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1% Better Randy Fielding – Quick Links

Read Randy’s article: 6 Elements of Thriving Learners
Read Randy’s article about vistas and movement
Read Randy’s article about wellness and autonomy
Check out more informational articles by Randy Fielding
Learn more about Fielding International
Connect with Randy Fielding on LinkedIn
Connect with Craig Thielen on LinkedIn

Key Takeaways

• Importance of Natural Light and Views: Access to natural light and long vistas is crucial for productivity and creativity. It promotes circadian rhythms, reduces eye strain, and supports overall well-being. Office spaces should offer windows with adjustable treatments to control glare while maintaining a view
• Diverse Spaces for Different Needs: Creating various spaces caters to different work or learning styles. Private rooms, collaborative areas, and open spaces give individuals the autonomy to choose the environment that best suits their current tasks and moods
• Movement and Flexibility: Incorporating movement into daily routines, such as standing desks, walking meetings, or balance boards, can significantly enhance focus, creativity, and memory. Providing cues and encouraging rituals like quick exercises can energize the mind
• Connection to Nature: Integrating greenery and natural materials into spaces creates a calming and inspiring atmosphere, fostering creativity and a sense of purpose. This can be as simple as adding plants or using natural materials in design
• Cultural and Environmental Adaptation: Understanding local culture and environment is essential for effective space design. Principles of thriving environments remain consistent globally, but their application should be adapted to local climate, traditions, and practicalities. Collaboration with the local community ensures spaces are optimized for their unique needs

1% Better Randy Fielding – Transcript

[00:00:05.440] – Craig
Hello, I’m Craig Thielen, and this is the 1% Better Podcast. Today I’m speaking with Randy Fielding, Founder of Fielding International, who focuses on designing schools and workspaces that allows people to thrive. So I’m really excited about this topic. Randy, welcome to 1% Better.

[00:00:25.520] – Randy
Thank you, Craig. I’m delighted to be here today.

[00:00:28.550] – Craig
All right, well, this is going to be a fun topic. I think it’s an under the radar, under emphasized topic. We talk a lot about having productivity with our workforce and a lot of our focus is what are we learning and how are we learning it. And there’s lots of techniques to that, but very often we kind of skip over the where we learn. Right. And I think from just personal experience, I think we can all think of places, you know, work environments and maybe going back to our school days where we were in an environment that just was depressing or had no windows or, you know, maybe it was in a basement or something that didn’t really feel good. And then we’ve been in other places where it’s like, wow, the ideas are flowing and I don’t think we often think of it. Well, you’re an expert in this field and you live in this field, so I’m really excited to talk about this. So first of all, why don’t you talk a little bit about how you got into this business and how you’re really focused largely in educational spaces. But I think it applies and you do some work in the sort of the work spaces as well… how you got into it and, you know, kind of what your, what your focus is.

[00:01:44.540] – Randy
Hey, well, thanks for that introduction, Craig. I think I started out early on wanting to solve a problem, so started in kindergarten. I go to school the first day and I’m told to sit in the chair and look straight ahead. And that felt very closed into me. So I learned early one of the first principles for working and learning is that, that I need some freedom, some autonomy. I need the ability to look out, for example. I want to look out the window. And that doesn’t mean that I am distracted or have ADHD or I’m not respecting a teacher. That’s a very human thing. In fact, it even relates to eye health, the science… learned this early on as an architect through research that for eye health we want to look up and change our focal length from the 30 inches between me and my screen right now to something at least 50 feet away. And that’s important for I…

[00:02:47.990] – Craig
Interesting. Yeah.

[00:02:49.530] – Randy
So I know that you have this wonderful office with all sorts of long vistas, and I do too. I can look out 100 feet that way, or I can look out all the way through my space down right outside.

[00:03:04.930] – Craig
Yeah, that’s great.

