A visually pleasing workplace is only one part of the equation. Several workplace design principles need to be considered: spatial design, lean design principles and emotional design. Evoke Projects examines each of these, highlighting their importance in a workplace fit-out to improve your business success.
Spatial design is about the layout of a space. Spatial design is essentially what you see represented on a floor plan. It allocates space in different areas for different purposes.
Your workplace fit-out will likely include offices, open-plan areas, meeting rooms, collaborative spaces, quiet zones and breakout areas. Local planning rules might specify how many toilets you need and how wide corridors need to be. Again, this will need to be incorporated into your spatial design.
If clients visit your workplace, their expectations will influence your spatial design. Do you want to present a grandiose space or a more homely interior design?
Lean office design is about avoiding waste. This includes waste of time, space and movement.
Consider the movement of people throughout the workplace and the tasks that take place. Design your office for maximum efficiency of movement.
While it’s nice to have airy spaces, make sure that space isn’t wasted and that there’s a balance between comfort and excessive use of space.
You can create multi-purpose rooms to maximise the use of the space that you have. For example, you might have a meeting room that doubles as a breakout room for team members who are working together on a particular project.
Lean design contributes to your profitability, as you can use smaller premises to achieve the same goals.
Emotional design is about how a space makes people feel. This often comes down to touchy-feely elements of an office fit-out, such as materials, colours and shapes that create a certain perception.
Other elements of emotional design might include:
Light: People feel better in natural light than artificial light. If natural light isn’t available, skylights can be installed to let the sunshine in. There is even lighting that mimics the changes in light that occur outside during the day by automatically changing the temperature or warmth of light globes.
Acoustics: Use materials that block, absorb or mask noise. It helps to keep conversations private and allows people to work without noise disturbance. This is one area that Evoke Projects recommends investment during an initial office fit-out as it can be difficult to install retrospectively.
Community: Make sure there is space for your team to feel like a team. When team relationships are good, people are happier at work. This helps with retaining team members and results in a better experience for clients when your team is happy and working cohesively.
Natural elements: People aren’t made to spend excessive amounts of time in built environments. We all have an innate connection to nature. It comforts us to feel close to natural elements. Incorporate as many natural materials as you can into your workplace design. Evoke Projects uses wood or wood-look cabinetry, plants and light to create an environment that feels more in tune with nature.
Air and thermal comfort: HEPA filters in air conditioning keep people safer and also make them feel less at risk of getting sick. This is extremely important to a person’s sense of well-being. Thermal comfort is also important. You don’t want team members in one half of the building to be freezing while the other side is sweating. Balanced air conditioning or individual room temperature controls can be built into your workplace design to ensure everyone is comfortable.
Prioritising health: Installing showers and locker rooms will encourage your team to jog, walk or cycle to work. This keeps them physically fit, and exercise raises endorphins making people feel happy. Happiness is contagious so it will spread throughout the office!
Talk to Evoke Projects about the benefits to your business from improved spatial, lean and emotional design. Please call 1300 720 692 to discuss your workplace fit-out.
