Talking Buildings

If a building could talk, of what would it speak?

The answer is that buildings do talk, they communicate very effectively but how, why and to what purpose is not well understood. Workplace branding in its broadest context can be an essential and valuable part of a company’s communication strategy.

Brand communication is perhaps one of the best understood, most researched and frequently discussed of all management disciplines. Companies commit a considerable amount of attention and investment to developing brand communication strategies, devising advertising campaigns and measuring the results. However, in terms of corporate brand communications, one area is consistently overlooked and that is the role of the workplace in the corporate communications mix.

When you walk into someone’s home, you instantly respond to visual clues about the lifestyle, priorities and tastes of the people who live there. Walking into a cathedral, you are immediately struck by the sense of grandeur, scale and significance which those who designed it clearly planned to create.

Both the inside and outside of buildings are powerful communicators, a fact explained very eloquently by Alain de Botton in his fascinating book ‘The Architecture of Happiness’:

“Taking architecture seriously makes some singular and strenuous demands upon us. It requires that we open ourselves to the idea that we are affected by our surroundings… it means conceding that we are inconveniently vulnerable to the colour of a wall!”

The physical design of a place clearly has the potential to impact emotion and further to communicate specific messages. ‘The Architecture of Happiness’ argues:

“Any object of design will give off an impression of the psychological and moral attributes it supports.’’

In his book, de Botton concludes:

“In essence what design and architecture talk to us about is the kind of lives that would most appropriately unfold within them. They tell us of certain modes that they seek to encourage and sustain in their inhabitants. While keeping us warm and helping us in mechanical ways, they simultaneously hold out an invitation for us to be specific sorts of people.’’

De Botton’s arguments are compelling and the implication is that an office building and the workplace within it are potentially powerful communicators. They speak intrinsically of the organisation behind them, its values, its intent and its particular idiosyncrasies. In this context, the workplace is clearly an underutilised communication tool.