I I6 CHAPTER 5

to make policy. The Star Tribune forum, located at the single spot most visible
from all work areas, serves as the place for the morning and afternoon meetings.
Other landmarks include a coffee shop located at the end of Park Avenue, Central
Park at the intersection of Park Avenue and the Sports Street, the Library, and the
open amphitheatre conference area at the other end of Park Avenue. Each of these
landmarks helps employees orient themselves in space. Minor landmarks were
created in three places by the erection of newsstands where the previous day’s
newspaper is laid out for inspection and employee comment.

0 Pathways. The newsroom city is organized on a grid system with path—
ways of different size running parallel to one another. The largest pathways are
avenues, there are smaller streets, and then alleys that are located within the
work neighborhoods. The simplicity of the pathway scheme, and the fact that
each pathway ends up at a landmark, serve to further orient employees.

0 Nodes. When pathways intersect they create nodes—such as where Park
Avenue meets the Sports Street. The more each such intersection is celebrated
with a design element, the more it helps orient users of the space. Central Park
is located at the most important such intersection, with comfortable colorful
armchairs, a coffee table, natural light from the adjacent windows, and plants.
But even more important than the physical Park is the fact that the major news
section neighborhoods are located adjacent to the Park, and each of the section
editors has a large circular desk extension facing the Park. This serves one of
the major performance criteria of the space’s success—increased informal inter—
action among employees from different sections.

0 Districts. Each of the newspaper’s sections constitutes its own neighbor-
hood—where the editors, writers, photographers, and graphic artists work
together as a team. There are neighborhoods for city, national, and internation-
al news; for sports, business, and culture; and there are administrative neigh-
borhoods as well. Each neighborhood houses one of the teams that participat-
ed in a group focused interview during programming research. The results of
the interview—types of organization as well as layouts tailored to the particu-
lar workgroup approach—were implemented organizing the workstations and
selecting specific workstation extensions. Choices were made among tables in
the center of the work neighborhood, shared tables attached between two
workspaces, privacy barriers between workspaces, and large round extensions
that serve as small conference tables attached to a particular workspace.

0 Edges. Along pathways, edges that define neighborhoods. The major
edge-related design decision in this case was to locate as many shared files as
possible in cabinets along the edges of major pathways. Because reporters and
others had formerly stored so many books, articles, and papers on their desks,
and continue to do so, shifting to a team-based storage system was a large
effort—but only by achieving this was enough space saved to enable the park
and coffee shop to be included in the floor plan. Edges of neighborhoods were
planned either to offer a hard edge—privacy for those within those teams—or
a soft edge—welcoming interaction with passersby. The precise edge condition
chosen reflected the degree of interaction the team said it needed to get its job
done most effectively.