The Evolution of the Breakout Room

As the open-plan office continues to become popular, while at the same time workers demand better-than-ever amenities from their employers, multi-function staff rooms are being designed with more care and creativity. Stodgy conference rooms are being replaced by huddle rooms, game areas, outdoor enclaves and cleverly furnished pods. Employees can break out from the main office area and have small meetings, or take a quick break from work and play a game. Or, maybe they can pop into a space for a few minutes to clear their head from office noise.

These rooms have been 'amenitized' in many cases, or at least equipped with better audio visual (AV) equipment than in previous years –but they are designed to be more casual, flexible, and more thoughtfully equipped. Rather than evoking a formal feeling, they're designed to put people at ease, foster creativity, and create a spirit of collaboration.

“Younger people prefer the ability to be untethered, to move and be reactionary," says Julie Zitter, a designer with the Austin office of design-firm Stantec. “But there's still a desire at the managerial level for staff to come into the office. More collaboration, more overlap and more intellectual property comes out of people being physically present. So you have to make the office a point of destination so that people want to come to work."

“Sense of place"—once a term for locations that for aesthetic or cultural reasons grabbed the visitor by the heart—is now being applied to office spaces. The aim is to create a business culture that resonates with employees, and deliver a killer amenity platform that's far better than any home office or coffee shop could provide. Multifunction rooms are an essential component of that.

Fresh Air

As many experts have mentioned, there's a real emphasis lately on providing natural light, outdoor views, and outdoor access. When feasible, companies are designing outdoor meeting spaces, or providing some type of outdoor recreation space—no matter how small.

“I always associate my break room with a balcony. People can go outside, get some fresh air while having lunch, and then go back to their desk," says Zitter. “If I can only do one balcony, I wouldn't put the balcony off the C-Suite, and I wouldn't put it off a conference room. It needs to be available to as many people as possible."

When and where weather and square footage permits, many landlords (as well as corporate-owned offices that are big enough to do it) are not just offering outdoor meeting spaces, but investing in thoughtful design and amenity platforms.

For one Austin landlord who wants to attract tech companies with a high-end amenity offering managed by the building, Stantec is designing an indoor-outdoor meeting space adjacent to the fitness room. It will have a patio and a lawn (with a combination of natural and artificial grass) where people can do yoga or turn their lunch hour into a picnic. It will also have a furnished shipping container that can be used as a meeting room—or, after business hours, a bar.

Recreation Should Reflect the Culture

The cliché of the tech startup with ping-pong tables and foosball has become almost standard in most spaces with modern aspirations. But not every company's culture, or not every department in a company, is suited to ping-pong. In the website creation software company Wix's customer service office in Miami, where many staff are young and into video games, Stantec put a small gaming station off to one side of the main break room adjacent to the kitchen.

In technology company Cisco's Austin office, the employees asked for board games. They got 4x4 vertical versions of chess, checkers, Connect-4 and Scrabble, made of wood and mounted on the wall. Employees, many of whom are engineers, play the games standing up, which requires physically moving the pieces instead of staying head-down staring at a screen.

“These are games you interact with, and pieces that are tangible, that you have to pick up—but they provide some warmth, because they're all made out of wood," explains Zitto. “Engineers are a bit more cerebral and introverted. When they need a little respite, this gives them something fun and engaging to do."

For a sales department, a foosball table or arcade-style pinball might be a better choice, or a yoga studio or a virtual surfboard setup may work well at wellness-focused companies—the key is to make sure activities are suited to the employees. Ideally, this should also be a space where a vice president and a couple new hires could have a game and chat for the first time in an informal, no-pressure setting.

Remember the Virtual Attendees, Too

Even if the employees have to come into the office sometimes, clients and partners won't necessarily be expected to make it to meetings in person. With virtual meetings becoming such an easy and widely used alternative to in-person meetings, forward-thinking companies should design their meeting rooms with an awareness of where the virtual attendees will be looking in the room, and whether they'll be able to see the TV screens and write-on boards.

“At Cisco Systems, they do a lot of virtual reality so AV is very important to them," says Zitter. “Everybody wants to write on the wall, so we do rear-painted glass boards, which are the cleanest material and you can write with regular markers."

The problem they discovered early on in using this material, though, was that the camera feeds for people video-conferencing in would pick up glare from the lighting if they were positioned on the opposite side of the room. So, the meeting room's cameras had to go somewhere within visual range of the boards, but not directly across.

Companies can also incorporate smart technology features that will track meeting room usage, enable easier scheduling, and control the light and temperature in rooms. Ideally this tech should be so streamlined and in the background so that it makes everyone's lives easier without even noticing it.