[00:03:06.380] – Randy
Those long vistas are something that I craved in school, and it applies equally to offices. It was always really important to me to be in a space, not looking at a wall. And interestingly, during the one room schoolhouse era, if you were naughty, you were told to sit with a dunce cap and face the wall. That’s a punishment. And yet we look at the millions of cubes created around the world, particularly in the fifties and sixties, and what do you do? Face a wall even today, I literally know of offices created, for example, in New York City for attorneys, where salaries are over $300,000 a year, where those upper associates, they’re not partners, are actually sitting in an office facing a wall. So these… It’s not the best thing for eye health, for productivity, for creativity. It doesn’t inspire us that looking out now is connecting to something beyond.

[00:04:13.730] – Craig
I’m curious about that because I think intuitively we all know that. We all know we like being in places that are larger, that have windows and views, but like, what’s the science behind that? That tells us, like, this makes us more productive, more creative? What is that?

[00:04:32.850] – Randy
Yeah, well, some of the science, as I mentioned earlier, is literally we have this crisis, we have had a crisis in the last 40 years where kids being myopic because they’re spending so much time looking at screens. So there’s that negative science that it’s not good for us to be staring in a fixed focal length all the time. And then what we see is when people are so tying it to some of the, a lot of this research is also around time of daylight, that people who are out and getting early morning light or late in the day, evening, it’s a little after sunset, a little before or a little after sunrise, a little before sunset. Getting that early light and later light grounds us in our circadian rhythms, and that reduces, for example, insomnia and anxiety. But also you can easily do a test. I think most people can do a test themselves. If you find you start the day with a walk, you feel more energetic. And so there is research about that, that some of these daily rituals, and it might include meditation, it’s walking and movement, some kind of movement, but it’s getting that light.

And if you’re going to be getting early light, it’s going to be a long vista. If you’re sitting in a garage or in a health club, it’s going to be blocking that light, so it doesn’t always have to be outside. And there is something, Interior vistas matter too. So there’s two different things going on there. One is the value of that, those that light early in the morning, in the evening, and the other is that long vista. So it’s going in two directions.

[00:06:18.980] – Craig
Well, I mean, I noticed you have a beautiful space there, so I’d encourage you to sort of use it, walk around and kind of give us the 101 of what does a good learning space look and feel like. And I’ve also noticed you’ve got some greenery in there. And that’s another thing that I’ve always noticed, that when I’m around plants and greenery, like, I don’t know, I feel more creative than when there’s not that around. So maybe just give us the basics on what does a good work or learning environment look like.

[00:06:52.180] – Randy
Well, thanks for that invitation. I would love to. As I do that, I’m going to touch on and refer to six principles for thriving, for working and learning. And I will tie into the green, but I’d say the first one would be safety and wellness. We need to feel a sense of safety in our space. So you’re in a space that is very much Craig’s, and you’re surrounded by elements that give you that feeling of connection.

And in our space, in terms of safety and wellness, one of the things we found this is set up now, it works for six to twelve people. People do have some elements that make the space their own. So for me, for example, you see my standing desk here, because I’m a guy who likes to move. And right behind me actually is a hula hoop. Hula hooping is very grounding, interesting. But also there’s a balance board. And so this balance board enables me to be standing and kind of using my core while I’m moving. And you’ll find that if you use a balance board at a desk, it may be the first week or so, it feels a little confusing, you know, am I focusing on my Word document or am I focusing on that? But after a while it becomes completely second nature, and so you’re less tired. And part of that feeling of safety and security is to feeling connected to your body. I don’t know about you, but when I just sit in a chair, after 40, 50 minutes, I begin to feel tired, low energy.

[00:08:32.210] – Craig
Yeah, for sure.

[00:08:33.010] – Randy
And I’m less connected to my body, less creative, less productive. And that begins to create, even go towards anxiety, can eventually lead to depression. I’m low energy. I’m not, you know, things are not firing as fast. So for me, I need to be around opportunities, cues that allow me to move. And then you mentioned greenery. So in addition to these long vistas, I’m looking out. I’m looking out at the city, I’m looking out at trees. And for seven months of the year, there’s a lot of green out there. But then also in these long winters, I need to feel that sun. So here it’s even, it’s a small office, but 70 foot wall of sun.

[00:09:17.670] – Craig
I love the windows. Like, you got more windows than you have walls. And ironically, we’re in December, as we’re talking here, late December, almost, almost January, and it still looks green out. So that’s quite unusual.

