Space That Speaks: Designing Workspaces Where People Thrive and Business Grows

By Mette Johansen Keating

Create human-centric workspaces that enhance well-being and success.

Every space tells a story. Offices are more than places of business-they shape culture,

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Two Press
• Release date: Jul 3, 2025
• ISBN: 9781774586228

Mette Johansen Keating

For twenty years, Mette Johansen Keating has designed purposeful workspaces where people thrive. She believes a well-designed office isn't optional-it's essential for growth, engagement, and success. Rooted in Danish design principles and expanded globally, her company, MetteSpace uniquely builds bridges between leadership and design strategies to create spaces that instill trust, joy, and productivity across North America and Europe.MetteSpace's original iThrive(R) program advances workplace wellness by blending biophilia, neuroscience, and human-centric design. Johansen Keating has been featured in notable media such as Toronto Life, The Globe and Mail, Financial Post, and more, and has spoken on CBC radio and at IIDEX Canada. An active voice at the Danish Architecture Center, she urges leaders to see office space (as well as the other spaces we inhabit) not as a trend but as a strategic asset to inspire purpose, "thrivingness," and performance.

Book preview

Praise for

Space That Speaks

"With over thirty years of experience as a CFO and executive leader for companies like Mozilla, Netflix, and Intuit, I’ve always believed space creates culture and culture is the lever for company performance, talent attraction and retention, and career and network growth. Mette Johansen Keating memorializes my personal beliefs with Space That Speaks. Her insights are both practical and visionary. I highly recommend this as a must-read for any leader rethinking the future of your company’s ‘space’ to make it ‘speak’ to the culture you want."

Jim Cook,

CEO

of BenchBoard Executive Coaching; author of Cook’s PlayBooks; former executive at Mozilla, Netflix, Intuit

"In Space That Speaks, Mette Johansen Keating delivers a bold, research-backed argument: the spaces we work in aren’t neutral—they wire us. Drawing from neuroscience, design, and systems thinking, she reveals how physical environments directly influence cognition, emotion, and collective performance. And this isn’t just about aesthetics—it’s a call to redesign our surroundings as tools for thriving minds and high-impact leadership."

Dr. Elizabeth C. Nelson, author of The Healthy Office Revolution

"Place matters. In our experience, many organizations miss how important physical space is to make their people feel safe to take a risk, which we know is the single most important factor in the performance of a team. Space That Speaks is a compelling read where you learn not only how environments shape trust, safety, and performance but, more importantly, what to do about it. Mette Johansen Keating’s insights are timely, actionable, and grounded in real human experience. If you care about the performance of your team or organization, you need to read this book."

Dr.

JP

Pawliw-Fry, New York Times–bestselling co-author of Performing Under Pressure

Space That Speaks

Copyright © 2025 by Mette Johansen Keating

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form

or by any means, without the prior written consent of the

publisher, except in the case of brief quotations,

embodied in reviews and articles.

Cataloguing in publication information is

available from Library and Archives Canada.

ISBN

978-1-77458-621-1 (paperback)

ISBN

978-1-77458-622-8 (ebook)

Page Two

pagetwo.com

Page Two

™

is a trademark owned by Page Two Strategies Inc.,

and is used under license by authorized licensees

Edited by Rachelle Kanefsky

Copyedited by Steph VanderMeulen

Cover design by Peter Cocking

Cover and interior illustrations by Madhura Joshi

Interior design by Jennifer Lum

mette.space

To my three amazing children, Tobias,

Emma, and Sebastian, and my soulmate, Scott.

Love you all endlessly. Thank you for inspiring

me to show up and be my best.

Preface

Introduction

Space That Speaks

1 Trust

How Trust Creates Ease and

Ease Builds Engagement

2 Productivity

Creating Space Using Light

and Purposeful Design

3 Collaboration

Working Better Together

4 Values

Corporate Values You See, Touch, and Feel

5 Identity

Who Do You Think You Are?

6 Growth

Workjoy for Bottom-Line Joy

7 Approach & Method

Five Essential Components of

Impactful Design

Conclusion

The Future Is Thriving

Acknowledgments

Notes

Preface

Over the years, I have recognized what it means to thrive in a physical environment. I’ve experienced the good and bad in workspaces, homes, schools, institutions, parks, public spaces, at outdoor concerts, and while shopp­ing or eating out. We humans are highly sensitive to the spaces we occupy and can tell by how we feel whether the environment we’re in is friendly and upbeat or tense and agitated.

Our sensitivities are not connected to aesthetics, taste in design, the latest furniture trends, or other subjective prefer­ences. Our nervous system reacts intuitively and naturally because of what our brains think and our bodies feel. When we feel at home and content, it is because subconsciously our senses absorb what’s good around us: colors, smells, patterns, shades of light, natural flow, and ease. A physical improvement takes place in our brains when we have a view of nature or are exposed to natural light. There’s an exchange of energy that psychologists and science struggle to define when we connect comfortably in spaces with others. Such observations are why, when asked for an opinion about an office design, I ask, "So, what do you feel when you first enter your space?"

