Witold Rybczynski of Strategy + Business examines the root of recent office design trends in a new article titled “How Primal Instincts Influence Office Design.” He writes, “Humans are biological animals, and biology—not technology—is still at the root of many of our environmental inclinations. It’s no wonder that people like working in rehabbed industrial lofts and other old buildings. It’s not the age of the buildings, but their plentiful windows, natural light, and tall ceilings that appeal. Such places also tend to have rougher finishes—wooden floors and ceilings, brick walls, cast-iron columns. Irregular textures and natural materials are more easeful than acrylic carpet and acoustic ceiling tile.”
At Office Space Planners, we pay serious attention to these important employee needs when going into a project. With so much of a business’s success dependent on employee productivity, it’s not enough to go with the latest trends and hope they work. Specific needs must be addressed to get the best results.
We work with a variety of businesses, including businesses in finance, leasing, high-tech, e-commerce, manufacturing, law, insurance, government agencies and more. The one constant in all of our projects is that we have to be able to take nuance into account.
Alex Bozikovic of The Globe and Mail explores this nuance in a recent article titled “Office space: What does the ideal workplace look like?” He takes on trends like the cubicle and the more recently popular open office plan. Bozikovic concludes, “The new design consensus is a middle ground: Every office, it turns out, needs space for collaboration as well as some places to hide. The technology sector is leading the way. Here, innovation rules and companies are obsessed about managing their internal culture. Denise Cherry, director of design at O+A, a design consulting firm in San Francisco, is among the explorers. The firm has built offices for many tech startups as well as established companies including Facebook. Visually, O+A’s interiors are designed to cleverly express the prevailing Bay Area values of creativity and innovation. The dot-com cliché of the foosball table seems to be fading, in favour of a new formula that includes art, music rooms and custom-made furniture and design elements. Accordingly, O+A’s projects have included vintage modern chairs, neon signs, yurts and fully staffed espresso bars.”
No matter what you choose to do with your own office design project, make sure you get it right the first time with the experts at Office Space Planners. Our team of designers and project managers have decades of combined experience and education in the areas of interior design, space planning, computer aided design, drafting, corporate office relocation management, project management, ergonomics and systems furniture. We provide a variety of services, including analysis, commercial space planning, project management, and move coordination.
Whatever office design needs you may have, look no further than Office Space Planners!
