Remarkable 2024
May 2024 be a year of remarkable progress and happiness! That the new year may be a journey of growth…
EST. MMII
Your host:
René P.M. otf Stevens MSc Arch/MBA
‘Grownup’ tastemaker with a
‘Start-up’ curiosity and drive.
The whole is more than the sum of its parts! By breaking up the fields of Real Estate, Facility Management, Information Technology and Human Resources into separate “silos”, they became more manageable. But we lost sight of the unity behind them because they are only artificial, rigid boundaries of perception. From the perspective of the users, there are no distinct boundaries between those “silos” for their experience of an integrated learning/work environment that boosts their productivity and well-being.
Accommodation, the evolving story. Revolutionizing spaces and places puts us at the forefront of change, setting in motion shaping the future of work—from disconnected to connected, from breaking apart to making whole, from just workplaces to places that work. Be aware that the workplace is also a state of mind and a place that matters. What was fragmented is restored into something more significant, a new whole.
“When we can imagine it, we can create it!”
Our goal with this dynamic website is to open a new vista and highlight the learning/work environment as a strategic means of adding value. This website may provoke a few thoughts that help push the boundaries of the conventional learning/work environment approach to the next level.
Being aware that it is a complex and multi-disciplinary ecosystem, we invite you to grasp the essential points while choosing to dive into the deeper layers as you are called to do so. Equip yourself with the theory and practical tools to initiate informed, transformative change to deliver added value and provide proof of it.
“The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” (Marcel Proust)
Join us and other forward-thinkers in this rebelliously curious journey of boundary-crossing with an open mind, question everything, and feel the possibilities with your heart. Remember that “All concepts are wrong, but some are useful.” We hope this website’s content will enrich your view about using accommodation as a strategic tool.
“An Exploration Odyssey where REAL ESTATE and the REAL STATE of People meet.”
ATELIER V is an independent strategy architectural consultancy firm in the business of place and space. It concentrates on the energy balancing of new and existing learning/work environments for educational institutions, corporations, government agencies, and other organisations.
Organisations are continuously developing, and so should their accommodation. We focus on performance over time rather than simply providing space. We enhance our client’s ability to discover the possibility of adaptable environments that make a meaningful and measurable difference in the organisation and its people’s ability to stay relevant and competitive.
The learning/work environment is an interrelated management mechanism, a production tool for facilitating excellent business operations. Therefore, we combine our business management, facility management, and design implementation expertise with an integrated, holistic approach to create an ecosystem of Bricks, Bytes, and Behaviour. This approach provides an evidence-based managerial lever at all stages of the learning/work environment’s life cycle to optimize and balance resources.
Adopting a workplace learning culture is vital for enhancing business performance and becoming more agile to cope with the fast-changing world. Because we are not entirely isolated from our Outer Environment, we should consider the effect of natural and manmade environments on our Inner Environment.
By embracing holistic, unifying relationships, we add hidden and dormant qualitative aspects to the separate parts, transforming them into a larger, thriving ecosystem. We move from ‘sustainability’ to the next level of ‘flourishing’ in all ways, not just by making money.
Accommodation is the second largest annual cost in most organisations. How can you better use this undermanaged fifth business resource to achieve your strategic goals?
How can we facilitate increased relevant Engagement of stakeholders? How can we execute the strategy for achieving the vision and mission in a more Effective and Efficient way? How can we find relevant Evidence for your organisation to be used as feedback and feedforward data for steering and anticipating?
Is the environment supportive of the desired mission? What qualities of the environment do matter to you?
We know that the environment has the potential to maximise value for the organisation and improve the satisfaction and experience of the users by appealing to both the mind and heart towards a more flexible, resilient and human-centric way of accommodating organisations and people.
We are fully aware that the organisation and its new or existing learning/work environment are highly complex ecosystems that are interdependent and, therefore, influence each other.
Applying an integral business value case approach transforms accommodation from an operational headache (cost centre) into a strategic opportunity (value centre), adding sustainable value for the organisation, people, and society. It makes a difference by realising the interconnectedness and fostering the health and well-being of the whole.
Modern accommodation is defined as much by digital and social space as the physical workplace. It has moved from a mainly left-brain approach to a more balanced left- and right-brain approach. To answer the main question, “Is the accommodation adequate, loved, and in control?” What do you need as proof to answer this question with yes?
The world is changing, and so should your organisation to retain its relevance and vitality. Many certainties, as we know them, are shifting. The limits of growth are confronting us. What seems impossible today is already an option tomorrow.
