The waiting room in office buildings and healthcare settings is being reimagined, as customer expectations evolve and operators rethink what these spaces can become. Once designed simply as a place to sit, wait or pass through, arrival spaces are increasingly drawing on hospitality principles to create environments that support connection, comfort and wellbeing – and add value to the asset and precinct they sit within.

At Dexus, we’ve been rethinking waiting areas across our portfolio.

“People carry their consumer expectations everywhere, and healthcare is no longer the exception,” says Michelle Chiu, General Manager, Transactions - Healthcare and Alternative Investments at Dexus. “The standard of experience someone encounters at an airport, a university or a top-tier shopping centre shapes what they expect when they walk through hospital doors.

“As the gap between those everyday consumer experiences and traditional healthcare environments has widened, so too has the recognition that arrival and waiting spaces deserve greater attention and investment.”

A well-designed healthcare precinct has many commercial benefits, including improving patient and visitor satisfaction, supporting staff wellbeing and retention, and strengthening the appeal of the broader precinct.

Similarly, office lobbies and waiting areas are being treated as third spaces. Alexandra Brownlee, Dexus’s Head of Asset and Property Management - Office, commented: “it’s less of a space for people to just pass through on their way to the tenancy and more of a third space offering where people can linger, experience great food and beverage retail, and host informal meetings.”

Assets such as 60 Castlereagh Street and Quay Quarter Tower (QQT) in Sydney serve as strong examples. At QQT the approach can be seen in the treatment of the building’s lobby and adjoining amenity areas. Tom Dixon’s Design Research Studio used bespoke furniture, carved-out alcoves and varied materials to bring a more human scale to the tower’s expansive interiors. The design also needed to accommodate flexibility and different uses, extending the role of the ground-floor retail and amenity beyond circulation and creating a more considered experience within the building.

Brownlee says the commercial case depends on whether it’s an existing asset or new development, but it ultimately comes down to attracting and retaining tenants.

“For existing assets, investing in the lobby and ground floor experience is fundamentally about retaining customers. Long-term tenant retention is one of the most effective ways to maintain income and enhance asset value."

This article draws on insights originally reported by Commercial Real Estate: Redesigning waiting rooms as high-value third spaces