A large segment of the publishing division at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia will be moving its operations from 42nd Street to the ninth floor of the Starrett Lehigh building in Manhattan, where MSLO currently holds offices for its merchandising and internet divisions. In a memo to staff, President of Merchandising and Co-CEO Robin Marino explained the move this way:

“We are particularly excited about having our creative teams and content creators across divisions all together in one space. This will facilitate more dialogue and open communication about our work, and insure more synergy as we strive to optimize the integration of our media and merchandising assets... We view this reconfiguration of our work space as an opportunity to return Starrett Lehigh to the form in which it was originally conceived and intended.”

To help ‘reset’ the workspace environment and employee work habits at Starrett, strict new design rules were implemented to fully “articulate” the new direction, which is fundamentally minimalist. Kevin Sharkey took the lead on the new aesthetic and set up a "design row" for employees to tour.

I’m told by staffers that some of the changes include the removal of all personal trash receptacles from individual work stations in favour of a central trash/recycle area, the removal of all personal items from desktops and the use of only brand-approved pens, pencils, highlighters and markers in the workspace. Apparently, however, the executive offices escaped this de-saturation process; they will remain as “individual laboratories” as depicted in the January issue of the magazine in photographs by Robert Polidori. (There’s no way Collecting Editor Fritz Karch will give up his clutter!)

Insider photo of the "approved" desk arrangement.

Insider photo of the approved writing instruments.

Reaction by most staff to the new impersonal tone of the workspace model, I’m told, is not entirely enthusiastic. After reading a similar post about the design changes on Gawker.com, Martha discussed them on her show today:

"I just want to say that this Gawker.com article is a misrepresentation of what actually was discussed within our offices. The list of pens is an assortment of what our company will provide our employees with at our expense. We never stated that other pens were not allowed to be used. In these tough economic times, harmony is essential within the working environment. I must also inform you that we use a great assortment of writing implements from the Martha Stewart crafts line available at Michael's Crafts and Walmart."