Welcome to Naava's brand new, health-promoting office!
Imagine spending most of your time indoors in a space that is as fresh and invigorating as crisp forest air. This is now reality for the people at Naava’s new office.
Naava’s new premises underwent a complete transformation from crammed and uninspiring to open and fresh. The office, which used to be a part of a hospital, needed more light, more openness and more natural elements.
The goal for the new office was to advance people’s health - both of the employees and the customers visiting the premises. In order to achieve this, the office of the future was carefully planned to cater to these needs with various solutions ranging from the general feel of the place to the smallest of details.
Healthier surroundings for both the people and environment
In its own right, Naava has always worked in efforts to support environmental friendliness and create healthier and more comfortable surroundings for people. As we live in constant interaction with the built environment, spending up to 90% of our time indoors, it has become increasingly valuable to improve indoor spaces to better fit our needs.
Building healthier surroundings for both people and the environment has been taken into consideration in recent years with the development of standards, such as the LEED and WELL building standards.
Building standards lead the way towards health and wellbeing
The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building standard seeks to inspire innovative solutions in building design and construction, interior design, building operations, neighborhood development and homes.
The aim is to create solutions that are better for the environment and for communities. LEED standard focuses on optimizing the features of the building which affect the environment.
The WELL building standard, on the other hand, focuses on making buildings healthier for humans. The standard addresses the design and operations of buildings as well as their impact on human behaviors, health and wellbeing.
Would you rather take the stairs or the elevator? The WELL standard’s advice is to place stairs in front of the elevator. This way more people choose to walk.
The WELL standard is concerned with features related to air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, mind and innovation.
Activity-based office frees the mind
In addition to the focus of improving the quality of indoor air, which often tends to be unsatisfactory for human health, biophilic features were taken into consideration.
This meant designing the space to optimize cognitive and emotional health through technology and treatment strategies. A large part of this was achieved by bringing natural elements indoors.
“Naava smart green walls were of course a big part of the new design, but we wanted to make the space as natural as possible for human wellbeing,” Eeva Niemelä, Naava’s Head of Customer Experience and Service Design, who was in charge of the renovation project, described the change.
Moreover, the office was designed to have different spaces for different tasks. When in need of a quiet space for individual work, for example, you can find a closed off room that has the sound-proofing needed for better focus. In addition, there are bigger, more open conference rooms for client meetings and team briefings.
“We wanted to make cooperation and interaction as effortless as possible with the help of the space. At the same time, we wanted there to be spots where you can get away from everything else to focus and relax,” explained Aki Soudunsaari, the CEO of Naava.
Subsequently, it is possible to move around during the day and stay active. This way it is also possible to track your own flow throughout the day which, in turn, leads to improved efficiency.
Fresh air reaching every corner of the office
In Naava’s own new office, there is a smart green wall in every workspace that can be closed with a door, only excluding the smaller, quiet workspaces. This way the air stays fresh, even when the doors are closed and the rooms are full of people.
With Naava’s Nature as a Service concept, you can breathe fresh Nordic forest air anywhere, no matter where you are in the office, and get to experience the enhanced level of wellbeing.
The office has been filled with fresh and healthy Nordic air.
The new Naava office is one of its kind in the world. “The most interesting part of the project was being able to be a pioneer in taking biophilic design this far in order to provide people with the most diverse and healthy working environment as possible,” Eeva explained.
