The name isn’t the only thing that’s new for WSP in Thunder Bay. The engineering and consulting firm previously known, until recently, as Genivar (and decades before that as Cook Engineering) has relocated to a new, state of the art, accessible office located in Thunder Bay’s burgeoning Innova Park business development.
Prior to the move, WSP’s 90 employees
in Thunder Bay were spread across two locations which wasn’t ideal,
according to David Knutson, the company’s
Industrial and Energy
Vice President for Ontario.
“We had grown to the point that we
had two locations here in town,” he said. “But it wasn’t the
best, most efficient, or effective way of operating; you really
benefit from having everybody in the same
location.”
But beyond getting the whole team
together under one roof, Knutson said a lot of care was put into
really trying to make the office something different, starting with
an emphasis on natural lighting. Each floor is populated by low slung
cubicles designed to leave the light filtering in through the tall
glass windows,
unobstructed.
"It's all open concept, we have
essentially a band of windows around each floor, so we have a lot of
natural lighting in the
interior.”
Not only does Knutson find the office
to be easy on the eyes, but also pleasing to the ear. He calls it
“naturally quiet” and attributes the lack of background din to a
combination of materials used throughout the building and the design
of the heating and
cooling system.
“The mechanical systems are quiet, you don't hear a lot of noise from air movement or machinery operating, the temperature is constant. Those things aren't unexpected, but these are the sorts of things you notice when you move from an older building to a new building.”
Even with the attention paid to keeping the volume down, thanks to the low walls throughout the office, co-workers can still collaborate easily by chatting with each other, Knutson said. When a project requires a more enthusiastic mode of discussion among the different teams at WSP, there are meeting rooms sprinkled throughout each floor.
“So often you need to have all of the
disciplines in the same place at the same time talking about the
objectives of the projects so everyone is hearing it, so it’s quite
important to have all of the team
meeting together.”
In any organization, another place
where people rub shoulders is the lunch room. In addition to main
dining area and lounge, the new WSP office is equipped with break
areas on each floor. They preserve the open feel of the rest of the
building, come equipped with typical amenities like dishwashers,
microwaves, in addition to the standard-issue brewer and high-end
coffee makers. “Those are for people who want something more
exotic, different types of specialty coffees,”
Knutson said.
Aside from having a choice on where to break bread in the new building, employees also have the option to exercise or going for quick jog if they want, thanks to on-site showers and change rooms. Also, Knutson pointed out, the showers are a boon for any cyclists commuting to work.
“We've had pretty good participation on the Commuter Challenge,” he said referring to a contest where workers to ditch their car at least one day a week. “(Also) we have quite a few people interested in road and mountain biking and commuting by bicycle in general.”
For workers looking to simply get to work behind the wheel, Knuston said he’s pleased with the amount of parking available with the new location.
“It seems like a non-issue but when you start to reach the capacity of a building and you have clients coming through, looking for a place to park in the winter and it’s not easy to (find one), it starts to become an issue relative to your business.”
And while Knutson finds plenty to appreciate about the new, centrally-located building, one of his favourite features is simply the view.
“It’s a pleasant space to be in, there’s actually a fair amount of wildlife that wanders through here. We've seen a bear on a couple of occasions, and there are deer here all the time so it’s a little bit different for a location inside of the city.”
