Last week saw the event of the design industry take place within the delectable confines of London’s Clerkenwell. Clerkenwell Design Week (CDW) is an opportunity for designers to showcase their best offerings, services and products from within the glistening realms of their showrooms, CDW is a true haven for anyone in the design world.
As always, Magenta Associates was out in full force – mingling with friends, clients and meeting new contacts! Graced with warm, sunny weather for the entirety of the week, Clerkenwell shined brightly and was bursting at the seams with seminars, workshops, installations and product launches.
Attending a fantastic talk hosted by Flokk, a workplace furniture manufacturer, Steve and Ollie took away some great insight from the panel debate looking into workplace wellbeing and the importance of physical movement. With speakers from London School of Economics, Gensler, UK Active and two representatives from Flokk, the panel delved deep into the issue of movement, agility and activity within the workplace in 2018.
The panel concluded with their key tips and tricks for encouraging workplace wellbeing and movement. These were:
- Encourage people to come with you to do small tasks which increases movement and betters internal relations.
- Don’t always sit in the same spot, if possible. Move around, meet new people, and keep moving around!
- Coffee is a definite driver of productivity and engagement. Encourage people to have some with you! Also, wireless communication is very much here. Use your wifi and charged laptops and go sit somewhere different!
- Always sell the positive benefits of movement. Don’t force it, just encourage it positively.
From a host of different perspectives, the panel discussed why encouraging movement is critical to the health and wellbeing of the office. With the landscape of workplaces in a constant state of change, there’s a real opportunity to drive the adoption of new behaviours and embed them in office cultures to benefit teams.
While enjoying the blaring sunshine in Clerkenwell, we were able to hop from different showrooms to see the best of what the design world has to show. Key trends this year seem to involve pastel colours, bold fixtures, textures inspired by nature, incorporating natural light, and many also seem to be focusing their efforts on movement and agility within the workspace – a refreshing sight, for many office-based workers in attendance at the festival.
The wonderful part of CDW, is the variety on offer. You can spend the morning attending fascinating talks and workshops on a broad spectrum of topics, the afternoon leisurely wandering about the slick showrooms and liaising with A&D professionals and finish with a drinks and networking reception in the evening. Or, in Magenta’s case, attending our annual summer PRty!
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