Ask an Architect, Commercial
How Do We Design Office Spaces?
While designing commercial office spaces is a different animal from designing single-family homes, there are some key things that carry through, and those are some of the exact things that make for some of the best office spaces.
February 13, 2014
We are so excited to have the opportunity of designing for commercial offices, one being our own (during our much-needed expansion!). One of our office projects is nearing completion — pictures should be up on our site, very soon – and another office space project is about to begin in the newly-finished Ada’s Books and Café! Commercial office spaces are definitely their own animal – with co-working spaces in high demand because of growing entrepreneurship in Seattle and the changing culture of how and where we put in our 9-to-5.
Ada's Cafe
Stay tuned for exciting news about getting to work at Ada's!
Designing commercial office spaces is challenging in that we have just a few more questions to ask our clients and in effect, their clients (employees, co-workers, etc.) about how they work, who they work with, and what they want from a space they spend more than half their day – and sometimes evenings – in.
With every project, we start with programming worksheets and then work through various diagrams, branding sessions, and floor plans to come up with plans that meet our clients' goals, budgets, and end up being what we think are pretty kick-ass places to work.
While desks, conference rooms, and kitchens are the usual design components involved in office projects, communal spaces that encourage co-workers to engage creatively and socially are becoming a fun and often culturing element that informs how we design the rest of the office.
While we all want to do what we love and love what we do, long hours in an office can be cumbersome in any profession unless there’s an effort to create a space that looks and feels more like your favorite coffee shop. Board & Vellum treats all of our commercial and office projects as places that we'd want to work in ourselves. They're complicated challenges but the end result is that people have better places to work!
