In our third installment of the WorkShape Labs series, "Place Matters," we had the privilege of hosting B Sanborn, an interdisciplinary educator, facilitator, and researcher whose expertise spans anthropology, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and environmental psychology. This fascinating conversation explored how physical spaces profoundly influence our experiences, creativity, and connections—even in our increasingly digital world.

Redefining "Place": More Than Just Physical Space

When we talk about "place," we're referring to something far more complex than just physical coordinates. B Sanborn introduced two powerful frameworks that help us understand the multidimensional nature of place:

1. The Ecological Model (Bronfenbrenner): This model envisions "place" as a series of nested systems—from our personal microsphere, through our immediate surroundings and community, all the way to time itself as a place. These concentric circles influence each other; for example, commute stress doesn't end at the office door but follows us into the workplace.

2. The Layered Experience Model: Developed by European researchers over 15 years ago, this framework recognizes that the first "place" we inhabit is mental—we perceive the world through our senses, which isn't factual information but our brain's interpretation of our surroundings. As B eloquently stated: "Places are spaces with memory layered onto them and relationships to other spaces."

This multidimensional understanding has profound implications for how we design workplaces—we're not just creating physical environments but mental, emotional, and social ones as well.

How Places Shape Our Work Experience

Places influence our work in three critical ways:

1. As antidote or enhancement to external factors: Workplaces can counter negative external influences like extreme heat or air pollution. As climate events become more extreme, the workplace's role as a protective environment grows increasingly important.

2. As social connection hubs: Virtually all work involves other people. As B noted, "Vanishingly small is the amount of work that we do that doesn't involve another person." Workplaces are where we exercise social skills and build relationships essential to collaboration.

3. As skill activation zones: Places can cue and enhance the specific skills we need to perform our work effectively. The strong relationship between place, memory, and learning means our environment can either support or hinder our ability to access and apply our skills.

The Perception Gap: How We Experience Places Differently

One of the most fascinating aspects of the discussion centered on how differently we all experience the same physical space. What we perceive through our senses isn't an objective reality but our brain's interpretation—filtered through our individual sensory capabilities, past experiences, and even biological factors.

B highlighted three key dimensions that influence our perception of place:

1. Developmental factors: Age and brain development significantly affect how we process our environment. For example, teenagers (like Brett's daughter during pandemic virtual schooling) experience virtual and physical spaces differently than adults do, as their brains are still developing the ability to differentiate between concrete and abstract environments.

2. Metabolic experiences: Our physical comfort in spaces varies widely based on individual factors like menopause, gender transition, pregnancy, or medical treatments that affect body temperature regulation. As B noted, these "small experiences that we now have the ability to better understand through science" should inform how we design spaces that accommodate diverse needs.

3. Cognitive elements: Place-based memory means we remember things best in environments similar to where we learned them. This has profound implications for how we structure workplaces and the transition between different work locations.

Beyond the Desk: Reimagining Workplace Design

A significant portion of the conversation challenged our attachment to traditional desk-centric workplaces. As Brett shared an anecdote about his daughter and friends refusing to use a perfectly good desk, B observed that our fixation on desks reflects both practical ergonomic concerns and deeply symbolic associations:

"The bigger thing that you're talking about is what the desk symbolizes... We have really attached a lot of individual significance and organizational significance to what the desk looks like and what it represents as part of our work ecosystem."

The most successful workplace designs B has encountered follow a "form follows function" approach—understanding the cognitive and task requirements of different work activities and creating spaces that support those specific needs. For example, a cybersecurity client created focused work areas that look "like a cute, quirky library with individual task lights" where the norms are clear: "You don't go in there and chat. You don't go in there and do Zoom calls. You go in there and focus."

Hybrid Work: A Catalyst for Better Collaboration

Perhaps the most surprising perspective B offered was framing hybrid work not as a problem to solve but as an opportunity to improve workplace culture. While hybrid environments eliminate the "overseeing" and "overhearing" that naturally occur in physical workplaces, they also force teams to develop stronger working norms and communicate them explicitly:

"Hybrid might eventually be one of the better things that has happened to workplace culture because it's putting the most pressure on teams to develop really strong working norms and communicate them with each other."

B suggested that many frustrations with hybrid work existed before the pandemic but are now amplified. Rather than retreating to old patterns, forward-thinking organizations are embracing new approaches like "body doubling" or "co-present virtual work"—where team members work side-by-side virtually during reliable windows of time, allowing for casual troubleshooting and mentorship while reducing the pressure of constant messaging.

The Personal Place Paradox

The conversation concluded with a fascinating discussion about personal territory in shared environments. B broke down what an assigned desk provides into distinct needs:

• Predictability: Reducing cognitive load by eliminating the need to find a work spot

• Storage and convenience: Having a place for personal items and tools

• Symbolic meaning: Status and belonging within the organization

• Social mapping: Helping us learn names and locations of colleagues

While assigned desks efficiently bundle these needs together, B suggested team-based spaces might better serve modern work patterns. Sharing an anecdote about a gaming company where employees could move their entire workstations to join new project teams, B highlighted how physical transitions can support project cycles and team norm-setting:

"Picking off a new project's a great time...shifting the space a little, saying 'How is this one gonna work for us? Let's look at our norms again. Do we wanna change any of these for this project?'"

Key Takeaways for Creating Meaningful Workplaces

1. Understand the layered nature of place – Physical spaces are inseparable from their mental, emotional, and social dimensions

2. Design for diversity of experience – Our metabolic, cognitive, and sensory experiences vary widely; workplaces should accommodate these differences rather than standardizing for an imaginary average

3. Map workflows before designing spaces – Understand the cognitive and task requirements of different work activities, then create environments that support those specific needs

4. Embrace intentionality in hybrid work – Create reliable windows of co-presence (virtual or physical) to facilitate the casual interactions that build relationships and solve problems

5. Rethink team spaces for project cycles – Consider how physical transitions can support project beginnings, endings, and the formation of team norms

6. Develop new knowledge capture methods – As traditional place-based memory becomes less reliable in flexible work environments, create new ways to document and share institutional knowledge

As B powerfully summarized, our challenge is not just to design better physical spaces but to recognize how place shapes our mental states, social connections, and ability to use our skills. By approaching workplace design with curiosity rather than frustration, we can create environments that truly enhance human experiences in our increasingly complex work world.