Perhaps you are ready to upgrade the interior of your tenancy to suit your business or maybe you have found a new space for your commercial workplace. Understanding your business is the first step for a designer and fit-out specialist. Effective office interior should not be undervalued, as often this is where we spend most of our time.
Interior Designers need to determine the daily routine of your business. This coupled with your budget and wish list will help determine a conceptual brief which will guide the design process and ensure your demands and budget are met. Your investment in a professional workplace design will ensure an appropriate and functional layout, facilitating effective workflow and optimising productivity.
Key considerations:
#1 How to plan for the future. Is there chance of increased occupancy? Will the business services develop over time and require additional or reduced spatial requirements? Should modularity/flexibility be considered?
#2 The Obsession with the Open Floorplan is Dying Off. Open floorplans can be a productivity killer. Individual offices are over, as open floor plans are more cost efficient. Design elements need to be introduced as a medium to delineate spaces, reduce noise distractions and accommodate wayfinding. This technique can be achieved with the use of untraditional screening, such as transportable, vertical gardens. This doubling as both an acoustic solution, visual privacy, and an intangible biophilic effect. Biophilia is our innate tendency to connect with nature.
#3 Flexibility. This point is important to businesses that may be required to change direction quickly. Interior Designers approach this predicament by incorporating dynamic spaces. These spaces can be transformed and manipulated easily. Electronic interactive whiteboards, and movable furniture and architectural components.
#4 Minimise the Mess. Organisational tactics need to be employed to reduce distraction and promote productivity. Reverting to paperless options, selecting drawer organiser inserts and plan hangers. It will also give you room to have a plant at your desk.
#5 Brighten Up at Work. Studies have proven that the more natural light introduced into workplace, encourages staff to perform more effectively. It also allows for passive design, reducing costs associated to electricity. Designers act as or engage with lighting consultants to calculate appropriate application. Many factors are considered, ie. reflective quality of surfaces and the amount of glare produced by this.
Progressive businesses want to reduce staff turnover and this can be achieved by investing in innovative workplace interior design.