Design an Office Space and Boost Morale Using Natural Materials

Natural Office Design Trends Arcadia Wordsmith Cart

Want to go natural in the office? Smart move. Let’s look at the natural office design trend and how it helps benefit your office!

Bringing nature into the office boosts overall morale and helps workers be more productive. But how do you connect the office space with the great outdoors?

In Southern California’s urban sprawl, we see evidence of natural beauty all around us—from the mountains forming a backdrop behind downtown LA, to the coast, and to the national forests. Don’t forget the sun. A few years ago, the Harvard Business Review referred to natural light as the #1 Office Perk.

It’s one of the elements that should be part of every company’s wellness program.

Light

Sunshine is worth harvesting indoors, especially since downtown LA gets about 290 total days of either full sun or partly cloudy skies, according to most estimates. Benefits of sunshine are proven to reduce employees’ stress and improve their natural sleeping cycle.

If it’s possible, enlarge windows to maximize the amount of sunshine that can filter indoors. Try to have desks and workstations within 25 feet of windows and use center spaces for storage equipment or break areas. Install skylights or sky tubes.

What happens if your office is in a windowless setting?

Advice in CareerTrend says to upgrade your fluorescent lights to a color “’temperature’ that mimics daylight and use focused task lighting to reduce eye strain.”

Regardless of the setting, consider using translucent partitions for cubicles and space dividers instead of solid walls.


Photo: Loftwall Hitch Space Divider

Fabrics and Materials

The most basic of all building materials remain popular. Wood has environmental benefits. “If sustainably sourced,” says a UK design company, Insightful Environments, “wood is one of the most environmentally friendly materials available as it is infinitely renewable and acts as a carbon store, giving it an important role in reducing carbon emissions.”

Pine, oak, and beech are three types of wood that can be effectively used in the office. So can bamboo, a grass, which is a beneficial plant for a variety of uses. It can be used as furniture and grown in pots as space dividers.

Bamboo also absorbs carbon from the environment and releases high oxygen levels into the atmosphere.

You can use wood in strategic ways. Light-grain wood floors can help lighten the office environment, even if little natural light is available.

Use natural fabrics for upholstery like cotton, leather, and wool or wool blends. Hemp is another natural fabric choice that’s described in Better Homes and Gardens as feeling similar to canvas and its resistant to mold and mildew.

Lounge seating has options with natural-looking fabrics like the OFS Realm Lounge Seating. There are fun ways to customize it like adding wood to the curved armrests.


Photo: OFS Realm Lounge Seating

Walls

Imagine natural elements on your walls with rocks, wood, and plenty of greenery. Check the Nevins Bio Canvas Frame that not only brings natural elements into the office, but it helps control acoustics, too.


Photo: Nevins Bio Canvas

Get Naturally Inspired

See these elements coming together in 2010 Office Inspiration’s The Green Office page. Notice how greenery and light are fused to create a welcoming environment.

You don’t have to shut the door on nature when stepping into a corporate office.

Use furniture with natural fabrics and natural wood.

It doesn’t have to take a huge budget to green up the surroundings. Real wood shelves filled with pleasing office plants are an easy way to start.


Photo: OFS Obeya Architectural Structure

Re-imagine cubicles or meeting spaces with office design solutions like the OFS Obeya Architectural Structures. It’s made with plywood cores and real wood grain details, and a great way to incorporate natural office design trends to your office.


Photo: Arcadia Delen Table

Need meeting tables or a breakroom surface? Check the Arcadia Delen Table that’s available in different shapes with solid Ash and Walnut wood finishes.


Photo: Arcadia Livia Bench

The Arcadia Livia Bench has a classic look and comes in both straight wood beams and scalloped wood. Optional removable seat pads can be easily added.

Remember This …

No matter how little or how much sunlight or other natural materials you have in the office, keep an orderly environment. Everyone will think better and feel calmer when their work environment is organized, clean, and orderly.

Here’s an idea from The American Society of Administrative Professionals. Choose a day each quarter when everybody cleans and organizes their personal office space and another day when you team up to clean common spaces.

Freshen Up with Natural Office Design Trends

What do you need to improve your office environment and workflow? How do you incorporate natural office design trends successfully?

Get input from the team at 2010 Office Furniture. They’ve got more than 50 years of combined experience furnishing and planning spaces for clients who are among Southern California’s most distinguished corporations, universities, and small businesses.

They’ll show you how to keep employees engaged and promote their overall well-being.

Contact them with your questions and potential project needs.

Read Also: Designing a Healthy Office
Main Photo: Arcadia WorkSmith Cart
Resources & Special Thanks to Respective Product Manufacturers: Arcadia Contract, Loftwall, Nevins and OFS

Designing Your Office Space from Top-Down to Bottom-Up

Designing Your Office Space from Top-Down to Bottom-Up

If you’re looking to create a new office design when designing your office space, an effective way to begin the process is to consider how different layouts will benefit the workflow. The goal is to help your company function efficiently. After all, work needs to get done.

