Episode 1: Richard Healy of Bates Smart

“I’m really passionate about workplace design,” says Richard Healy, associate at Bates Smart. Now, as working from home becomes a necessity, bringing the principles of good workplace design into the home, from the lighting of the space to the chair that supports one throughout the day, has never been more important.

When he’s not out on site, Richard’s home in the former Channel Nine studio in Richmond is now where he spends his workday. The transition has been fast and smooth, he says. “We’ve really been focusing on maintaining daily contact and daily communication, there’s a lot of digital collaboration.”

As a designer, Richard’s work involves time drawing as well as time spent on the phone and meeting clients and collaborators virtually. The Herman Miller Sayl Chair has enabled him the necessary level of flexibility to work wherever best suits the task at hand, he explains. “I can work from a dining room table, I can work from a credenza, I can work from a bench if it’s the right height, which obviously helps your productivity.”

For Richard, the Sayl Chair appeals to his love of clean, simple design and “it’s a really frictionless chair to engage in and from my perspective, that is a really core principle of good design practice for [the] workplace,” he says.

Ultimately, he believes that the current shift towards working from home out of necessity will mean people will realise that working from home is a viable option – “as long as you’re comfortable, you’ll be productive.”

As working from home becomes a necessity, bringing the principles of good workplace design into the home has never been more important.