DeAngelis Diamond, an innovative construction management firm, recently opened an office in Franklin. The company that designs and creates business spaces and hospitals has some very unique features in their own office. The design details found at DeAngelis Diamond aren’t ones that you would see in a typical office. For example, writing on the wall is encouraged at DeAngelis Diamond, with the use of a new type of coating that has been placed on the walls in the conference room. Watch our video where we spoke with Jason Sain, Vice President and Principal for DeAngelis Diamond Healthcare Group, for a quick tour of the office.
After our tour, we spoke with David Diamond, who is not only the co-founder of DeAngelis Diamond, but also the designer of the Franklin office.
What was the thought process behind the plan for the Franklin office?
As we developed the vision for the design of our office we wanted to accomplish two things. First to create a space that would attract and inspire the most talented people to join our team. Second to have a space that simply works in the way people who share our creative, innovative, collaborative culture work today. The way creative and innovative people work today has fundamentally changed. It’s beyond being a trend or fad; it’s a change that has come about due to the innovations with mobile devices, cloud solutions, fast reliable internet and social media. We all now have the ability to work from anywhere at any time on any device. The opportunities for collaborating has been enhanced with technology and connectivity. Our team members are no longer chained to their desks and offices by their desktop computer and filing cabinets. All of our 190 team members work from laptops, tablets, and smartphones. Their software and data files are all secure and easily accessible online. Our office environment reflects this.
What is the first thing you consider when looking to make an efficient office space?
As you explore our Nashville space you’ll see a balance mix of collaborate areas, such as our open work areas with sit-to-stand desks, our high top collaboration tables and three meeting rooms of different sizes and functions, and the quiet private areas that team members can escape to for focused heads down work in private offices or casual seating areas. Team members can easily move throughout the space to work in areas of their choice as their work mode changes throughout the day. And then we have great social gathering spaces in our café and lounge areas for team members and guests to enjoy.
There is a stand alone glass cube in the middle of the floor that isn’t quite big enough to be a conference room yet it doesn’t appear to be an office for personnel, can you tell us what is the purpose of that space?
This glass cube area has become a favorite area for our team and an easily recognizable feature in both our Naples and Franklin/Nashville offices which receives lots of interest from first-time visitors in our space. It’s a great space that has multiple functions. It a space that any team member can use as they like. Many of our team members who may be moving between field projects or traveling through for a few days will use it as a temporary office. It also works very well and often as a meeting place for clients or design teams as a small conference room. Studies have shown, and we see this to be true, that most meetings in conference rooms are conducted with four or fewer people. This space is perfect for those size meetings. It’s equipped with a Smart TV Monitor to review digital presentations, conduct video conferences, explore the internet or play background Pandora stations.
What made you select the mural in the cafe area?
The mural in the Café we absolutely love. We knew immediately when we made the decision to open an office in the Franklin/Nashville area that we wanted to have an authentic connection with the community and one way we could do that in a very emotional and human way is through art and especially street art. Street art inspires us in a unique way that represents a community’s culture, energy and life. We wanted to share in that connection with Franklin/Nashville. We began looking for local street art while we were searching for our new office location and came across these incredible wings in The Gulch. The artist’s signature and hashtag Kelsey Montague was on her work and we contacted her. We asked her if she could design a mural that could represent the culture of the community. We were honored that Kelsey accepted the request.
Do you have a favorite design feature in the Franklin office?
My favorite design feature in our office is on that I shared with the group who celebrated with us at our grand opening event. And that is our love for writing on walls. Three areas in particular, represent that. Our Core Values mural that is designed in bold, multiple type font, white raised letters are meaningful to our people. They are designed by our own in-house marketing team member Jillian Debar. Then on the glass walls of our large DeAngelis Diamond Academy training room, we have used a frosted glass font to display the key words that represent our culture of Innovation, Collaboration, Team Work, Inspiration, Causes, Safety, Diversity, Inclusion, and Fun. This was designed by our other marketing team members Kaisa Schmidt and Anna DeAngelis.
And the third writing area is the walls where we have applied clear dry erase paint that allows our team members to write ideas as they think of them and share and collaborate those ideas with other team members, clients, and design professionals.
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