In this project, you will need to design the New York City headquarters for an international non-profit organization. Its activities involve focused individual analysis of data, collaborative group discussions, team projects and "brainstorming" sessions. The offices are also the site of conferences and presentations to corporate officers and other personnel, including those who are visiting for a short period from other parts of the world. Please refer to the project description for the functional requirements of the project.
The following is a list of suggested non-profits as your client:
Image from: Moreno, Shonquis. "Christoff: Finio Reimagines the Classic New York Town House for the Heckscher Foundation for Children." Architectural Record, vol. 196, no. 6, June 2008, pp. 162-165.
Searching for journal articles may allow you to find literature and research specifically related to your topic/project, e.g., offices for non-profit organizations, or creative workspace environments for specific industries. They are also excellent sources for finding case studies relevant to your project.
NYSID Library's subscription to EBSCOhost service includes the following three major databases: Avery Index to Architectural Periodicals, GreenFile, and Art & Architecture Source. Combined, it provides you with access to full-text articles of over 600 journals. Although many of the records in the Avery Index are citations only (i.e., not full-text articles), it is very likely that either NYSID's Library or NYU's Bobst Library may have the print versions of the journals quoted in the citations. The Library can also issue a METRO pass to our users for consulting a particular book or journal in the Avery Library of Columbia University.
When searching EBSCOhost, you can use any search terms related to the workplace environment, such as office design, office layout, workplace environment, workplace design, etc. To narrow your search, you can add keywords to your Boolean search specific to your project/research topics, such as "office design" AND "nonprofit organizations," or "office design" AND "tech companies."
Before your design process and research on the specific building types relevant to your project, you may want to obtain a general understanding of your client, i.e., the non-profit organization, and their activities. You can do so by reviewing their website, particularly the areas pertaining to their mission, goals, latest strategic plan, annual report, programs, staff and organizational chart. If your client are related to a specific subject area, .e.g., a foundation or charitable organization for a particular purpose, an organization dealing with youth or GLBT issues, a preservation center, or a historical society, etc., you may want to get yourself familiar with the subject matter by consulting the reference resources in CREDO Reference or some general e-books in EBSCO. A keyword search of the subject matter and its related terms should generate a lot of results and basic information about the subject matter.
Similarly, if your workplace environment is for a particular business or commercial activity, you should also get yourself familiar with the typical practices and activities of that industry, e.g., how programmers work in a technology company? What are specific needs and activities in a typical law firm or publishing house? Obtaining a general understanding of your client by consulting reference materials in CREDO and related general print or electronic books in the library's collections is the first step of your research and design process.
The NYSID Library has a significant collection of print books on office design and workplace environments. Keyword searching of the following suggested subject terms in the Library's online catalog, Bobcat, will retrieve many results relevant to the topics. You can sort the results by the newest date if you want to find out the latest research on office design.
Suggested search terms:
You can add additional keywords to your search if you want to narrow down your search to office design for a particular industry or concept, e.g., technology AND office.
Recommended NYSID Books:
Alderson, Rob. The Creative Workplace. 2016. Print.
Allen, Cindy. Best of Office. 2012. Print.
Bakker, Mary Lou. Space Planning for Commercial Office Interiors. Second ed. 2016. Print.
Georgi, William, and Carmel McNamara. The Other Office. 2 : Creative Workplace Design. 2016. Print.
McCallam, Ian. Where We Work : Creative Office Spaces. New York: Collins Design, 2010. Print.
Uffelen, Chris Van. Offices. Salenstein: Braun, 2010. Print. Collection
Yee, Roger. Corporate Interiors 11. New York : Enfield: Visual Profile ; Group UK [distributor], 2012. Print.
Zumstein, Kerstin., and Helen. Parton. Total Office Design : 50 Contemporary Workplaces. London: Thames & Hudson, 2011. Print.
Piotrowski, Christine M., and Elizabeth A. Rogers. Designing Commercial Interiors, Wiley, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://nysid.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nysid-ebooks/detail.action?docID=700035.
Worthington, John. Reinventing the Workplace, Taylor and Francis, 2005. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nysid-ebooks/detail.action?docID=269940.
Architectural Record is an excellent place to find articles on the industry's most current and high-profile projects. To access the magazine from home or from campus, first sign into the NYSID Portal, then click "Student" on the top bar and "Library Resources" on the side of your screen. Under "Electronic Journals" you will see a link to Architectural Record and the library username and password. The screenshot below highlights the relevant sections of the student portal.
Once you have signed into Architectural Record, one way to look for articles is to go to the Toolbar at the top of the page, select Projects and then Building Type Studies. They have organized the articles by category, and you can browse by Restaurants, Healthcare, Retail, Libraries, etc. Here you will find articles with detailed project descriptions, images, and floor plans.
