Best Practices For Office Design

Whether you’re a startup that wants to hit the ground running or an established local business, office interior design has become a critical aspect of solidifying your success. Your office space is not just where your team works; it’s an embodiment of how your team works and what you care about as an organization—including your values, workflows, and vision for the future.

As a result, more businesses are regarding office planning as a powerful tool that works best when you understand the possibilities before diving into an interior design project. In this post, we’ll break down seven critical factors that can make or break an office layout, along with some fundamental design ideas you can start playing with right now.

Seven Office Design Attributes

Keep these seven factors in mind when you’re trying to understand how your existing space is working for your team and where there’s room for improvement. Think of each attribute as a continuum with two extremes at either end but with no right or wrong. Instead, these factors are intended to help you reach a deeper understanding of what your office spaces can achieve.

1. Location – How accessible is your space? Understanding location involves assessing how open your space is to your team, the public, and visitors. The spectrum ranges from core location (central and easily accessible) to periphery location (less accessible and on the outskirts).

2. Enclosure – Enclosure factors in the degree to which walls, doors, and ceilings enclose an area. Your space can vary in degrees from open to closed.

3. Exposure – Exposure entails the visual or acoustic privacy your space provides, falling anywhere between public and private.

4. Technology – The technology attribute details the degree to which your space is equipped with tools, ranging from high-tech to low-tech.

5. Temporality – How much time are people intended to spend in the space? Temporality measures the degree to which an area invites lingering, ranging from short-term to long-term.

6. Perspective – How does your space focus attention? Are people led to look outward or inward? Again, perspective is critical to focus your team’s attention on what they should be prioritizing.

7. Size – What is the square footage of the space? Is it large or small? How many people can it comfortably accommodate?

By weighing these seven factors, you can either clarify what you need from a new space or gain insight into how well an existing area is serving your needs.

Straightforward Design Principles

Thoughtful office designs require an extensive amount of planning and expertise. However, if you’re starting to brainstorm what an office design or redesign may look like for your

organization, some basic design principles can go a long way to envisioning the possibilities.

The Importance of Color

Color strongly affects our emotions. As a result, thoughtful color selections can directly impact behavior and performance in your workplace. For example, studies have shown that gray, beige, and white offices can induce feelings of sadness and depression. On the other hand, green is considered an ideal color for teams who spend long hours in the office, whereas shades of blue have calming properties. Understanding the psychology of color can go a long way when looking to design an office space that your team enjoys inhabiting.

Understanding Lighting

Like paint colors, lighting color and temperature are also crucial to successful office design. While common sense tells us that a well-lit space is beneficial to employees, lighting temperature is another factor. Warm, golden light can help create a more comfortable, cozy environment when compared to traditional white fluorescent office lights. Today’s LED lighting systems can save you money on utility bills while offering the possibility to customize light temperature and colors for your office.

If you want to learn more about how you can transform your office space with the latest design principles, contact the experts at DESIGN+BUILD. We’ll work with you to explore the possibilities for your office so you can maximize productivity and comfort.