[00:09:31.630] – Randy
It is, it is. And, you know, it’s also important… fresh air is so important. So there you’ll notice that you’ve got low windows and high windows. And so for many months of the year, I have low and high windows open to create a stack effect. So you get cool air coming in and warm air going out. And we’ve also got these… these great… they’re called Big Ass Fans.

[00:09:56.980] – Craig
Yep.

[00:09:57.400] – Randy
Up here, and they’re on a biocenter, so it’s fully air conditioned. But there’s a kind of joy in being able to experience the actual air. It’s not only healthy to have fresh air, but that connection. So there’s that visual connection outside. And then if you look at the front of our building, which is a kitchen commons area.

[00:10:19.860] – Craig
Yeah.

[00:10:20.330] – Randy
The whole front of the building actually opens up.

[00:10:23.470] – Craig
Oh, you got a little porch and a patio out there.

[00:10:26.560] – Randy
Yeah. So we’re also. We’re often having lunch out here.

[00:10:30.760] – Craig
Awesome.

[00:10:31.550] – Randy
And we have quite a few events where we’ll have 70 people here. So just opening up that whole front of the building, and then people even in the neighborhood will come by. So their sense of connected gives you a feeling, connects to purpose. And then part of that safety and well-being is feeling connected to the people around you. And so this kitchen common area, you enter right into our kitchen, and then an area where is really comfortable, where we’re constantly hanging out. I often have visitors come. When you come, Craig, we’ll have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. And that gives a sense of that safety and security, that we connect to people, that we’re kind, that we understand the common humanity.

I’ve worked in 50 countries as an architect, Craig, and everywhere I go, clients will begin by welcoming me for a meal or at least a cup of tea. That’s something, so our common area is not only collaborative, where we’ll have book clubs and seminars and business meetings, but it’s a place, literally to share that eating together. Now, another item I want to bring up that’s key to thriving would be autonomy and opportunity.

So by autonomy, I need choice in the type of spaces. So this is a small office. Our firm is 26 people, but we’re spread in different offices. The Minneapolis office, there are six of us. So it’s a small group. It’s a small creative team, and we work with partner architects around the world for the details. We do the creative part.

[00:12:15.640] – Craig
Okay.

[00:12:16.720] – Randy
But when you, even with only six people, when we look at the.. so there’s a conference room that I was in here, and this one, we can make it private. So I have that choice.

[00:12:31.430] – Craig
Make a quiet space.

[00:12:32.780] – Randy
It’s holiday week. That’s why I’m here alone today. But that’s in use about 50% of the time, someone is in there doing a zoom or having a meeting, and that’s… It’s visibly, it’s not… It’s acoustically private. So we have that choice, that autonomy. I can choose to be in an acoustically separate area where I’m in control of that space, and we have that sense of autonomy. We can do standing meetings. Some years ago, we had one of our local clients, the superintendent, came over for a, it was a seminar, and in a small breakout, she was standing there and said, wow, this changes everything. Meetings are often dull, but the fact that we’re having a 20-minute standing meeting made a big difference, so…

[00:13:18.110] – Craig
Absolutely. And all the windows. Yeah.

[00:13:21.360] – Randy
Choice. And then often all of us, there are times of the day or times of our lives, we want more privacy. So this is called the pink room. And notice the acoustic flower. It makes it a little quieter and softer.

[00:13:36.610] – Craig
Okay.

[00:13:37.390] – Randy
You still have a long vista. So this room is used a lot for zooms, sitting at this counter. And you have that long view out, and you’ve got some art on the walls. But this is a lockable door. It has room darkening shades. It’s acoustically very quiet, and it has a couch. It’s used as a mother’s room, a napping room. So you have that choice, that sense of autonomy and opportunity, which is important to all of us.

[00:14:11.980] – Craig
Absolutely.

[00:14:13.300] – Randy
That the greenery grounds us in something that’s not so work like. So that gives us this feeling that we’re around something bigger, something purposeful. Go back to some of those key principles of thriving. So love and belonging… that’s something that we all need in our lives. It’s core, it’s even more important probably, than what our metrics were that week at our office. And I think one of the things we can do in our office design is display some of those values and they’re a little different for everyone.

