Life before ROOM

Before Breather found ROOM in 2018, we had what I called mini conflicts at our own headquarters. You’d be ready to go into a conference room for a meeting with a handful of people, but instead you’d find a single person using a large room for a phone call.

I like to say that ROOM brings world peace to the office. It’s actually a double-positive for us: ROOM gives us a private space for phone calls or heads down work, while also freeing up larger meeting and conference rooms in the office for the groups that need them. For our Breather flexible office space clients, we constantly hear how happy they are to have access to ROOM within the spaces they rent from us. They’re always in use.

The perfect fit

We met the team at ROOM at just the right time. We had already built the Breather brand as a service that lets you rent meeting space on demand — whether it was for a team-building session or a client interview. But in late 2018, we started supplementing our 500 meeting spaces with flexible office space for businesses that want to avoid signing a 3- to 5-year lease. They could get the same flexibility they see at co-working, but with their own private office environment. Leases are flexible, allowing you to expand or shrink as necessary.

When building out of each of these new Breather flexible office spaces, we make every decision based on research drawn from watching people work, surveys, interviews and a trove of research out there on design and work. We analyze how people work and what makes them work best.

Research backed ROOM’s products

We know from building science research that privacy and noise are very important considerations at work, especially open office spaces. Overhearing a conversation can be one of the most distracting noises in the workplace— and hearing just one side of the conversation can be even more disruptive.

“I like to say that ROOM brings world peace to the office.”

People also tend to feel more comfortable at work psychologically if they can control what others hear and see around them. Naturally, ROOM fits the bill in both of these situations, shutting out voices and giving people that sanity of control over their space.

Fast, functional, flexible

Plus, we could assemble a ROOM phone booth in under an hour — that’s a huge leap compared to the weeks it might take to build out a traditional breakout room. I love that ROOM’s booths are so functional. The ventilation is good. The sound is good. They’re compact and don’t take up too much space. And the booths easily blend in with any work environment, and for us, that’s key. Because we’re not just one single office with a singular corporate identity. We’re talking about booths that are versatile enough to improve the workplace environment for a variety of teams and company cultures.