Now more than ever, it is time for a post-COVID organisation to find a healthy and safe mix of the physical, digital, and social environment. This means making a distinction between short-term pandemic responses and permanent long-term shifts. Work is no longer a place people go; it’s a thing they do—and when, where, and how it happens is no longer written in stone.
Stay ahead of the game by reducing occupancy costs while at the same time providing accommodation solutions that resonate with the organisation’s broader strategy and objectives. Optimise systems performance and human health and well-being. Create places where people purposefully go to perform their work.
The World Health Organization’s constitution (1948) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The McKinsey Health Institute talks about four dimensions of health: physical, social, mental, and spiritual. We call this the Inner Environment.
The environment (physical, digital, social) is a catalyst for people’s performance and well-being and therefore has a strategic impact. (René Stevens)
Human beings are reactive and responsive living organisms in a dynamic relationship with the environment. The multifaceted environment influences how you think and feel through entrainment. The human mind, emotions, body, and spirituality, the Inner Environment, are not separate and distinct from their Outer Environment. Change in one area will cause ripples of change elsewhere, often unexpectedly.
The interaction and synergy between people and the physical, digital and social learning/work environment are intrinsically (energetic) interconnected and form the cornerstone of Real Estate (RE), Facility Management (FM), Information Technology (IT) and Human Resources (HR). At first glance, these disciplines may appear at odds. Still, a deeper examination reveals that they are complementary and (should) serve each other for the users’ best experience and balanced well-being.
Integrating these disciplines requires care and supervision to unlock maximum value. Strategically integrating these disciplines will release the untapped potential for enhancing performance and well-being. It brings benefits but also responsibility and accountability to the people involved in it.
Creating harmony by addressing both sides of the equation, the outer and inner environment, is key. The quality of the workspace shapes the learning/work experience since everything, including humans, is made out of energy, which has no borders. The Inner and Outer Environments are, therefore, interconnected, open ecosystems that resonate. It is about the rediscovered ancient vibrational science.
A more complex ecosystem embodies higher levels of coherent resonating vibrations (entrainment). Entrainment is the interaction/communication from one form of vibration to another. Entrainment is also relevant when your body reacts autonomously and synchronises with strong external vibrations like rhythms, pulses, or beats created by the environment.
Therefore, the environment generates behaviour, and behaviour drives environment design and management. We are defined by where we live and work. Shape your surroundings consciously because your surroundings shape you.
ATELIER V takes pride in helping our clients reimagine the learning/work environment, using it differently and more intelligently in a straightforward manner to enable and facilitate the delivery of critical business outcomes and the health and well-being of the users. Whether in the traditional physical, learning/workplace or a hybrid mix (physical and digital), balancing the conventional school and workplace with home or third places (public places between home and school).
Entrepreneurial opportunities are not only out there in the competitive landscape to be discovered but are also emerging through interaction with the learning/work environment, taking collaboration and user experience to the next level.
It makes sense that the Human Resources department takes the lead in orchestrating the experience of people in places that matter and work.
Connecting people with a place to support the core function of the organisation while realising that work is what you do and not a place. Work on-site and distantly in third places or at home is equal.
A learning/work environment strategy is a derivative of the educational process and the organisation’s policy.
Therefore, a review of workplace performance should help understand how to facilitate evolving strategic policy goals (managerial objectives) and user performance (educational objectives of the academic departments).
The physical environment (Real Estate & Facility Management) is one of the critical secondary business processes. It requires integration and consistency with other processes such as IT, Human Resources, Finance and the associated systems to support the primary process and ensure that internal information and external accountability are in order.
A holistic approach embraces equally the three dimensions of the learning/work environment: physical, digital, and social. They are inextricably linked and influence each other structurally and directly. All three are interwoven to achieve desired outcomes.
Innovation is essential for organisations to position themselves to maintain or create relevant market differences in rapidly changing market conditions. Based on the organisation‘s objectives and the latest workplace trends, ATELIER V develops and implements bespoke evidence-based strategies and roadmaps for using the learning/work environment, helping to achieve short-term goals and long-term sustainability.
We share our knowledge and insights to help you improve your learning/work environment. We innovate by doing.
Our passion as business consultant architects is to find the balance of reason and emotion, of mind and heart, tangible and intangible. Ever seen from the standpoint of the users of the environment, the people.
Creating a learning/work environment requires a logical (science and reason) and emotional (imagination and intuition) approach. While the first can potentially also be done by a computer, the second can, by definition, only be done by a human being.
The rule of balancing the logical mind with the emotional heart. The left-brain logic with the right-brain desire to create environments that are both inspirational and effective but also in control and efficient in use for a better society and a more equitable future.
