Denver CO July 2019
The video's audio may be a bit difficult to understand at times. Not a professional recording as such. So I've included a lightly edited transcript below.
One thing we haven’t talked about is the other side of the equation, which is the building owner. The person who writes the big check that says, “I want to build this building or I want to retrofit or fit this building up, for my employees”. Why are they motivated to invest in biophilic design or biomimicry?
Has anybody heard of the three - thirty - three hundred rule?
So this is a real estate rule of thumb, three dollars a square foot for your energy, thirty dollars a square foot for your lease, three hundred dollars a square foot for your employees. We're all engaged in that in that industry of providing spaces for people who work inside. The most expensive, and this is true for any business, the most expensive asset of any business, cost of any business is its employees.
Whether you're Google or whether your WalMart. Or not. Or not Google, yeah.
So the point is that a lot of building owners are looking to this. You mentioned the Apple headquarters. They spent five billion dollars on that building. For what purpose? And the purpose is, like I said, they want you there, they want you to be happy. And they believe that happy employees are productive employees. And I think that, when we experience good design, when we come into this space and it’s well designed. It feels good. We like this space. If we came in here and it was dim, dismal, dark, monotone, we probably wouldn’t have the same physiological, psychological reaction as we do here in this space as it is.
So we are very experiential, we react to our environment. But your clients, your clients are doing this for a very strong, very strong economic benefit, I think, there’s a very strong economic benefit for them to invest in this. And we all know the challenge we have with clients is that they want to get the most for the least. But at the same time, they do realize, most employers realize, where they are spending most of their money. If they can get a small percentage of improvement on that investment, they're way further ahead then if they don’t. Or they get a negative impact.
Keep that in mind because there’s a reason why they are doing this.