But to give you an example, one of our local clients, Hopkins public schools, with ten schools we’ve been working with for five years now, some of their core values include, I think you can see it.

[00:15:03.850] – Craig
Wow. Yeah.

[00:15:04.930] – Randy
Which was really bold of them to.

[00:15:06.730] – Craig
Wouldn’t have guessed that. Yeah. In a school, you know, higher ed or I guess elementary ed, I wouldn’t have guessed that.

[00:15:13.130] – Randy
This is a Pre-K through 12, although they have a big Community Ed program. And we see at universities, love and belonging are more important than anything. With the suicide rates going up and kids feeling isolated and becoming more multicultural and multi-global, our universities, there’s many kids from other countries, they lack belonging, they don’t always feel loved. And what you’re seeing here is these renderings. We’ve developed five pathfinders, or concept designs in five areas as a sort of pilot for what would help them thrive more in the future. So in this one about joy and hope, you can see the way these fluid connections create this connection between people. And then you see one about vigilant equity. So, you know, equity diversity and equity and inclusion is important to all of us right now. And this one you can see spaces for, you know, all kinds of people intentionally design that variety.

And another one would be authentic inclusivity. And again, you can see, we created these icons and you can see their space that’s more cave like and quiet and reflective. And there’s space that’s more adventurous. So, Craig, you might find there are times you’re like, let’s go. I want to innovate. I want to try something. I’m feeling confident, I’m energetic. And other times where you need that quieter space. And so we’re providing all those spaces and we’re also making those values really visible. Yeah, I can look up at these all the time. And as I walk around the space, being intentionally adventurous, hey, when I look at this, which is just only 15 feet from me, it makes me want to get that hula hoop out and move around. Or…

[00:17:03.660] – Craig
They’re good little reminders, as you said. I mean, we have these things often in corporate environments. I love the fact that schools and educational systems are looking at those kind of core values and hopefully, it’s a reminder, a visual reminder for folks going, well, what are we doing? Are we really holding ourselves up to these standards, you know, on a daily basis? One of the things I love, Randy, is when you’re walking around there is just how there’s so many different spaces as you’re describing, it kind of reminds me, like, it’s like half work from home and it’s half like a corporate environment, But you can… everyone’s going to have different, you know, learning styles and modes and spaces and maybe even different moods or different sort of… I want to be very… It’s sort of creative right now, or I just need to focus and get this paper done or this or what have you. And so it gives you a lot of different flexibility.

But I really like the part where you can get more comfortable in, you know, lounge chairs or in that sort of open space, like, you know, dining area or go outside. There’s so many different places where you can just be more comfortable, but if you need to focus, that you have a place. So that’s really a really good example of, you know, like, I think many times, like, so many environments… I’ve been in hundreds of corporate environments, and I’d say they’re certainly getting better. The last five or ten years, you’re seeing a lot more architecture and a lot more openness, and that’s kind of the in vogue thing, and there’s all these little pods all over and whatnot. But it feels like it’s still like it’s a mode, and to have multi modes available and comfortable.

And frankly, we have people with COVID that went home, and some people love it, and they feel much more comfortable at home. And some people maybe feel like they can’t focus as much. But as people start to come back, I think they’re going to really miss that comfort and that place where they can socialize and have different options like they, like they do at home.

So, one thing I do want to come back to is a comment you made about you’ve been in 50 countries doing this kind of work, and I’m really fascinated by that. I also travel a lot and sort of am a student of cultures, and I’m really curious how, when you are designing spaces, how do you incorporate the local environment, the local culture, into the environment that you’re creating? I gotta imagine, you know, creating a learning space in New York City is just going to be an entirely different task than creating one in a small and mid-sized community in Costa Rica or Colombia or somewhere else. I’m just really curious about how you think about that.

[00:19:55.930] – Randy
Yeah, great question. And I would say these principles about what allows us to thrive as workers and as learners are, they’re 90% plus the same everywhere, but that 10% is so important. Or relating it to the name of your podcast, even that 1%.

