Microsoft builds offices in trees for better employee productivity

In an innovative move to improve employee productivity, Microsoft has built tree house workspaces with embedded tech at its Redmond campus in Washington state.

Two of the tree houses are available to the employees, while the third tree house is still taking shape and will be ready later in the year. The Cedar meeting room requires reservations, while another tree house, known as the Crow's Nest, is available to employees on a first-come- first-serve basis.

Designed by builder Pete Nelson, the tree house is one of the three new branch-based meeting spaces and is part of a larger new system of technology-enabled outdoor districts connected to buildings around campus, empowering employees to work in new ways.

"While some companies have moved toward the trend of creating green indoor spaces that function as proxies for the outdoors, Microsoft has something unique that most companies located within large metropolitan areas don't have: a 500-acre campus nestled in the woods, with green space and wildlife galore," a company blog said.

The tree houses are built in living trees, with squirrels, birds and the occasional pine cone dropping into the working spaces. The flexible structures are crafted to expand along with the growing trees. The tree houses are expected to last at least 20 years.

Twelve feet off the ground, the treehouse features charred-wood walls and a soaring ceiling with a round skylight with cinnamon-coloured shingles and a gingerbread-house feel.

There is no AV system or calibrated climate control. An outdoor Wi-Fi network allows employees to range; every bench is weatherproof and contains a hatch that reveals electricity sources.

The indoor cafeteria is extended outside, with a barbecue restaurant built into a shipping container. Tactile surfaces help people who are blind or have low vision navigate.

The space has rust-proof rocking chairs, an outdoor gas fireplace that brings the warmth of a ski lodge and attracts an after-work crowd and a weatherproof awning that, when the sun shines, stencils the Microsoft logo onto the manicured lawn.

Being close to the outdoors apparently improves the productivity and the well being of the employees. Eva M Selhub, a Harvard Physician and co-author of Your Brain on Nature,

wrote that exposure to the outdoors "stimulates reward neurons in your brain. It turns off the stress response, which means you have lower cortisol levels, lower heart rate and blood pressure, and improved immune response. Trees and plants secrete aromatic chemicals that impact our cognition, mental state, and even our immunity."