Where We Work Should Be Beautiful

When I was in Italy as a member of Vancity’s Co-operative Study Tour we visited a worker co-op called Kilowatt and I fell in love with the space and its people. The organization focuses on consulting, communication and education that serves social innovation, the circular economy and urban regeneration. They also represent an answer to the challenges of the modern workplace because their workspace, located in Bologna’s largest public park, is stunningly beautiful. Unequivocally, I think that where we work should be beautiful.

Here is how the Kilowatt team describes how co-creation takes place in Le Serre:

In the green heart of Giardini Margherita, we regenerated an abandoned public place – the former municipal greenhouses – in order to give it back to the local community. It has been enriched through projects and activities such as the coworking space, the educational service Kw Baby, the summer festival Kw Summer, the gARTen community that manages the vegetable garden, the ethical purchasing group (GAS), and our space for events inside the Lion Cage.

One of the worker owners (and my new friend), Nicoletta Tranquillo, has some advice for how we might re-imagine where we work:

“Be in a very beautiful space.” This is genius advice. You should’ve seen the looks on our faces as we explored the coworking space, theatre and community garden (we had a drink at the bar, too). Whether we came to Kilowatt from the Finance department, managed a Vancity branch or developed leadership and culture for the organization, all of us were inspired by the space, but also a bit perplexed that such a thing seemed so matter-o-fact for everyone but the Canadians on tour.

I’m writing this article from my parents’ home in Merville, BC – it’s my place of Zen because of my personal connection to the space, but also because it is beautiful. Sitting on the back deck under a maple tree, typing away as the sun descends behind towering fir and maple trees puts me at ease in pretty much every way. The thing is that such a setting actually helps me produce quality work, too, because fresh air, chirping birds and the smell of blooming nicotiana enhance my professional skills more than grey walls and collections of cubicles do.

The Guardian’s Oliver Balch suggests that “the scenic quality of our daily environments has a direct correlation on our personal wellbeing” and also enhances our productivity, too. So what will it take to our workspaces more beautiful? What are some opportunities for us to engage with each other in coworking spaces that are as beautiful as they are functional? For example, Kilowatt has free WIFI and most workstations are wired for laptops and other technology … but it’s in a community garden. How might we align beauty and connectivity to achieve greater creativity, productivity and joy at work?

I ask the last question because, as much as I love re-charging on my parents’ deck amidst the nicotiana, I crave human connection and get much of my energy from random collisions of creativity within the walls of the fairly conventional office building in which I work. The thing that inspired me the most about Kilowatt is that their coworking project has really figured out the reciprocal benefits of beauty and connectivity. Accessing a space like this in Vancouver would allow me to go beyond the mostly solitary deep work that working from home enables us to do. Let’s face it, working from home is good for some things some times, but doing it every day is lonely and, last time I checked, loneliness was a crisis becoming an epidemic in our more digital, less human world.

Beautiful spaces like Kilowatt humanize work by reminding us about the important ways that we are connected with nature and with each other. Let’s get better at making where we work beautiful and invest time to make it happen.

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This article was originally published on July 4, 2018.