Bringing Work to the Great Outdoors

More workers are stepping outside into the office.

At Twitter Inc.'s new San Francisco headquarters, employees open their laptops on the 20,000-square-foot ninth-story deck and succulent-plant garden.

The Open-Air Office

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Darcy Padilla for The Wall Street Journal
Going outdoors for breaks, or simulating the experience with foliage, has been found to reduce workers' stress, although it can be tricky to get staffers outside. Above, Twitter's San Francisco roof deck.

Across the country in Florham Park, N.J., workers at BASF Corp.'s new corporate campus hold meetings and conference calls on plant-filled patios and quads. And at Ogilvy & Mather in New York, account executives can break from their cubes to take in Hudson River views on the company deck.

Like office foosball tables and free snacks, the outdoor workspace seems to be spreading from Silicon Valley campuses to businesses nationwide. Bolstered by research showing people feel less stress and may even perform better with some fresh air, companies are investing in open-air places for employees to meet, work or simply clear their heads.

Still, companies have learned —sometimes the hard way—that not all work is fit for the great outdoors. Just ask anyone who has tried to use a tablet computer on a sunny afternoon, or leafed through documents on a breezy terrace. There is also weather risk, as superstorm Sandy showed last month.

Brian Berry, a principal at corporate design firm Gensler, which created Ogilvy's tree-lined 8,000-square-foot roof deck, says some clients are insisting on outdoor space when renovating and relocating.

Outdoor lunch areas have been standard at many warm-weather workplaces. But growing use of mobile technology has spurred companies to find more ways to get work done outside. Even offices in cold-weather locales are getting into the game, with seasonal spaces, or designs that bring the outdoors in.

Such workspaces are part of the so-called greater choice school of office design, which holds that workers do better when given a variety of spaces—such as cafe tables and lounge areas along with regular desks— in which to do their work.

Ogilvy executive Cynthia Lindberg says the company's deck in Manhattan, which opened in 2009, helps workers recharge. "You go up there for an hour, and you really feel like you've gotten out of the office, but you really haven't left the building," says Ms. Lindberg, the company's director of interior design.

In a competitive market for young talent, the amenity might not sway a desired candidate, but it is "the icing on the cake," she says.

Nobody tracks how much total outdoor space companies are using, but firms are now dedicating about twice as much square footage to common areas, including outdoor spaces, than to individual workspaces, such as offices and cubes, according to workplace consulting firm Strategy Plus, a unit of Aecom Technology Corp.

Such spaces usually don't come cheaply. In New York, adding a roof terrace can cost between $200 and $400 a square foot, depending on structural needs and code requirements, Ms. Lindberg says.

Going outside for short breaks—or simulating the outdoors with foliage or images of nature—can reduce worker stress and lift moods, studies have shown. Taking a nature walk can increase short-term memory capacity by some 20%, according to Marc Berman, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of South Carolina who studies how humans interact with nature.

Getting staffers outside can be tricky. Many just steer clear, afraid of being viewed as less serious or productive if they use the outdoor space, often regarded "as a second-rate workplace," says Jonathan Olivares, an industrial designer, whose design exhibit, "The Outdoor Office," recently appeared at the Art Institute of Chicago.

A couple of years ago, the brpr Group, a Miami advertising and marketing firm, moved into a Design District office with a 500-square-foot roof deck with city views. Gerard Bush, brpr's creative director, had imagined that employees would bring laptops to the deck or hold staff or client meetings outside. But the urban surroundings proved to be distracting for heads-down work, as did the humidity of a typical Miami afternoon.

"It was a romantic notion," he says. "You can't have a PowerPoint presentation in bright sunlight."

The company eventually hauled the outdoor conference table inside, and now employees use the deck to clear their heads and entertain clients.

Many existing corporate outdoor spaces "are designed as leisure settings—gardens and cafes—and aren't conducive to work," Mr. Olivares says.

He advises that open-air work areas should appear as businesslike as possible, using shaded areas with rectangular tables, ample power outlets, appropriate seating, and some degree of visual privacy. If set up properly, "people would flock to them naturally," he says.

Office-furniture makers haven't yet caught up to the trend.

"A lot of outdoor space isn't leveraged that well and furniture [for such spaces] doesn't support work and learning," says Karin Gintz, vice president of marketing for Coalesse, a unit of furniture-maker Steelcase Inc. SCS +3.03% industrial PC She adds the company is "exploring ideas" to make outdoor workspaces more effective.

Some firms, meanwhile, are turning to designers to help bring the outdoors in with plant-filled "living walls" and other measures.

Advertising firm TBWA\Chiat\Day has long had a tree-lined indoor park in its Los Angeles headquarters. Employees' dogs roam the skylit space, workers hold impromptu meetings or plunk down their laptops on the park's bistro tables.

"It is an escape from the conference room," says Patrick O'Neill, executive creative director. Adding to the outdoor feel: "There are crickets," Mr. O'Neill says. "We hear them at night."

The Fairfield, Iowa, office of law firm Foss, Kuiken & Cochran PC has a "landlocked, windowless" reception area, says partner Craig Foss. So several years ago, the firm installed a SkyCeiling, a faux skylight printed with images of a blue, sunny sky and wispy clouds that cost about $4,000.

"It does appear to improve the dispositions of some people," especially during bleak winter months, Mr. Foss says.