Field Report

Privacy, ergonomics and lighting are among the concerns in designing the modern office

by Bruce K. Abidyazdi

In today's office environments, flexible, open office plans are starting to supplant traditional enclosed offices. If you are contemplating a new office, or remodeling your existing office, you need to think about more than the number of offices you need.

Following are some issues to consider:

How much privacy do you need? The need for privacy, and the old idea that you had to have an office before you were "somebody," have been the driving forces in office design for years.

With buzzwords like "teams" and

"partnering" running rampant in the business world, you have to ask yourself, "How much privacy do we really need, and how many times a day do we really need it?"

What you'll find is that the need for privacy is an extremely small portion of a typical business day, unless, of course, you are a psychiatrist counseling a patient or an attorney discussing case-related issues.

Open office spaces are becoming more and more popular, but the need for a certain degree of privacy is still present. One of the ideas emerging in office design is the "personal harbor."

This could be a small room with adequate space for a desk and computer, but not much more. This area provides

the space necessary to make a private call, or a place to concentrate on a piece of work.

Office system designers are even coming out with modular units that are fully enclosed. A small conference room can double as a place to hold a private conversation with an employee or client.

Lighting. With computer terminals on just about every desk in the country, more and more people are turning to a monitor instead of paper and ink. This trend makes lighting one of the most important design issues in an office environment.

Although everyone loves to have a window to look out of, natural daylight is the hardest type of light to control and often results in glare on computer screens.

Indirect lighting, as from suspended light fixtures that bounce light off the ceiling, provides great overall ambient lighting.

Clerestory windows, which are windows up high on a wall, can provide natural daylight without the glare and heat-gain problems of direct sunlight. You can provide windows for scenery in areas such as the break room, front lobby and conference rooms.

Workspace ergonomics. Ergonomics is the study of the range of motion and overall comfort level of the human body. With the increased use of computers, keyboards and monitors, ergonomics has become an important factor in office design.

Adjustable keyboard trays, fully adjustable chairs with plenty of back support and strategically placed monitors are all factors in ergonomics. You should also encourage people who work at computers all day to get up and walk around, or at least focus on something far away on a regular basis.

Break rooms. Large corporate entities like First Card and Bass Pro Shops provide employees with amenities like cafeterias, dry cleaning drop-off and fitness centers. One trend in smaller offices is to integrate a caf? (break room) into the office space, making it an important part of the office environment.

If you have some reading to do, you could go to the caf?, get some coffee and do your reading. It could also double as a space for staff meetings or informal business meetings.

Finishes and interior design. What image are you trying to portray? Are you a leading-edge design or advertising agency with a high-energy, team-oriented company, or a conservative financial services company trying to show prospective clients how well you can manage money?

Interior design does not just mean picking colors. It involves developing the physical interior environment of the building, from the layout of the parti-tion walls to designing the reception desk.

Interior design and finish selection can be one of the most important steps of the project because it is the process that ultimately creates

the space in which you will spend approximately 2,000 hours per year of your time.

The design should be based on the core values and organizational structure of the company. It is your job, as the client, to make sure those values are conveyed.

(Bruce K. Adibyazdi, AIA, NCARB, is an architect and partner at Butler, Rosenbury & Partners Inc.)

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