[00:20:12.960] – Craig
There you go. Love it.

[00:20:13.680] – Randy
It’s really amazingly different. And I think one of the best learning experiences and funny and vulnerable ones is that I led the design for an Inuit cultural learning center. It was both a school and a cultural center where this was in the Arctic Circle in northern Canada. And prior to going there, I had done six different options with sketches on the site and all these connections to outside and basically the program elements that they talked about, which they wanted to learn about traditional skills, for example. So, I mean, there was a house, there was like a smoke house place and there was a place for processing skins and a place for, you know, storing all their hunting elements. And so, I get up there and the… I’m meeting with the elders in a room and I’m sharing these ideas… Oh, by the way, I should just back up and say I had done a that time, it was Webex, early use of Webex, where we spent a whole day with three satellite hops talking to them and listening to them. So this was not the first connection. This was the first in person connection.
And now I was a little bit more sharing some ideas I had after listening to them. And I shared some of the designs and the Inuit elders and this was translated from Inuktitut, said, yeah, Mr. Fielding, you know, that’s a very nice design, but when you show the entry, he’s going to be covered with 2 meters, you know, 6 feet of snow about nine months of the year. So I don’t think you should put the entry there. But thank you, a really interesting sketch.

And then someone else says, well, you know, and the place where you have the tanning and skinning area looks like an interesting design, but that is going to be, the wind is going to carry the smell, which is horrible, right into our structure. So I don’t think you should put that there. And then someone else says, you know, I think that you have this entry where we’re going to bring in, you know, gas, for example, for heating, but, you know, that really smells too. And so I don’t think you should have that there. And then someone else says, you know, I love the, I love all the glass and the way that feels that connectedness to outside, but, you know, about 80% of the time, you won’t be able to see out the windows. They’ll be fogged up.

So they didn’t solve the problem, but they, you know, it was a really humbling experience, Craig, about how important place and different culture could be. So I said, you know, thank you for all of that. We’re sitting in a room, by the way, it’s a school library… it’s, you know, there’s not much light. There’s fluorescent overhead lighting. I said, how about if we go to the site? You know, I mean, there was nothing on the site. It’s outside.

What would you think about continuing the meeting right on the site, just standing? And they all light up, you know, now there’s some energy in the room. Finally, they’re not being polite and respectful. They’re actually excited. So they all have four wheel drive pickup trucks, right? We get out there, I get with one of them and their pickup truck. We go out to the site and I said, how about if we all just stand in this big circle? There’s maybe 20 of us, and we’re standing on this… imagine a snowy mound, slight mound, and you can’t see very far. It’s misty. You could probably see like 40 or 50 feet, but we could see each other. And we talked about what it was like to be in this space. And it was just amazing. I mean, you know, the back of my head was, was kind of tingling. There was, there was some kind of joy in the communication and that we were able to talk through where the wind was coming from, easily the quality of the light. And we were able to talk about the design in such a way that was so grounding and effective.

And it was hard to do through Webex with three satellite hops, it was hard to do. And so I found that in many places and on the other side of the world, we’ve done a lot of tropical work. And for example, in Indonesia, we designed a 1500 K-12 school and also a university in Thailand where the plants grow so fast that you can make the design of the landscape truly integral with the, you know, interior. You can blur the line between interior and exterior. So if I show you, for example, on the wall, that’s a project in China.

[00:25:01.410] – Craig
Oh, my gosh, that’s gorgeous.

[00:25:04.130] – Randy
That happens to be in Texas at an old farm site where we reuse the wood from the oak trees. And this is. This is in Thailand and this is the one I was thinking about that the way the inside and the outside are connected, we were able to do specifically because of that climate. So when I went there and I thought, this is like a garden of Eden, I mean, it was a little scary politically. Like, when they took me to the site, I had a motorcade of guys and motorcycles… there’s some political issues there.

