Pittsburgh Design Firm Builds New Creative Work Environment Comp

Pittsburgh Design Firm Builds New Creative Work Environment Complete With a Tree House to Foster Creativity

PITTSBURGH, November 13, 2006 /PRNewswire/ -- Very few CEOs can say they work in a tree house, unless they're George M. Davison III, CEO and founder of Davison Design and Development.

The product design firm recently opened InventionLand, an innovative workspace designed inside its Pittsburgh warehouse to foster creativity among its staff, known as Inventionmen.

The more than 60,000 square foot facility uniquely features waterfalls, moats and offices on the deck of a "pirate ship," in a faux cave and in a castle. The one-of-a-kind facility was built almost entirely in-house.

"Get creative people out of cubes," said Davison, who founded the company in a basement in 1989. "If I'm going to ask these people to put their hearts, bodies and souls into a project, I'm going to recognize that, because that's a heck of a sacrifice. So, I wanted to give them the best possible place to create in."

InventionLand is composed of 15 departments divided by focus, including automotive, outdoors, juvenile, home and toys. Each department is designed to increase creativity and to offer an environment where the products being designed, created and engineered can be used, tested and photographed in-house.

Davison spends most of his time in Thinktank Treehouse, a workspace suspended on a large faux tree above a stream fed from a waterfall in the rear of the environment.

"InventionLand is made to inspire creative people," Davison explained. "It was built to move belief out of the intangible mental realm and into the physical world. If you're walking in it and living in it, it's easier to be creative. It's more than a place, it's a state of mind."

In addition to the unique, creative environments, InventionLand is part of Davison's factory, producing about 200 new product samples every month. The factory focuses on package samples, prototyping and product construction. For additional information on InventionLand visit InventionLand.com.