Creatively work on the lap of ‘Nature’: Microsoft just built tree-house for employees
Washington, October 17: People often work more creatively and with more focus while working in outdoors. This brings down the anxiety levels and stress levels down in the lap of nature. Microsoft has got perks for its dear employees as Microsoft’s Redmond Headquarters which spreads over 500 acres have built beautiful tree houses which are spacious yet attractive. Who all want to work here?
Microsoft has built tree-house as a workspace for its employees as a part of its growing ‘outdoor districts’. All of the tree-houses, three in total, were put together by Pete Nelson of the TV show Treehouse Masters. Two tree-houses are currently open and one, which is a sheltered lounge space, is set to open later this year. All are built on Microsoft’s 500-acre Washington campus and, best of all; they are open to all employees. It’s all part of a new system of technology-enabled outdoor spaces connected to the buildings around the campus. This also allows employees to work in new and creative ways.
Twelve feet off the ground, tree-house number one features charred-wood walls and a soaring ceiling with a round skylight that lets in just a bubble of blue. It’s more Hobbit than HQ, with cinnamon-coloured shingles and a gingerbread-house feel. A hand-carved arched double door glides open at the swipe of a badge. The almost mustardy fragrance of rough-hewn cedar is instantaneous. Inside the small room nests a simple farmhouse table with rust-red seats. Box benches line the reclaimed-wood walls, dark as campfire smoke.
The Microsoft Company said that the motive behind the tree-house was scientific studies that show being in nature stimulates the brain and reduces stress, which could lead to greater productivity.
“To get to Microsoft’s most unexpected new meeting space, embark on a leisurely outdoor stroll up a planked, accessible switchback ramp. At the top, secure wooden gate swings open to reveal a deck suspended by timber beams and cables,” the company wrote.
“The first thing when you walk into space is that everyone is really quiet. You stop talking and are just present,” said Boulter. “It’s fascinating. People absorb the environment and it changes the perception of their work and how they can do it,” he said. It’s true that the outdoors can have a positive impact on your mood. Nature “stimulates reward neurons in your brain. It turns off the stress response, which means you have lower cortisol levels, lower heart rate and blood pressure and improved immune response,” wrote Harvard Physician Eva Selhub, Co-Author of “Your Brain on Nature.”
We don’t have to bring nature to urbanity, we are in nature. It’s at our back door,” said Boulter. And the rest of us regular office-dwelling people are very jealous indeed.
Two of the three tree-houses are open, which includes a cedar meeting room, and the Crow's Nest, which sits 12-feet above the ground and features a circular skylight. The Crow's Nest deck has a stairwell leading to a higher perch for "communing with nature". A third treehouse will be a lounge space for workers to "chill inside or out of". On the leisure side of things, Microsoft has extended the internal cafe with a shipping container that houses a barbecue restaurant. And there's an outdoor gas fireplace to attract the after-work crowd. While Microsoft has equipped the tree houses with Wi-Fi for employees to communicate and work online, it opted not to install an AV system, so presumably, this is not a space for PowerPoint presentations.