Congratulations to HOK and Barcelona-based TAC Arquitectes on winning a competition to design a new 10,000-seat arena for FC Barcelona. The New Palau Blaugrana is expected to open in time for the 2019-2020 FC Barcelona Lassa basketball season. It will replace the 7,500-seat Palau Blaugrana, which opened in 1971.

A jury including five members of the FC Barcelona sports club, three members of the Col∙legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (College of Architects of Catalonia), and one representative from Barcelona’s City Council was unanimous in selecting the HOK-TAC design from among 19 responses to the architectural tender. The Espai Barça jury cited the scheme’s “remarkable innovation” and its “permeability, flexibility, and personality.”

The New Palau Blaugrana will be built on the current site of the Mini Estadi, a 15,276-seat stadium located across from Camp Nou, the home stadium of FC Barcelona. As part of a comprehensive redevelopment of the existing city center facilities at Mini Estadi, the flexible complex will comprise three areas that can operate independently: a 10,000-seat arena, an auxiliary court for 2,000 spectators, and an ice rink.

“This site has tremendous potential,” said Daniel Hajjar, managing principal for HOK’s London office. “We look forward to working with the Barcelona City Council, the Barça technical teams, the residents of Barcelona, and TAC Arquitectes to further develop and integrate our winning concept with the rest of the Espai Barça project and the city center.”

The design for the arena is flexible to accommodate different sporting events while meeting the requirements of Euroleague basketball. Seats are arranged close to the court, in a design that creates a dynamic atmosphere and a wave effect. Support facilities, including shared locker rooms and services for athletes using the main and auxiliary courts, will be located on the same level. Plans also include 18 VIP boxes and two sky bars overlooking the court.

“Our design creates an organic building geometry that supports a seamless progression between the New Palau, the annex court, the ice rink and the FCB Escola academy training facilities,“ said John Rhodes, a London-based director of HOK’s Sports + Recreation + Entertainment practice. “We’re excited about the benefits that this project will bring to FC Barcelona and to this cosmopolitan city.”

(Image: HOK/TAC)

Here’s something to keep in mind the next time you’re networking or working with guests. People in social situations simulate others’ facial expressions in order to create emotional responses in themselves, according to a recent study. For example, if you see someone smiling, you may “try on” the smile yourself without knowing you’re doing it so you can understand what the other person is feeling. This is often completed in a few hundred milliseconds.

“You reflect on your emotional feelings and then you generate some sort of recognition judgment, and the most important thing that results is that you take the appropriate action—you approach the person or you avoid the person,” said Paula Niedenthal, a social psychologist at the University of Wisconsin. “Your own emotional reaction to the face changes your perception of how you see the face, in such a way that provides you more information about what it means.”

Here’s an infographic, also, to help explain it.

(Image: Adrienne Wood)

You know the saying, “It’s better to give than to receive.” And maybe you halfway believe it. However, there is scientific evidence that you should fully believe it.

In a study published in Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine, researchers showed that there are benefits for physical and mental health when social support is given.

“There is a strong association between supportive ties and health. However, most research has focused on the health benefits that come from the support one receives while largely ignoring the support giver and how giving may contribute to good health,” the researchers wrote in the study’s Abstract. “Moreover, few studies have examined the neural mechanisms associated with support giving or how giving support compares to receiving support.”

The researchers assessed 36 participants and their relationships: “a) between self-reported receiving and giving social support and vulnerability for negative psychological outcomes and b) between receiving and giving social support and neural activity to socially rewarding and stressful tasks.” After brain scans, it was found that giving support reduced stress-related activity in the brain, more so than receiving.

“These results contribute to an emerging literature suggesting that support giving is an overlooked contributor to how social support can benefit health,” the researchers concluded.

With that in mind, please consider supporting an IAVM member by participating in the Mentor Connect Program. Learn more about the program, also, during our free, one-hour webinar on March 23 at 2 p.m. (CST).

