Awesome offices

By TRACY JONES • The Times-Union

Carpeted walls, manufactured metal desks and water coolers — sound familiar? If you’re part of the working masses, chances are you spend your workday in a cubicle or office. And aside from family photographs or the occasional pop culture trinket, if you work in a Jacksonville office, it’s most likely a traditional business setting, said local interior designer Glenda Wann.

However, an impressive and creative office can improve work performance, she said.

“There’s an underlying sense of well-being when an office is harmonious and put together well,” said Wann. “Sometimes it’s something you can’t put your finger on, but when you sense that [an office] is well put together, it’s something special.”

According to a study by The Gensler Design and Performance Index, 90 percent of respondents indicated better workplace design and layout result in stronger employee performance. However, only 50 percent of American workers think their current workplace design encourages innovation and creativity.

Skirt! scoured the First Coast to find women getting the most out of their offices by having exceptional and unconventional work spaces.

 

Breaking Ground Contracting

In October, Mary Tappouni and her employees will move into an office on the Westside with living rain walls, a vegetated roof garden and landscaping that creeps up to the roof.

The 3,800-square-foot structure on Highway Avenue will rely on solar energy and storm water strategies to make it one of, if not the most, environmentally sound offices in Jacksonville.

“People think you have to have a lot of money or be the government to do green building, and we want to show them that you can do it with a small building, and it can help save businesses money, too,” she said.

Tappouni plans to also have a green-building education center in the office to teach design professionals, clients and students techniques in green technologies.

Until construction is completed, Tappouni and her team at Breaking Ground Contracting are using a space in Springfield for work. But when the new office opens, the employees will have their own special spaces, complete with individual temperature controls and filled with natural light.

 “Everybody wants to feel good about where they go every day, and your surroundings are really important,” she said. “It just makes you feel better and makes you feel good about what you’re accomplishing.”

 

Katz 4 Keeps

When entering Mary Boushie’s  storefront in Ponte Vedra Beach, visitors are greeted with handmade black-and-white patterned cornice boards, lavender walls and Wyni, a 10-week-old kitten.

Wyni is one of 34 cats that call Katz 4 Keeps, Boushie’s business, home. There are 22 litter boxes, and cats Edward and Jacob are usually cuddling in the corner of the adolescent room.

“We are a functioning office,” Boushie said. “But our commodity is cats.”

Katz 4 Keeps is one of the few nonprofit cat rescues in the Jacksonville area with its own facility to house the cats. The office’s lease began April 1, but the company has been around seven years and previously operated out of Pet Doctors of America in Ponte Vedra Beach.

The office has four suites for cats based on their age, and each room has a lattice ceiling, sliding glass doors and scratching posts.

The kitchen serves as the laundry, medication and feeding facility. There, Boushie keeps meticulous records on each cat’s health.

About 40 volunteers, as well as a children’s group, come in and out of the space to care for the cats. Boushie and her team have rescued more than 450 cats, and she keeps scrapbooks for each one.

“I fund the program 90 percent, so I spend an awful lot of money and everything,” Boushie said. “My expense has doubled since we moved here, but we had to do it. We just got too big.”

For the past 10 years, Maxine McBride, president of Clockwork Marketing, and her all-female team have worked out of their feng shui-friendly workspace.

Most of the doors have been unhinged to unblock energy, and a waterfall picture hangs outside the director of finance’s office to ensure money is flowing in the right direction.

“We don’t have stacks around here because in feng shui, stacks of papers and things hold bad energy,” McBride said. Twice yearly, the women devote an entire day to clearing out the clutter formed by old files and publications.

The decor features custom-made bamboo window treatments, lighted candles and music floating through all of the offices. Large antique dining tables serve as the desk spaces and are often accompanied by 100-year-old cabinets, and floor-to-ceiling windows spotlight either a marsh or forest view.

“Our business is very chaotic. Our world is very hectic and fast-paced, but our environment is very calming,” McBride said.

In McBride’s office, a tiled fireplace with glass doors is the centerpiece. The fireplace is often lit during meetings or brainstorming sessions.

Above the fireplace, there’s the “Breath and Life” art, a photo filled with white prayer candles in honor of Marcus Postlethwaite, McBride’s son-in-law who died at 22 from cystic fibrosis.

Despite having a job based out of Virginia, Sarah Brown is able to watch her sons Darden, 4, and Ben, 2, play in the backyard of her Jacksonville home. Brown telecommutes nearly 1,000 miles as a communications manager for Capital One.

Brown has her own office out of her Southside home. She said it’s small and nothing fancy, but the ability to check in on her children during meetings and phone calls outweighs any executive suite.

“There are a lot of people at Capital One that work from home and come into the office once or twice a week. I’ll just go into the office about once a quarter,” she said.

Brown also is able to put in her hours when it is convenient for her schedule. That way, if she has an obligation at her children’s school or has a load of laundry to do, work can wait.

“Having that flexibility for me is really key and keeps me pumped about my job,” Brown said. “If you’re having one of those days or one of those moments where it is just not working for you, you can kind of turn off and make it up later in the day when you’re feeling more energized.”

Whenever Brown needs some human interaction outside the toddler age bracket, she meets with colleagues from the Public Relations Society of America.

Now, Brown can’t imagine going back to the commute and a traditional office environment.

“It has been interesting that more companies in Jacksonville don’t embrace working from home,” she said. “We’ve found that it’s great for the employees, but it’s also great for the business, because you get happier, more productive people, and it’s great for the environment, because I don’t have that commute guzzling gas.”

Prudential Network Realty

When Linda Sherrer, president of Prudential Network Realty, met a commercial leasing agent in 1985 with impressive office furniture, she told him that if he ever wanted to sell it, she’d be the buyer.

Today, that furniture sits in Sherrer’s office, along with an oversize Oriental rug, vibrant original art, orchids and windows big enough to see the downtown skyline from her Southside business.

“Being surrounded by things I like makes me happy, so I’ve brought an eclectic array of art into my office, along with many family photographs, and that makes me more productive,” Sherrer said.

Sherrer said people often are surprised by the bright and modern art pieces and the oversize partner’s desk.

She said the best parts of her office are its comfortable and light atmosphere. It’s also conducive to conversation, and she always has chocolate available.