We absorb and are sensitive to our physical surroundings and the energy between things and people. The physical environment influences people. People influence each other.

Although I’ve always approached interior space design this way, talking with business clients about energy and the emotional aspects of a workspace can be challenging. My philosophy seems opposite to the practical, logical world of unless you can see it or prove it, it doesn’t exist. After all, what is an employee really telling you when they say they don’t feel good in their workspace? Isn’t this just another excuse for why they don’t like their job or prefer to work from home?

Well, perhaps it is. And I believe leaders need to pay attention to this truth: there is a connection between physical space and mental well-being.

We learned some tough lessons about our workplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. When employees had no choice but to work from home, employers and their employees began to think differently about work and what it meant to be at the office. We learned, for example, that the environment we work in has a significant impact on our mood and on our productivity levels. Most confirmed what we always suspected—we have different energy levels during the day, and, when left to select the best activities to do and when, we tend to make the right choices that both nurture our well-being and result in productivity. We also found out that a walk outside during the day lifted our spirits when we felt anxious or overwhelmed. Who knew! (Some of us did.) Most importantly, employers learned that engaged, happy employees can be trusted to do their work whether or not they are being watched.

Thanks to such shifts in thinking, a door cracked open for MetteSpace. Our business had mostly served IT companies such as video game and software developers and creators of media and engagement platforms. The leaders we worked with typically were bold entrepreneurs, open-minded and ready to think outside the box. They were attracted to our philosophy. You’ll read about some of the great spaces we designed for them. Now, however, we are hearing from industries and vertical markets we’ve never talked with before. They’ve been struggling with either how to evolve into today’s new work model or how to get back to the good old days, when everything was rosy and remote workers meant the cable guys. They are reading or hearing about how other organizations have transformed the way they think of office space, and they want to learn more.

The tensions between leadership and staff concerning where and how we work are prevalently covered in the media and experienced in our work lives every day. The physical workspace is now being confirmed as an opportunity to be included in strategic planning for all organizations and teams across the globe.

Now I’m able to write the book I always wanted to write. I don’t have to politely suggest that how a space is designed can make a difference. I can shout it from the rooftops (or a nice rooftop patio): space matters. Yes, the pandemic taught us that work can be done from anywhere. But as the world got back to normal, lessons from the past few years also reinforced the high value of in-person collaboration and interaction. If you back off from making a proper investment in space design, you are not just saying no to a beautiful and functional workspace. You are also declaring that from a strategic point of view, you are not willing to do what it takes to meet the goals of your organization.

Before you begin this book, I have a bias you will detect sooner or later. I have dual citizenship: Canadian and Danish. I lived in Denmark for most of my life, but I now call Canada home. My clients reflect a wide variety of industries, with offices located in Canada, the United States, and Europe.

I did not want to confine this book to everything good about the Danes, but there are instances when I can’t hold back. For instance, in North America, when employees struggled post-COVID-19 around the rules for hybrid work, Danish office workers experienced no difference from how they’d always approached workplaces. You work some days at the office, some days at home. You enjoy both because both feel like home. Few North Americans think of their office as a home! So, when I use a few Danish ideas and words, bear with me. These are truths beyond Denmark and worth sharing.

We at MetteSpace are indebted to those who have let us bring their spaces into being. You’ll read some of their stories in the following pages. I hope the examples will inspire and encourage you, the reader, to make a similar investment in your organization.

Mette

The eyes decide

what the brain thinks

and the body feels.

I’m standing in a workplace and I write down my diagnosis: DOS. The space is speaking to me. What I see and feel around me is an unfortunate example of dead office syndrome. If I ask those who are working in the space for an honest answer, I might hear something like, It’s a soul-sucking environment. It’s all the same. There is no immediate cure or fast fix. I like to say, This is an environment where even a plant cannot survive.

The space your company or organization occupies is the physical working environment where your employees spend at least part of their life. It is not simply four walls with desks, computers, and a boardroom; it is a living, breathing environment that impacts whether your organization has what it takes to meet its strategic goals and objectives. Every business seeks growth, influence, and bottom-line success. And these results are all possible depending on the choices you make after you’ve clarified why you need physical office space in the first place.

Leaders, CEOs, COOs, CFOs, investors: Have I caught your attention now?

If you are expecting a book about the latest in office decor or ways to fit as many staff as possible into your workspace, you are going to get a surprise—and hopefully, a good one. Countless resources talk about colors, style, and aesthetics and how these can be used to create a modern, efficient office space. This book is not one of them. It is, rather, an attempt to share a philosophy on and examples of how I believe architecture and space design can move into the future with a much deeper understanding of human beings and how to create the physical environments for us to thrive at work.

You have, no doubt, strategic goals you’ve set for your organi­zation. Achieving strategic goals can be measured by financial success, but the factors that impact financial success are directly linked to how well your people function in your workspace. Do they feel well, physically and mentally? Are they happy at work or looking for another job all the time? Are they productive? Are they engaged? Do they feel connected to