In
this blog I want to talk about the effect that technology
has had on modern office design.
Most
of Britain’s offices were designed and built before
the rise to prominence of the personal computer. This
meant that for each employee, all that was really needed
was a desk, a chair, and somewhere to store their paperwork.
This would have been an office without crashes, viruses
and spam (well not the computer kind anyway), but equally
without the internet, MSN messenger and Solitaire (what
would they do all day?). However by the early nineties
most desks had their own computer or terminal, and now
it is unusual to find a desk without a PC.
The
computerization of the office has meant a massive shift
in the way that office space needs to be designed especially
for older buildings without a raised floor (for electrical
floor boxes). I have been to many offices that have hazardous
trailing cables running from the wall to the desks in
order to supply their desks with the necessary power and
data; and yet there are simple ways of planning your office
without risking tripping up your staff and the costly
legal bills that follow – “no win, no fee;
give us a go, what have you got to lose (except for your
job)?”. The simplest way of getting the necessary
power and data to the desk is by having your desks grouped
in spurs running perpendicular to the wall. This way you
can hide all the necessary cables at the back of the desks
and in fact many modern desks now come with “cable
management”. This should mean that you are less
likely to be sued by staff that have been watching those
adverts on daytime TV, whilst pretending to be sick, (although
it doesn’t protect you from the dangers of slightly
hot coffee).
Offices
that do have floor boxes tend to come in two types; the
type that were installed in the 70s and early 80s that
are usually set in to channels cast in the concrete floor
and the modern type that is a truly “raised floor”.
The channel floor boxes can usually only be moved in one
direction (along the channel) and so are not particularly
flexible, whereas the raised floor type is a platform
about 20cm above the concrete floor that in theory allow
for the floor boxes to be moved pretty much anywhere (although
many IT departments would like to claim otherwise). The
raised floor solution gives you the flexibility to have
desks in islands, spurs, as singles, or anywhere you want
really.
In
addition to the effects that computerization has had on
the building, there have also been major changes necessary
to the furniture within it. As staff started to need more
and more desk space for increasingly large PCs and monitors,
the standard office desk changed from a rectangular desk
to the L-shaped corner desk. This was necessary to accommodate
the large CRT monitors, and so gradually most offices
replaced their furniture. Of course as soon as this had
become the norm, the TFT flat screen monitor meant that
all that extra corner space was no longer necessary, and
this brought in the slightly curved Wave desk. However
with the miniaturisation of the PC, many companies are
now going back to the rectangular desk, and the increasing
use of wireless technology means that things are likely
to change further as it is now possible for many staff
to share resources (such as printers). Many companies
no longer use fax machines (we actually use a software
fax which automatically emails us the fax rather than
wasting paper), and this means no need for bulky faxes,
no need to store paper and toner, and less of a requirement
to print things out in the first place!
Looking
ahead wireless technology will become the norm within
the office, and as battery technology is improving soon
we may be able to go have a situation where staff use
laptop PCs that charge up on a docking rack overnight;
allowing them to be truly wire free at their desks. Office
design is becoming less constricted by technology and
improvements in “natural light” lighting,
climate control heating, and wire free computing are actually
allowing technology to improve our office environments,
rather than holding them back. We’ve re-designed
many offices to include things like internet cafes, quiet
zones, brainstorm rooms and funky soft seating, and companies
are starting to see the benefits of having more than one
working environment, and the ability to work anywhere.
If
your office is stuck in a time warp, give us a call and
we can offer practical advice as to how to improve it.
Next time, I’ll be talking about the dreaded “hot-desking”
and why it is not your enemy!
Jonathan
Hall
Contact
Us on 0845 166 8381 |
