Office building design is an essential part of a companies identity and productivity. Here are some design ideas we put together that you may want to consider before begging your building design and development.
Sustainable Office Building Design
Sustainable design should be a give in these days. We are not going to go into much detail one in this article. We have another post on Sustainable Building Design if you want to read more. Here are a few key features to consider.
- Energy Efficient Building design
- Renewable Energy
- High Performance Thermal Envelope
- Natural Ventilation and Indoor Air Quality
- Sustainable Sites and Site Planning
- Sustainable or Recycled Materials
- Social Sustainability
- Physical and Mental Health
Branding and Identity
Your office building design is part of your company identity and commercial branding. Consider what your company image is. Do you have an identity you want to come through in your design. We strongly recommend discussing your branding with your architects when you are designing your office building. your building design will say a lot about your company.
Flexible Design
Office building designs should plan for the future. Do you expect your needs to change over time? If your building is to be rented out you may want to ensure flexibility in the design for future tenants.
Movable partition walls, manual or automatic, to close and open space can be a great way to accommodate different uses with one office space.
Access to utilities, conduit, electrical and data is essential for easy building upgrades. Typically these are run through ceilings or floors. If you run conduit through the floor you can have a raised floor with removable floor panels for access. Running electrical through your ceiling you can have removable acoustical ceiling tiles. Access panels and equipment rooms are also of major concern plans these to accommodate additional equipment in the future.
Views
This one should be obvious but take the view into consideration. try to frame or highlight certain areas. Your office building may be completely glass or may not. If it is not plan out your views carefully and perhaps block undesirable views.
Outdoor Space
Outdoor space should never be neglected. If your building has setbacks design them to be functional. You may want to use a portion of your roof for a roof deck and incorporate a green roof. These can be excellent places to hold informal meetings or for the staff to go have lunch on a nice day. Outdoor space can be a great way to enhance the quality of life for your occupants. Everyone will appreciate it and it is great for moral.
Office Amenities and Accessory Space
Depending on the size of your buildings you may have the opportunity of amenity spaces or accessory spaces. these are non essential spaces to the function of your office that you can incorporate to enhance the experience for your visitors and staff.
- Stores
- Plazas
- Gardens
- Day Care Center
- Kitchenettes
- Cafeteria
- Lunch Rooms
- Locker Rooms
- Showers
- Gym
- Game Rooms Recreational Rooms
- Break Rooms or Nap Rooms
- Research Library
- Classrooms or learning centers
There are endless spaces you can add to elevate your office building design. There may be some specific to your industry that would make a great addition to your offices.
Elevators and Circulation
Make sure to have a smart layout for people getting around the office. You may have a beautiful feature stair to combine floors or an atrium for vertical circulation.
Nobody wants to use a building with slow elevator access. Put the right number of elevators if you have a super tall building use express and local elevators as appropriate.
Bathrooms
One of my biggest pet peeves are offices that do not have nice bathroom designs. A bathroom is an important place to spend a little money and everyone will be happy you do. Of course may sure not to neglect bathroom maintenance and cleanliness after you building your office building.
Medical Office Building Design NY
Thank You For Reading Our Post On Office Building Design Ideas
I hope this was helpful. If you would like to speak with an architect about a potential project you can contact us at Fontan Architecture directly.
This post was written by Jorge Fontan AIA a Registered Architect and owner of New York City architecture firm Fontan Architecture. Jorge Fontan has earned 3 degrees in the study of architecture including two degrees from the City University of New York and a Masters Degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University. Jorge has a background in construction and has been practicing architecture for 20 years where he has designed renovations and new developments of various building types.