Now consider the human element and how your team can work at its best.

An office isn’t just about placing workstations and then fitting your people into slots. Social and psychological dynamics matter as well.

Designing Your Office Space from Top-Down to Bottom-Up
Photo: Allermuir, Arcadia Contract & OFS

Chart Your Basic Workflow Needs

Analyze the different functions in your business, ranging from your core function—the reason your business exists—to the support functions like sales and marketing, finance, and customer care. The principles of laying out an office are timeless. A write-up from 1995 in MIT’s Sloan Management Review noted that “technological innovation and creative space design together make solutions possible.”

Here are the “tactical initiatives” highlighted in the article that benefit an organization:

  • Ergonomic planning
  • Defining group and personal workspaces
  • Offering shared workspace
  • Accommodating remote workers

This is the top-down approach that relies on higher authority figures who see the wider goals and filter decisions down to the tasks of lower-level employees. In contrast, the bottom-up style gathers staff input and gives everyone a voice.

Ergonomics works well based on employee input since the concept is to fit the workplace to the needs of people and how they function. Their suited to say what’s comfortable and what works or doesn’t work.

That’s what co-working spaces have done. They’d set up shop, sign up freelancers and remote workers who wanted to use the facilities, and took feedback on what the users liked or didn’t like. Then they’d make adjustments as necessary.

A “bottom-up” approach when designing your office space can fine-tune plans to arrive at a satisfying solution.

Create an Invitation—Not a Maze—When Designing Your Office Space

When you design or freshen your office space, imagine that you’re working with your team to make a space that’s inviting. You’re not creating a maze of modular workstations, so let your employees know that you’d like their thoughts on what makes an office welcoming.

Some may not have much of an opinion while others may want to share what works for them and what can be changed. If they’re recent hires then they may have positive or negative opinions about their previous office environment.


Photo: OFS Height Adjustable Workstations 

Take the approach used in the book Life of Work, What Office Design can Learn from the World Around Us. The authors, Jeremy Myerson and Imogen Privett, undertook a major research project and concluded that while “most contemporary offices satisfies physical and functional requirements, it seldom supports the psychological comfort and individual needs of the people who use them every working day.”

Get ideas for how people relate to design by doing what the authors did: looking at diverse spaces like theater layouts, newsrooms and medical offices.

Take a look around and adapt what works for your people within the physical space available.

Select from Different Office Styles

2010 Office Furniture’s Inspiration page reveals several different layouts and their aesthetics. Each layout makes a statement and can easily be tailored to reflect your company’s brand and enhance the office atmosphere.  It’s a great resource for inspiration when designing your office space.

A modern, abstract office uses bold colors and fascinating shapes. Modular lounge furniture can work well.


Photo: The Senator Group Mote Lounge

Contemporary industrial style offices pay homage to a city’s past while bringing comfort and functionality into present times. Google’s office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania brings in original brickwork into a space that’s “unconventional and inspiring.”

Use your surrounding city to spark features. A space in Irvine may be sleek and modern while an office in Ontario or the San Dimas area can harken back to local history.

How about an upbeat, contemporary look? You may have a traditional accounting firm but why not add splashes of color? Should pediatric dental offices have all the design fun?

In an open office plan, use different styles of workstations and colors to differentiate teams with their distinct responsibilities.

For private executive offices, choose between elegant designs or more casual ones, with both options being able to integrate technology in the desks and cabinets.


Photo: AMQ Work-From-Home Workstation

Health and wellness is a major consideration in this age of Covid-19 precautions so consider accessories and layouts for a social distancing workplace.

Don’t forget the breakroom. Create a small gathering place with chairs and tables that are easily moved or create a lounge near a kitchen space. Offices aren’t just about desks and cubicles so invest in plenty of healthy snacks and drinks that people enjoy.

Consider the Types of Work

Different functions are needed to make a company hum along the road to profitability. People with unique skill sets can have different personalities. It’s not your task to please everyone with a layout, but you can take into account the various needs that people have when designing your office space.

A graphic designer, computer programmer or engineer will need hours of quiet to focus while a marketing and sales team is going to be more collaborative and creative.

Make the office a positive social environment and don’t hesitate to experiment with new trends and refresh a look every few years.

Know your goals. Do you project growth in the near future using staff who are on-site or through remote workers? You can be nimble to provide for current needs and still plan for what can happen in the years to come.

Need Help Designing Your Office Space?

You don’t need to go it alone in office design. The team at 2010 Office Furniture has nearly 50 years of combined experience helping leading companies and nonprofits in Southern California lay out office spaces and provide furnishings that promote employee well-being.

Contact them with your project needs and questions as you undertake designing your office space.

Read Also: The Best Office Spaces are Responsive to Employee Needs
Main Photo: Groupe Lacasse
Resources & Special Thanks to Respective Product Manufacturers: Allermuir, AMQ, Arcadia Contract, Groupe Lacasse, OFS & The Senator Group