lights for the duration of the flight, you have that moment of control over your environment. And so we're in some ways trying to think about it like that. but I can still get what I need out of the system when it starts to get outside of the regular work hours.

Cecilia Ramos:

That's.

Max Chopovsky:

That's fascinating.

Julie Michiels:

And part of that is just the range of generations that are in the workplace right now is broader than it's ever been.

Cecilia Ramos:

That's a great analogy to the airplane lighting, Julie. I hadn't thought about that one. And also reflecting on your first question, Max, which was how did our companies respond during the pandemic? I think both Julie in Chicago, as well as their other offices in New York and Washington, DC for SOM, as well as our offices, we've been building space during the pandemic and renovating and testing our concepts on ourselves during the pandemic, which is kind of an interesting thing Maybe some other companies went on pause. I think both, I don't want to speak for you Julie, but it seems like SOM and LeTron, we were doubling down on our spaces for our people and testing a lot of these concepts on ourselves, which is just fascinating.

Max Chopovsky:

Totally.

Julie Michiels:

Yeah, we definitely thought of ourselves as a lab where we could learn from the things that we're doing. And there's things that we wouldn't do for our clients here, but we can test those on ourselves so we can find out what the derivative is or the next iteration is of that experiment that we would roll out to our clients.

Max Chopovsky:

A hundred percent.

Julie Michiels:

yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

Cecilia, would you mute yourself if you're not, um, you're not talking. Helpful. Uh, you know, the, the question that comes to mind for me is, I know we talked about this a little bit before, but I love the idea of circadian rhythm lighting and how the temperature of the lights, the intensity of the lights changes with the time of day. We were actually looking at these lights. Uh, for our house. I loved how you can program them to be, you know, a little bit higher temperature, a little bit cooler during the day. And then as they, as the day goes on or as you dim the lights, they get a little warmer. But I'm curious to know, you know, how that would be applied in the office setting. And if you could just talk a little bit about the circadian, the idea of circadian rhythm lighting, that would be great.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yes, I think that generally it's to create a light that is dynamic and feels natural and melds with that of the outside. So getting a little bit technical here, think color temperatures of light, typical offices usually fall between 3,000 Kelvin and a 3,500 Kelvin range. But natural light at the height of noon might be approaching 5,000 Kelvin. And so you have this discrepancy between this cool white light from the outside and this warmer light from the inside and that blurring of exterior-interior boundaries is not present when you have that, you know, discrepancy between the two. So I think to meld those two together, have light that is dynamic and changing, and that really also as the sun sets, you know, the sun sets in a very golden warm tone from 2700 Kelvin all the way to 2200 Kelvin, you may not go that warm in an office, but to take it to a more comfortable level, let's say, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, we all lived under incandescent halogen lights. And those lights, when you dim them, they warm in color temperature. And so this whole feeling of dimming and staying static is new through LED or fluorescent lighting and isn't quote-unquote natural. It's not how, you know, incandescent source or the Sun behaves. And so it's just It's amazing how we just kind of respond to dynamic light and in an office, again, to create these spaces that can be used throughout the course of the day in different ways and still be warm and comforting at 8 p.m. should an employee choose to stay there that late is important.

Max Chopovsky:

I had no idea that incandescents warm as you dim them.

Cecilia Ramos:

Exactly.

Max Chopovsky:

That's, I guess, because we never had dimmable incandescents in any office that I used to work at, so we never really got far enough to find out, but. I want to talk a little bit about, uh, the future, which, uh, is hard to predict, but certainly we can all dream. Right. So if you were to put on your, um, futurist hat and imagine a, an office, uh, you know, however many years from now in the future that is built and designed and lit for the optimal human experience. What. would that office have in terms of some of the features, the layout, the lighting? What would that look like in your mind?