The balance between the polarities of Effectiveness versus Efficiency and Evidence versus Engagement. These four E’s form an interdependent energy system (The ‘E‘ of real estate), all capable of being regulated to maintain homeostasis in the learning/work environment eco-system.
Therefore, action on one polarity will impact all of them and the final result.
Today’s science was yesterday’s magic. Don’t trust the boundaries or the knowledge you have been given as the limit or the final truth.
Mainstream science defines energy as the ability to produce an effect. Frontier scientists came up with a new scientific paradigm that thoughts are things that affect other things that are outside yourself. We must expand the concept of energy to include thoughts, emotions, and spirituality in the energy equation of the eco-system of Bricks, Bytes, and Behaviour. By doing so, connect the Inner Environment (mind, body, heart, soul) with the Outer Environment (physical, digital, social). The frontier is accelerating, and we are all members who must exercise our roles in the movement.
– Places that matter and work instead of workplaces –
An integrated learn/work environment ecosystem of Bricks, Bytes and Behaviour.
Creating an adequate and meaningful learning/work environment is a complex challenge because cause and effect are interdependent and far apart in space and time. This challenge cannot be addressed piece by piece; it can only be addressed by looking at the whole ecosystem. The actors involved have different perspectives and interests that can only be harmonised with the engagement of the actors. It requires growing new next-practice solutions rather than best-practice solutions from the past. The “E” of real estate is designed to do just that by approaching the whole instead of only the parts.
It’s time for an aligned and new approach that adopts more free-thinking. A learning/work environment is more than a collection of ‘workplaces’. It is all about ‘places that work’ for you, the user, inspiring environments that generate energy, where people meet, collaborate and exchange knowledge and information. A place where they experience a sense of belonging. In short, Places that Matter.
However, success does not only depend on smart design but also on the proper use of the environment, the right attitude, behaviour, and culture of the employees, and the management style of the employer.
The ‘E’ of real estate is a conceptual framework that manifests that the learning/work environment is a catalyst for people’s performance and, therefore, has a strategic impact. It is an integrated interdisciplinary approach to unleashing people’s potential.
The ‘E’ of real estate podcast is a community for the discovery journey about an integrated learn/work environment ecosystem to add value since adding relevant value is the key to any success.
“If you change the environment, you change the people.”
(R. Buckminster Fuller)
The learning/work environment is like a two-edged sword. One side is about achieving an optimum balance between the polarities of educational Effectiveness and cost-Efficiency. How close is the learning/work environment’s performance to the requirements of education versus how much money is available to achieve this result, and when and for how long should the result be delivered?
The other side concerns the tension between the polarities of Evidence of (risk) manageability (being in control) and Engagement/notion of belonging (satisfaction with the learn/work environment) of the users. What level of control is needed, and what can go wrong? How can it be prevented or mitigated to ensure users’ desired satisfaction and involvement?
Polarity allows movement to take place, and attraction and repulsion spark evolution. A learning/work environment is a value centre and enabler, not just a cost centre. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The environment impacts the human psyche, making workplaces also a state of mind.
“A holistic approach of the physical, digital and social environment is a ‘powerhouse’. You can transform your organisation with an integrated learning/work environment.” (René Stevens)
Understanding the complex interrelationship in the learning/work environment ecosystem supports better decision-making. Not only is measurement information required, but you also need values to determine an adequate and desirable learning/work environment for your specific national and local context. The users’ engagement and support for their effectiveness are the primary focus and should be balanced with the efficiency of the workplace in an evidence-based manner.
To answer the main question, ‘Is the learning/work environment desirable and adding relevant value?’, four main sub-questions must be addressed, exploring it from several different perspectives. Breaking the question up into building block chunks makes it more manageable, primarily when a common lay language is used that is understandable for all stakeholders,
The diversity of four distinct perspectives, Engagement, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Evidence, ensures valuable additions and cross-pollination. Each E-perspective is potentially very powerful but should be honoured in its integrated context to consider all available approaches.
Any model is a simplification of reality, and so is this model. It’s like the headlights of a car designed to light our way. The polarised E-perspectives are distinct but not entirely separate and often have conflicting interests depending on the priority levels from the different stakeholder’s standpoints. They should be harmonised and integrated into a balanced state that is specific to your context. All choices are interrelated. To be sustainable, one should balance ‘now and later’ and ‘here and elsewhere’. Easy to say, it takes practice to do!
Be aware that Engagement, Effectiveness, Efficiency and Evidence are not ends but a means to an end. Pay attention to what is essential, not just what is quantifiable. Go for the good of the whole in the long term because focusing on short-term performance alone comes at a price.