I didn’t mean to say it’s utopian, but it completely changes the design. Or here in Canada, we’ve done five projects in Saskatchewan, and that is actually the back of the school, but it became front of the school because it faces south, because there’s nothing you want more in Saskatchewan or Minneapolis for that thing that is south light and the sense of light. And so we designed this school to just drink in the light. And the central commons, the heart of that school, is a south facing space, whereas the heart of… I mean, almost all the spaces we design, whether it is a learning environment or a working environment, have a kind of heart, and we always try and make that connected nature. So our heart here, as I mentioned earlier, in this space, is actually the kitchen commons. And that way you can open the whole front of the space and really connect to outside. And there’s a tree there that’s just gorgeous and full that you’re always looking at most of the time or when it’s up. And then this faces south.

And so we have lunch. Quite a few people aren’t collaborative at lunch. They actually sit right here, and they’re sunny. They’re looking out to the south. And interesting about this space. What’s important. So this is on Hennepin Avenue, which is one of the biggest commercial streets in Minneapolis. And we wanted to really say, we’re here. We want to have eyes on the street to create a sense of safety. We’re only a few miles from where the George Floyd…

[00:27:15.160] – Craig
Yeah, I see the mural up on the wall there.

[00:27:17.120] – Randy
You see that mural. So we wanted to say, we are open to the community. We’re a safe space. And in creating this space, this kitchen commons, it’s also an entryway. And something that we did is, looks like a very linear space. And you can see, I think, this kind of a line of straight line axial, but we tilted that bay just about ten degrees to orient more towards the corner, to be more welcoming…

[00:27:52.810] – Craig
And those little touches, like you said, it’s all the little touches that help make it glue together. And everything is very thoughtful.

[00:28:00.510] – Randy
And acoustics are so important. So a lesson that I learned many years ago, I used to do all kinds of community projects, including churches and synagogues. And at one of the synagogues I was trying to deal with the acoustic absorption, and the Rabbi said, let’s take a walk. And he said to me, when we pray, that noise is part of our energy together, so don’t make it too quiet. Don’t suck up all the noise. It’s the same thing that a priest told me at a catholic church. You know, we want hard and soft acoustics, but we don’t want, on Sunday morning, suck up all the men’s notes. And so there’s four different levels of acoustics in this space, which is easily applied to offices. And it’s typical for what we do. And there’s ten different kinds of lighting. So this is something we do in office design.

So if you look at the acoustics here, there are those white baffles there’s the deepest level of acoustics, and it’s because you have bright, all that glass, and it’s very public, even cars and busses going by. So the sounds kind of get caught up in there. And then here on the ceiling, this is a medium level of absorption. We have the Douglas Fir to respond to people’s need for beauty in nature.

[00:29:19.680] – Craig
Yeah, it is beautiful instantly. Yeah.

[00:29:23.150] – Randy
But above that, there’s acoustical insulation. It’s a medium level so that we can chat with each other, but it’s not noisy. You turn to someone a few feet away and chat. It’s not just immediately sucked up. Then that conference room, the large conference room, we have a diffuser. Looks a little like a bat. And the reason for that bat is that we want a somewhat bright sound. We’ve got some carpet, absorb some sound, but we don’t want the sound to go back and forth like a pinball.

You know, and then you’re getting this reverb, you’re hearing it twice. And so what the bat like form does is it takes a sound and then it sends it off in a different direction, so it diffuses it. And you see those in recording studios.

[00:30:08.860] – Craig
Interesting.

[00:30:09.490] – Randy
And then you see, as I shared earlier, that the pink room, it has an element which absorbs, it’s basically a sound absorber, but it also gives you a sense of wholeness, and it’s a restorative space.

[00:30:29.450] – Craig
Really good. So, Randy, just. I’m thinking how we, you know, first of all, it’s great. I love the story about your conversations with the, you know, the Inuit community and just how, like, there’s practical realities. Right? There’s practical realities that sometimes the only way to do that is through collaboration. You have all these great ideas and all these principles and all these great, you know, mediums and materials and beautiful design, but it has to work in that environment, which is, every environment, you know, is unique. So I love that. But I’m trying to think, okay, how do, how does one apply this, in a practical way, let’s say, to their home work environment or their, their work environment, and, you know, they can’t knock down the whole building and, and rebuild it. And you’ve already shared some really great insights, like, have windows and long views and have some greenery and have some beauty and, and have different levels of acoustics and different spaces. So you’ve already shared a number of different things, but I’m curious if there’s other things that people can just apply immediately. You mentioned standing up and being active gets your brain moving.

