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Photo courtesy of New Haven Register
SEYMOUR — When Basement Systems’ Internet department recently reached capacity on its 2,500-square-foot office space, it seemed the company would have to redesign the work area with cubicles to allow the department to expand.
In 2008, the Internet department grew from seven employees to 16, and would need to continue to expand for the company to thrive.
But cubicles were a foreign concept to the basement waterproofing company, whose 92,000-square-foot corporate headquarters is on Silvermine Road.
“We have very few cubicles,” said Dan Fitzgerald, director of marketing. “It’s open space, very creative, environmentally friendly for people enjoying coming to work every day.”
So owner Larry Janesky thought outside the box. Expanding on a concept he’d seen in his son’s teacher’s office, Janesky designed a treehouse-style space for the rapidly expanding Internet department. The result was shown to the public this week.
According to Fitzgerald, Janesky, who used to be a carpenter, “went back to his roots and designed and built this space using our own manpower.”
Basement Systems employees contributed their various talents to the project and collectively redesigned the space in three weeks, working seven days a week.
The office’s ceiling was torn out, the mechanics above it were raised, and the entire ceiling was painted black. This created “almost cathedral ceilings,” and allowed a doubling of the number of work stations in the area by placing them at different elevations, said Fitzgerald.
“We’re using height,” he explained. “In a couple instances, we have two designers who if they were at level ground, would be staring right at each other’s faces. But since one is 6 feet higher than the other one, they don’t even know they’re there.”
The work stations were built out of white pine, which came from a lumberyard in upstate New York. Trees from the Basement Systems property and other items found in the woods were also used in the project.
Janesky brought in antique wood, wagon wheels, antlers and tin roofing he’d saved from an old horse barn on his property that had been torn down a few years ago. And Janesky’s brother, a mural artist, worked with artists on staff to create forest murals on all the walls “to really give it the feeling of being in the woods,” said Fitzgerald.
“It was very cost effective in that a lot of the materials we used, we just brought in from outside,” he added.
The renovation was completed about a month ago. The new space can accommodate 28 work stations, giving the department room to grow. Fitzgerald expected the company would fill all the desks in the next year or two.
“The reason we have a growing Internet team in today’s market is that we design, optimize and manage 125 Web sites for our dealers from coast to coast. That’s growing all the time, we’re always adding more sites,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald added that a creative workspace is crucial to attracting “top talent” to work for the company’s Internet department. For now, the department is the envy of all the other departments.
“All the other people in the company want to work back there,” said Fitzgerald.
Lauren Garrison can be reached at 789-5614 or lgarrison@nhregister.com.
From New Haven Register: http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2009/02/13/business/d1-_treehouse13.txt |