Julie Michiels:

I'll jump in. I think, you know, it's a really tricky one. Like I think we think about the future of Office a lot and like you said, it's no one has the crystal ball to see what's coming and technology obviously impacts the ways that we work so quickly now and we've been talking about it for several years at this point. But you know, just the postures that we have with phones, iPads, like the multi device user, right? Like I even have to think about like that. I have a a cup of coffee, an iPad, a laptop.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

I need surfaces to put those things on. We recently had a discussion about the future of a conference table. Like what even is that anymore?

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

It's like a holder for all of our devices more than anything at all. But I think we keep going back to these concepts I think around flexibility and wellness. And those sort of are a little bit inextricable in some ways, but again, just there's so many variables to consider in the workplace and I think there will only continue to be more. Like, it's not going to become more homogenous. If anything, it'll become more diverse in skill sets and tasks needed to be done in age, in device use, like all that kind of stuff that the only way to future-proof to point is to provide that sort of flexibility to either move or expand on a system that you have or provide like, Cecilia, I think you can obviously speak to this better, but like a product that you guys are working on has like our iPhones, like it has, there's like software updates instead of hardware change outs, right? And thinking like that kind of mentality, I feel like is what's going to help us move into the future. I have to say.

Cecilia Ramos:

Yeah, I don't

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Cecilia Ramos:

think any of us can wave the crystal ball. We can only try to prepare ourselves for spaces that can be fluid and dynamic and changeable. And to Julie's point, you know, the infrastructure and the systems that we put in, how can those be appreciating assets rather than ones that you install day one and then five years down the line or obsolete or something of the past and embracing the cloud technology's ability to push software updates as you innovate think of new ideas and new ways of using your space and your equipment within, I think that's absolutely critical. And then I think it will continue to be a personalized space, I don't think we'll go back to that homogenous space that is kind of a middle for everybody.

Julie Michiels:

Right.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

I agree.

Cecilia Ramos:

It's going to be a space that hopefully feels as warm and welcoming and comfortable and as homes. and to be able to provide that opportunity for people to make it their own, I think it becomes an important part of the design process and the forward thinking.

Julie Michiels:

And I think I hate to be the one to lob this out here, because this is not the thing that I am an expert in or am dabbling in much myself at the moment. But there is a lot lately in the design industry and architecture and interior design around the metaverse, and also around the use of artificial intelligence. So there's a lot that's been, there's even metaverse design awards already. People are designing for these virtual spaces. or it will be interesting to see what comes from designing in the space that doesn't have the same sort of gravity, or maybe you don't have to worry about thermal comfort in the metaverse. I don't know yet. I don't kind of know what happens there, but I'll be curious to see what discoveries might be made that might impact physical space or the ways that we work. So I'm curious to see where that will take us.

Cecilia Ramos:

And the AI portion is absolutely relevant as well. I joked with my husband yesterday, I had a software update to my iPhone and all of a sudden my entry screen with a time is like big and bold. And I said to Alex, I said, this is ugly. I want it back to like the skinny font type. And he goes, it probably realized that you're blind and you keep zooming in, right?

Cecilia Ramos:

I paused for a second and I thought, well, he might be onto something, right? in terms of future thinking and how systems adapt.

Julie Michiels:

Great.

Cecilia Ramos:

I mean, that stuff is all very possible.

Julie Michiels:

Right. And back to that, like the data collection, like we are trying to create buildings that learn, right? Like we're doing that now. And we've been talking about this again, and it's like data collection is getting more robust and it's being able, and we're being able to analyze it better. And so it's able to inform us of things that like we should change or ways that we should think about things differently, you know, as we move forward. So.

Max Chopovsky:

There's so much to talk about there, but I

Julie Michiels:

Yeah.

Max Chopovsky:

I do think that AI and the ability to as much as possible try to It's almost tough to say this but try to future proof the hardware as much as you can so that the software can be updated Like Tesla's, you know OTA updates to the cars like their their hardware hasn't changed a ton in the last five years I mean the design is pretty much exactly the same

Julie Michiels:

Mm-hmm.