(Image: Craig Sunter/Creative Commons)

Dr. Jonathon Halbesleben, an associate professor of HR management and organizational behavior at the Culverhouse College of Commerce at The University of Alabama, has spent his whole career researching what makes employees happy and more productive at work.

“When people feel like they have meaningful work and it’s adding to what the company is trying to accomplish—particularly if they buy into the company goals— that can be the most powerful force to keeping people happy,” Halbelsleben said.

His research found that pay and benefits only account for so much and don’t play into overall happiness.

“What you need to do is have that (pay) at a baseline level that people can be satisfied with it, and then these social factors like how meaningful their work is, how well they get along with their coworkers—these things play a much larger role,” he said. “The people that ask a lot of questions about pay and these basic things, they tend not to be real happy in their jobs. The people that stay in their jobs and are really happy are people who often, from the beginning, are asking about opportunities for growth.”

Google is one company that is famous for its 80/20 rule—80 percent of the time is spent doing your specific job, and 20 percent is used for a personal project. Google products such as AdSense and Gmail were developed during the 20 percent time, for example.

“At Google, there is a set percentage of time within the workweek that an employee can do whatever they want with that time, and it’s not whatever you want as long as it makes Google more profitable, it just gives them the freedom to develop these new, crazy ideas that they don’t have to worry about it intruding on the other work that they should be doing,” Halbesleben said. “So rather than coming into work each day and you’ve got this to-do list and you’re just checking it off, it’s a chance to sort of shape the job in a way that you really, truly enjoy. I think a lot of these companies do a really good job of that and as a result, people are really happy there.”

One rising trend Halbesleben sees is job crafting in which employees create the job description they’re interested in.

“On the surface that sounds really scary because you’re like, look at all these people doing their own thing,” he said. “Take for example professors at a university—the courses have to get taught. You don’t all decide that you’re going to craft your jobs, but not teach. The work gets done, but employees might naturally reconfigure how the work gets done and who does what work in a way that better suits their desires, their talents, and their aspirations for the future. And as an employee, working with your coworkers to craft your jobs in a way that puts you in that place that makes you happy, that’s going to be really important.”

Finally, Halbesleben suggests that job happiness depends on taking a break.

“So actually switching off from work for a while, not checking your email at night, these types of things, go a long way to the time at work being happier and more productive,” Halbesleben said. “There’s a whole line of research about recovery that looks at that issue of what people do in their off time. And it consistently finds that having time away from work—truly away from work—gives people a chance to recharge their batteries and come back to work in a much better place, be more productive and less stressed.”

(Image: Nestlé/Creative Commons)

These are selected news articles that showed up in our inboxes on Monday morning that we want to pass along to you.

Holographic Marketing Technology Used In NBA All-Star Weekend Festivities (SportTechie.com)
“ARHT set up multiple 3D kiosks and holographic stage units throughout Toronto, such as inside the Air Canada Centre and a Champs Sports in the city. The holographic technology displays enable participants to browse through Mitchell & Ness products and obtain promotional offers.”

Los Angeles Dodgers Ink Booking Pact With Oak View Group (Billboard)
“Through this new pact with the Dodgers, OVG will leverage its extensive music industry relationships to bring live music to Dodger Stadium.”

Waste Management Phoenix Open Continues to Explore Ways to Handle Ever-growing Crowds (The Arizona Republic)
“Last week’s PGA Tour event shattered more attendance records, drawing a record 618,365 fans, including a single-day record of 201,003 for Saturday’s third round, which was the second-largest crowd for a sports event in U.S. history.”

Aichi Prefecture to Build Major Convention Center at Nagoya Airport (AnimeNewsNetwork.com)
“The building will take up 60,000 m² (645,835 square feet) and is scheduled to open in the fall of 2019.”

State-of-the-art Practice Facilities All the Rage in the NBA (StarTribune)
“Players have 24/7 access to all kinds of amenities.”

(Image: Twitter)