And that’s a reminder for me. I’ve got a desk that goes up and down, and I haven’t moved it up in a long time. And so I’ve got a. I’m going to do that after we’re done here. But any other little tips and techniques for just anybody, regardless of where they’re at, maybe go out for a walk on a conference call or little tips and techniques that maybe would help people along the way?

[00:32:04.750] – Randy
Well, I think you’ve already nailed it with getting up and moving around. Having rituals and visual cues are important, so habits are often formed when we see something that gives you a, a cue to get up and move. So it could be having that balance board nearby or that hula hoop nearby or even a picture on your wall of one of your favorite active kind of folks. And when you see that, you develop a ritual, it takes a little while, but you consciously think, okay. And then I think there’s something, you know, there’s a huge movement around mindfulness and meditation and being in touch with yourself. I think the most important thing is to be aware when you start to sink down. Most of us have some energetic times, but I think most of us, there are times when we are lower energy and we’re not as productive and not feeling good. We become aware of that. And then before you hit that point, you think of three things you can do. I can go for a walk. I can do sometimes I’ll do 40 push ups on the floor. I can do jumping jacks. My staff and I will sometimes do the New York Times Joy Workout, which is eight minutes together.

We do these stretch breaks together, and it’s awesome. It’s so fun. It’s on YouTube. That’s a free one. But we always chat when we do that. So it becomes this stretch break thing is, if you ask people here, it’s like one of their favorite things about working together, and they’re joyful. And then there are some practical things that you can do that are fairly easy. Sometimes they cost some dollars, but I’ll give you an example, one that’s huge. A lot of people have windows, and then they don’t use. They don’t have the right kind of window treatments or they don’t use them well. So I go into many environments that have good views and good light, and the blinds are down all the time.

Oh, it’s a pain to adjust the blinds. So here’s, I’m going to give you a visual of an example of one way that we’ve, we’ve dealt with that here. And this one happens to be. I happen to have these automated. But they don’t have to be automated at all.

[00:34:23.200] – Craig
Yeah. Depending on the sun and the brightness, it may be too bright in there. And so you want to give it a little bit of.

[00:34:29.990] – Randy
So. This also is, it’s a cellular shade that’s light filtering. It still lets light through. I’m going to show you how it was really important to get top down, bottom up for me because, you know, when I built this space, I thought the last thing I want is to have these down all the time because so many of my colleagues are working at computers and they want to reduce glare.

[00:34:57.590] – Craig
That’s really nice.

[00:34:59.390] – Randy
They want to adjust the glare. I can still look out the trees. And so what we do is we’re adjusting these often to glare is not… it’s important… you have to have glare control. It’s a human need, or, you know, it’s going to… There are times where it’s going to hurt your eyes. So that was one thing. And those can be manual. I operate those on my phone with an app, but it’s fine to use those, you know, with string, and they’re not crazy expensive. And you need to literally talk to people, talk to yourself about… I need sun. Get sun. Okay. I need to adjust. So you’re adjusting the windows and you’re adjusting the window treatments daily. That’s important. Yeah.

[00:35:44.470] – Craig
Yeah, that’s excellent. So I’m curious, I’m kind of a data person. And so what does, is, are you able to actually measure productivity improvements from, let’s say, the old school that and then you build a new learning environment, a new school or work environment. Can we measure that productivity increase just from doing some of the things and following these principles that you suggest?

[00:36:11.280] – Randy
Yes, we can. And I would say one of the more readable and digestible books on the research on the impact of the environment would be Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind. I think it came out in 2020 or 2021. She’s a journalist, and she summarized a lot of research. And in it, you’ll see, for example, well, first of all, the thesis of The Extended Mind is our mind is not all in our brain, right? Our mind is really what the space between you and I, Craig, you know, it’s the space between me and those plants. It’s kind of the connection between me and my hands or feet, all of that. Our mind is extended, and the quality of our thinking, our productivity is beyond the bounds of our brain. So that’s the thesis of the book, and then there’s dozens of pieces of research and just an example of one.