Max Chopovsky:

of the cars themselves but the software is what makes is what helps them to release the new features. But then you have to understand what hardware is going to is going to be enough to do the job or over engineer it for the future. We have, you know, let's just say one more question. Time for one more question. So when in in today's age where capital preservation is very high at the top of priority list for most companies And they have to make the case for all the investments they make, especially as it relates to space. So what should they focus their capital on when it comes to space design and lighting? In other words, what are the sort of highest ROI investments a company can make to help improve the environment for their employees?

Julie Michiels:

I think it's focused on the space that brings people together and is focused on people, right? So providing that those amenities that make it comfortable, that make it craveable, going back to that idea. And I think that not pandering to Cecilia, but I think lighting and control of the space is like hugely important. Like I think, and it's always in a way, in terms of capital preservation, that was a good way for me to phrase that.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

It's a target because it's a big number on a project and we are always trying to preserve the intent of those elements on a project because they're very impactful to the success of a space. Lighting is hugely important to, you can put in all the comfortable furniture and materials you want and if you put terrible lighting on it, it will not be successful. it won't read the way you intended. So anyway.

Max Chopovsky:

Totally.

Cecilia Ramos:

I completely agree with Julie. It's about the human experience because ultimately, the human is one of the largest portions and expenses within the company, that human capital and how to make people most productive, how to use your architecture and design as a tool to recruit and then to retain talent, which has big financial implications as well. And then, you know, how can you use lighting? How can you use interior design? all those things that we're involved in to promote spaces that are good for people, that bring the community together and then in turn foster ideas, foster loyalty, foster collaboration. That's, I think, where people are putting their money these days, because they recognize the importance of it all.

Max Chopovsky:

Right. If the space is going to be a town square, then make it good.

Cecilia Ramos:

Exactly.

Julie Michiels:

I think some companies are afraid to move away from the individual desk space. And there's a lot of money that goes into that as well. And people are using that less and less, because that's the type of work that can be done in a focus room. It can be done in the cafe at the Starbucks table, if you will. And that capital could be reallocated impactful,

Max Chopovsky:

Totally.

Julie Michiels:

like better lighting and better control.

Max Chopovsky:

Totally. I mean, if you have a, if you have, you know, 40,000 square feet and 20,000 square feet is used for heads down space and people are using that, you know, uh, one day a week, maybe two days a week overall, then that's half of your footprint that is completely underutilized. And so the biggest, uh, sort of push that I'm seeing with my clients is the need for flexibility and you can rearrange

Julie Michiels:

Mm-hmm.

Max Chopovsky:

a space and now it's kind of more in of assembly spaces, change it from classroom style to maybe in the round or something like that.

Julie Michiels:

Mm-hmm.

Max Chopovsky:

But I think ultimately sort of the Holy Grail is for the entire space to be flexible, with the exception of maybe the areas that need plumbing like the cafe or whatever, right? The bathrooms, but everything else to be completely reconfigurable. I think that would just reduce the real estate footprint so much. And then companies can focus that capital a smaller space allowing them to make that small space that much better.

Julie Michiels:

We need wireless power and wire and pipelines plumbing.

Max Chopovsky:

Yeah.

Julie Michiels:

We, right, we got wireless internet. We need the, we need all those other tentacles to find a way to untether us fully.

Max Chopovsky:

Wireless power is here. It is not at the consumer level yet, but

Julie Michiels:

Let's dream, let's dream.

Max Chopovsky:

Well, I got a dream. Well ladies, this has been fantastic Super enlightening and inspiring. I really appreciate you joining and sharing your wisdom I'm Cecilia Ramos with Lutron. Thank you and thanks to everyone else for tuning into the future of work and a space for the census. We'll talk to you next time.

Cecilia Ramos:

Thanks Max.

Julie Michiels:

Thank you.