CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–April 13, 2015. Designing office space to meet the needs of a younger, more technologically mobile generation of professionals that has different expectations of how work and life intersect is the subject of the Gerald Fogelson Forum on Real Estate being held at 5 p.m. Wednesday, April 15 in room 418 of Roosevelt University’s Wabash Building, 425 S. Wabash, Chicago.
A revolution in the very concept of office space is underway today. Addressing the topic will be Lamar Johnson (above), regional managing principal and head of the Chicago office of Gensler Inc., the nation’s largest architectural firm, and Georgia Collins (right), leader of CBRE Workplace Strategy in the western United States. The two will share their insights on creating work spaces that appeal to the workforce of tomorrow during the forum, which is now in its 16th year at Roosevelt.
Collins and Johnson are leading experts on an office-redesign movement that is catching on with companies all across America, including the trend toward moving the workplace from nondescript suburban office towers to smaller eclectic, vintage buildings in urban centers.
“We are living through the next great revolution of the workplace in which traditional boundaries between work and life are collapsing for today’s younger workers, and office spaces are evolving to account for that change,” said Jon DeVries, director of the Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University.
The first workplace revolution is believed to have taken place in the U.S. in 1900 when Frederick Taylor used factory design to conceptualize offices. The second movement in 1990 leveraged mobility and virtual work. The third revolution today is focused on bringing work and life together through networks and communities enabled by mobile technology, according to the forum’s experts.
“Today’s professionals at all levels are benefiting from the move to distinctive spaces where creativity is emphasized and where technology enables and supports collaboration,” added DeVries. “Lamar Johnson and Georgia Collins understand how these trends are developing, and how the corporate real estate community is actively responding and in some cases leading the change,” he said.
Moderators for the Fogelson Forum will be Tom Silva of Silva Brand in Chicago, a company on the cutting edge of branding offices as distinctive spaces and places, and Andrew C. Baker of Clovis Inc., a marketing strategy and public relations consultancy, which recently completed a major study for Ernst and Young on America’s changing workforce.
This event is free to Roosevelt University students and faculty and is $25 for all others. For more information, visit http://www.roosevelt.edu/RealEstate/Events or contact Latosha McKinney at [email protected] or 312-281-3269.
Source: www.roosevelt.edu
