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LAURA MAE MARTIN: Hi, I'm Laura Mae Martin,
and I'm so excited to be here today with Michelle Kaufmann,
Google's director of the R+D Lab for the Built Environment.
Thank you so much for being here, Michelle.
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: Thanks for having me, Laura.
LAURA MAE MARTIN: So you recently helped
create the first Built by Google campuses.
Can you tell us a little more about that project?
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: We started with this key question
of, how do we make a campus and buildings that
will be vibrant and functional for 100 years
when we don't even know how we're going to be working
or living 20 years from now?
And now it turns out that even with the past two years
of working from home, even the ways that we're working now
is quite different.
So ideas we thought might be 3 to 10 years out
are actually today.
So how do we think about buildings that are
flexible for that long term?
And with that, we look to the past.
We look to buildings that have been functional and vibrant
for centuries, and we try to find
the common attributes of different projects
that have lasted for centuries.
Those became the attributes of the physical space.
LAURA MAE MARTIN: So it sounds like
environmental consciousness plays
a huge part in this project for you as an architect.
So can you touch a little more on that?
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: With sustainability, buildings
is really this incredible place to start
with because, globally, buildings
are the ones that require the most energy,
create the most carbon, require the most water,
and impact our health and well-being.
And so they can be the biggest problem,
but they're also the biggest opportunity.
And so it's a big part of how Google
is thinking about the future with our workplace,
but also coming up with solutions
that can be truly scalable so that everyone in the industry
can be doing these things.
And we need to find these solutions that
don't cost any more or take any more time
than a traditional building.
And that's really hard to do, but that is also
what makes it really exciting, and how
we target and prioritize the kinds of solutions that we do.
So that way, in time, they can be accessible to everyone,
and we can really make a positive impact.
LAURA MAE MARTIN: I love that.
And so what future of work challenges
can purpose-built workplaces solve?
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: In our case, it's
really trying to hone in on what really is essentially
our main goal, which is for Googlers to be at their highest
levels of productivity and creativity
while also being connected and having
a high level of well-being.
And what that means is we have to fix those friction points
in the workplace that we were experiencing even before COVID.
So how can we have more protected focus?
How can we have more types of spaces for collaboration,
even ad hoc collaboration, that are much more organic?
As well as then having more hybrid collaboration
throughout, which is really bringing
in the off-site participants into the office
in a way where we all have an equal kind of experience.
Whether we be in a meeting, and some people are on a screen
and some people are there in person,
how can we have it so that everyone, no matter where they
are, have the ability to see and be seen, to hear
and be heard, and be able to cocreate together?
LAURA MAE MARTIN: And how has hybrid work
affected what employees need from their working environment?
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: It's such a key question.
And what we're finding is people are coming back
with more intentionality because now there
are some parts of our work we've proven we can do from anywhere,
especially the kinds of solo-focused work.
For some people, you can do it even better
at home than in the office.
And for some people, it may be that they're
wanting to go to the office to focus, but focus
with their team members so they can have those shoulder tap
kind of conversations to help unlock a problem quickly.
So with more intentionality of what people are going back for,
a lot of it, we're finding, has to do around
complex problem solving, mentoring, community building.
And the office really needs to change to support
those types of things.
And the successful offices are going
to be the ones that really become destinations that
add value to your work and your ability
to work without friction points when you're there.
LAURA MAE MARTIN: As organizations reimagine
the future of work, what's one practice that you'd
recommend they adopt?
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: I would say it's
to not get too stuck in one idea because, really, this
is going to be a journey, and it's
going to be evolving over time.
And what may work right now will change
in terms of what works well a year from now or two years
from now because we're going to be learning now
new ways of working together in these hybrid states with more
intentionality.
We're going to be building new muscles.
And that just means that I would really
recommend folks to look at learning and evolution
as a success metric because it really
is going to be the best to support all the work
styles of people over time.
LAURA MAE MARTIN: I love that.
If you're learning, you're winning.
You're growing.
Well, thank you so much for being here, Michelle.
I really enjoyed talking to you.
MICHELLE KAUFMANN: Thank you so much for having me.
It was great to talk to you, Laura.
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