I have heard it used exactly once before in Canada; seeing it here today was a “hug so they didn’t just make that up themselves” moment. A quick entertaining s

I have heard it used exactly once before in Canada; seeing it here today was a “hug so they didn’t just make that up themselves” moment. A quick entertaining story from that, that really highlighted the need to get all stakeholders involved at the design stage. The activity was designing the interior of a 10,000 sq ft startup incubator space. We were given the empty floor plan (inside a larger building), broke into groups, and each group independently did a floor plan. Lots of discussion about noisy/quiet areas, collaboration spaces/meeting rooms, small private spaces for phone calls, kitchen spaces and how to maximize the collision potential in the kitchens (people from different companies having conversations). It went really well and some great ideas came out of it. And then one of the founders whose company would likely be inhabiting the space raised his hand. “I love all the variations we’ve all come up with, but I feel like no one is talking about the elephant in the room.” he says. Blank states all around. “We’ve all been focused on how to fill the empty area we’ve been given, but no one has said anything about the washroom on the floor plan we were given.” The architects who were running the session bristled a little, while the rest of the room looked pretty confused. “What’s wrong with the washrooms? They’re placed close to the working area so that it’s a minimal interruption.” “Ok, sure, but… I want you all to think about guys like me. I’m a 21 year old nerd with a barely funded company. We work long hours. We live our day-to-day lives on a super small budget. What do you think my diet is like? Do you really want the washroom that a guy who has eaten a $6 pizza every night for the last two weeks right next to the quiet desk you’re using every day?!” Much laughter. Architects scribbling notes. And in the final built building, the washrooms are down a hallway, on the other side of a set of glass doors :D. Apparently it caused a huge hassle for the MEP contractors, since all of the plumbing had already been designed at that point, but I’m really not confident that that oversight would have been caught without that meeting.