How an organisation is accommodated says a lot about it, just like clothing says something about the person who wears it. Therefore, the learning/work environment is much more than a functional shelter. It makes what an organisation stands for tangible. Read more>>>
Optimising the effectiveness of the educational process is primarily based on an educational vision and the way in which it is structured in a didactic and organisational manner. Secondly, the educational process is supported by the quality of the learning/work environment in which this process takes place. Read more>>>
Adding value by using the environment can be achieved at different levels of ambition. Ranging from a purely technical and financial approach to a level where the learning/work environment is regarded as a strategic asset for the primary process. Read more>>>
Does the environment meet the demand and expectations now and in the near future? Is it adaptive to changing user needs? Both building owners and users are responsible for a safe, environmentally responsible and energy-efficient building. Read more>>>
If you are an end-user, tenant, or owner-user, hereafter, you find a selection of our services with which we can unburden you: as a strategic consultant or as an interim manager. All services are rooted within your specific context. We are intrigued by how to create places that work instead of workplaces.
We turn the learning/work environment into an evidence-based business asset in which Finance and Operations, the task side, play a role, and Sales & Marketing and Human Resources, the human side. Both sides are integrally involved in our advice, which is tailor-made in line with your specific issue as the client. It is tailored within the internal organisational context of culture and shared values and the external context of regulations and common practice, using a common language between the demand and supply sides.
An analytical and logical left-brain approach should be balanced with an integrated intuitive right-brain approach. (René Stevens)
Analytical thinking allows us to comprehend the parts of the learning/work environment, while integrated thinking enables us to understand how they work together. (René Stevens)
Understanding the intersection between people, culture, and a thriving business model. A management team that is aware of the strategic opportunities of a harmonized environment, together with the help of interdisciplinary specialists, can create a difference in unlocking and unleashing human potential. “You can’t motivate another person. “You can only create an environment in which they motivate themselves.” (Sara Hannah)
Caring for people and accountability to each other and yourself are inextricably linked. By improving employee accountability to colleagues and the organisation, we demonstrate care for each other and increase productivity. For that to happen, it requires the right environment that inspires people to take ownership, maximise care and achieve more by loving what they do and with whom they do it.
An organisation should dare to think big but start small and expand incrementally. Innovation is impossible without experimentation. Experiment and gradually find out which form and speed of implementation suit the organisation best. Have faith in the process. Like anything new, it takes a bit of trial and error before you get it right, but the payoff is worth it.
Environmental consultancy is about cross-pollination and integration of the Real Estate, Facility Management, Information Technology and Human Resources disciplines to unleash strategic opportunities in the learn/work environment. Change management is an important part of this.
ATELIER V is constantly developing its insights and know-how within the profession. To this end, we developed over the years our proven consultancy methods and tools. We keep questioning them to determine what is correct and true and what needs further consideration and research for improvement. They enable us to select the best strategies in use to maximize practical solutions to add value.
We are in an ongoing exploration of quantitative and qualitative methods and tools to improve insight and support decision-making about the learn/work environment. We want our clients to question everything with us so that we can come to shared conclusions that will help us all gain a better, and mutual, understanding about the nature of adding value with and by the learn/work environment.
May 2024 be a year of remarkable progress and happiness! That the new year may be a journey of growth…
Dynamic relationship with the environment Human beings are reactive and responsive living organisms that are in a dynamic relationship with…
René Stevens gave a talk “I Call Architecture a Symphony of Form” (34 minutes) for the international Earth Energies Zoom…
Guest: Architect Ibrahim Karim Ph.D. Dr Sc, Founder of BioGeometry – Cairo, Egypt. Host: René Stevens, CEO/Owner ATELIER V real estate…
Adding value with an adequate learning/work environment is simple, but implementing simple concepts is not always easy. The learning/work environment ecosystem requires a multidisciplinary approach to unleash its full strategic opportunities. An interdisciplinary approach is, therefore, at the heart of what we do to create synergy. It enables us to take a holistic view when developing any opportunity. It allows us to challenge and reframe each problem we address.
Our passion is to develop and implement strategies for the learning/work environment based on organisational objectives and environmental trends. A learning/work environment where people and organisations can ‘recharge’ themselves to create value together. A living environment that gives you energy as a person (and organisation) and is also energy-neutral.
We cannot do this alone, so we strongly believe in partnerships. We are part of a tribe of like-minded, collaborating interdisciplinary specialist agencies and independent professionals. Passionate and connected from the vision of involving the users as much as possible in their learning/work environment. We actively share knowledge and invest in each other to guarantee a high-quality standard
Do our values appeal to you, and do you want to become a partner? Please get in touch with us.