So in academics, memory is very important. If you can’t ever give a talk and refer to something you remember, if you have to constantly be reading from a study, you’re not going to be a very effective speaker, for example.

But it’s the same in business. I mean, I’ve given hundreds and hundreds of talks and, and connections, and I found that reading from a script is not best. So memory is important. And what she found is that people who moved while they learned… incorporated movement and the learning, the increase in ability to remember was tremendous. I mean, it went up something like 70%. And that movement could be as simple as you’ve got your standing desk, you might be walking around the room, Craig, while you’re talking, you could have earpods on. And, you know, one of my colleagues, whenever he’s got, like, sort of, he’s in cell mode, he’s, he’s a really good, he’s always walking around. You know, he used to be a football player. You see him, you know, his chest gets a little fuller, and as he starts to walk, he kind of finds his confidence and strength. And for other people, they find feel grounded. Yeah.

[00:38:20.580] – Craig
Yeah. Interesting. And our good friend, of course, Tom Goodell, he talks a lot about fields, and so the interpersonal field and energy and the field that you have with, with a group of people, you can feel energy levels. So I think that’s part of that extended mind. Well, it’s fascinating.

[00:38:41.740] – Randy
I love Tom Goodell, by the way. Our mutual friend shout out to Tom. Tom and I, our relationship is based on walking around Lake Harriet.

[00:38:49.440] – Craig
Well, I just was, was a very fortunate and honored to just go on my first walk with Tom around Lake, both of the lakes, that he lives near with his friend Will Steger, who I got to meet. And he’s another fascinating person who will be on a future podcast. And so that was a real treat, because to be able to walk and talk enhanced that experience. If we were in a room or even in a living room, it would have not been anywhere near the level of conversation. So sometimes just going for a walk is the way to go.

Well, hey, this has been so fascinating. I got one last question here for you, and that’s just stepping back from all this and workspace discussion. And by the way, thank you so much for sharing all your expertise. I think everyone can take very practical things away from this because we’re all living in the world and the space is incredibly important. Just taking a step back, looking at your whole life, what are some life lessons that you’ve learned that you wish you knew when you were maybe 18? Or maybe you want to pass on to your grandkids about things that you’ve learned about living on this planet?

[00:40:05.910] – Randy
I’d say a big one is the importance of relationships. And I have to say that my wife and daughters and many of more of the women I know always knew this. So this is not new. But as a man who often felt like being successful at career, which meant winning jobs, winning awards, getting money, having your business grow or in school, being the editor of the graduate School of Architecture, all of those things were very much about, I’ve got to take my skills and my passion and leverage it for success. And at this point, I’ve started five companies, and I look back on the successes and the failures, and mostly the successes are where I aligned myself with the right people.

And for example, so Fielding International, my architectural firm, which is just about 21 years old, I founded it 21 years ago. I’ve got two other people who were managing partners and realizing that we all have different skills. I have a Founder mentality, creative type, entrepreneurial, constantly looking at new ideas, exploring new things. But without those managing partners, we would not have thrived in the same way. And I didn’t really understand that when I was 29 years old and launched an architectural firm. I just thought, I’ve got passion and ideas.

[00:41:38.500] – Craig
I can conquer the world. Right?

[00:41:40.400] – Randy
Yeah. I needed other people to get there. And as if in your area, people say so often, there’s ten articles in Harvard Business Review, hiring is the most, as a CEO for example, most important thing you can do. I know that I learned that through mistakes, making the right connections and relationships. Yeah, are so important.

[00:42:05.620] – Craig
Well, well said. And I think we’ve all learned that over time. You never know what a conversation or meeting somebody and even how you and I met is through, a relationship. So again, thank you for sharing your beautiful space and all your expertise, and I look forward to visiting it someday and experiencing it live and in person.

[00:42:28.320] – Randy
I look forward to that as well. And thank you so much for the interview and giving me the opportunity to connect with your community, Craig.

[00:42:34.610] – Craig
Thanks, Randy.

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