Office Design Guide

1. Office Design Guide Sept 2019

2. Introduction Greg Lavery (Senior Designer) RomasVizgirda (Interior Designer) RunaldoFerre (Architect) • This guide is to help you design an office that is productive, space-efficient, sustainable, healthy and great value-for-money. • We are happy to help if needed; we offer free assistance to all, from first-time project managers to established designers looking for specific sustainability and wellness information. • Sincerely, • The Rype Office senior design team

3. Making smart decisions For finding a new office space, see 5 Steps for Successfully Establishing a New Office This guide will enable you to: Design a stylish, productive, ergonomic & sustainable office Reduce the furnishing cost significantly (usually by 50% compared to normal furniture costs). Reduce the environmental footprint of your design by around 80% (including GHG emissions) Address, in part, the 300 tonnes of office furniture going to landfill in the UK every working day

4. Layout Style and colour Furnishing options & costs Furniture Flooring Walls Electronics Where to get more help Contents

5. Start with a Zoning Diagram to logically figure out what should go where Include solutions for noise management Draw the Layout Plan, including desks, meeting spaces and breakout areas Layout Process

6. New kitchens need to go near to service risers/other kitchens/toilets to minimise the cost of clean, hot and black water piping Kitchens, entries and customer areas are the noisiest areas so group them together as much as possible Put noisy teams (call centres, customer service, sales, marketing, communications) next to these noisy areas from most noisy to least Use walkways and breakout areas to break large desking areas and provide noise barriers Put teams needing most privacy in quiet corners (typically HR, Finance, and Executives) Zoning Rules-of-Thumb

7. Example Zoning Diagram Tip: Zoning Diagrams are a very useful tool for starting to build consensus around the design of the office

8. Separation. Arrange teams from quietest to noisiest (with the noisiest nearest the kitchen). Concentration. Group similar activities to concentrate noise. Direction. Vary the orientation of desks. This will mean that sound waves are not multiplied by many staff talking in the same direction. Containment. Use storage, booths, bookshelves and green walls to contain noise. You could also provide phone booths to help isolate and trap the noise from calls. Absorption. Carpet tiles absorb noise, whereas hard floors add footsteps to the soundscape. Large soft furnishings in the team breakout spaces and plants intercept and absorb noise. Acoustic wall and ceiling panels absorb sound waves and reduce echoes. Acoustic management tips Tip: Noise-reducing headsets, along with staff training in their use, can substantially reduce office noise

9. Reconfiguring an office to create a noise buffer Illustrative Version of Current Desk Layout By adjusting the layout of banks of desks, a buffer zone can be created to separate noisy teams from quiet teams. A 3m wide buffer zone allows plenty of room for soft furniture. Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Illustrative Version of Potential Desk Layout Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Bank of desks Buffer zone Bank of desks Bank of desks Noisy teams Quiet teams Bank of desks Bank of desks

10. Start with the number of staff per team (including allowances for future growth) and allocate teams in each zone Avoid long benches of desks which channel noise and are impersonal (no-one wants to feel like a battery chicken) Avoid putting desks on the end of benches because users are brushed by passers-by If the fit is too tight (see spacing dimensions in following slides) then consider reducing the size of the desks (standard desk dimensions in following slides) Creating a Layout Plan

11. RIBA (the Royal Institute of British Architects) provides minimum desk spacings, which we have found to be too tight. Recommended spacings are shown below. Note that for electric sit-stand desks, wider access is required to accommodate chairs which are not being used Desk Spacing RIBA minimum 1.3m Recommended 1.5m RIBA minimum 0.9m Recommended 1.1m 1m minimum for comfort. 1.25m preferred Note: dimensions are from desk edge to wall, radiator or storage cabinet, whichever is closer 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1200 x 800 1650mm with 50mm between desks 1650mm

12. Desks come in different shapes and sizes but there are some basic rules of thumb. The standard desk depth is 800mm, although for hotdesks sometimes 600mm is used. In terms of width: 1000mm is for hotdesks because they leave no room for an under desk drawer unit (i.e. pedestal) 1200mm will allow for slim pedestal (approx. 300m wide) 1400mm fits a standard width pedestal (approx. 380 to 450mm wide) 1600mm and 1800mm are rare these days because they are considered unnecessarily large in paperless offices and the space saved per person is being used to create breakout zones which allow different styles of working Desk Sizing

13. Meeting tables should be sized to suit the meeting room and accommodate the right number of chairs. If a meeting table is too big, the room feels small. Conversely, If it is too small, it feels like you are wasting space. Here is how to calculate the maximum meeting table size for a room: Meeting Table Sizing 1.3m Note: dimensions are from table edge to wall, radiator or credenza, whichever is closer Maximum meeting table size 1.3m 0.9m 0.9m

14. Example Layout Plan

15. Layout Style and colour Furnishing options & costs Furniture Flooring Walls Electronics Where to get more help Contents

16. Choose a style based on: The organisation’s culture Brand guidelines Soiling practicalities (e.g. very light colours throughout are a bad idea for a garden centre) Style and Colours

17. Eco (UK Green Building Council) Scandi (Winnow) Corporate with character (PHW) There are lots of different styles you can choose from Shoreditch loft (NAOS) Industrial corporate (Loyalty Logistix) For more photos of these, see this Projects page

18. Industrial Scandi Luxury Scandi Scandi is very popular and there are different versions Warehouse Scandi

19. Scandi works with greys and one highlight colour

20. Colour helps to: Personalise an office Add warmth Create a wow factor Reflect the organisation’s branding An office needs at least 2, preferably 3 colours. Unless you are going for a Scandi theme, grey/black/white do not count as colours. Don’t try to allocate colours to furniture at this stage – this comes much later; what you need for now is a set of colours that work well together so you can secure approval for them. Develop a Colour Palette

21. Paletton.com is a free tool to generate a great colour palette based on corporate colours and preferences. It makes it easy to match colours by offering tried and tested colour combination approaches (like a Triad of colours separated around the colour wheel by 120 degrees) Paletton

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23. Your furnishing choices (especially furniture) have a big environmental impact Embodied GHG Emissions in Office Buildings over a 40 Year Life Source: Treloar, GJ. Et al, 1999, Embodied energy analysis of fixtures, fittings and furniture in office buildings, Facilities, Volume 17, Number 11, pp. 403-409 (Accessed on 14 June 2019 at https://www.academia.edu/18481731/Embodied_energy_analysis_of_fixtures_fittings_and_furniture_in_office_buildings)

24. Most Sustainable Reuse: This is reusing existing or others’ furniture without doing anything to it. It’s the best for the environment and cheapest but the furniture can be poor quality and not look good in the new office. Office Furniture Options Reuse Refurbish: Replacing or repairing worn or damaged worn components, like upholstery, can extend the life of furniture that is otherwise in good condition. Unfortunately, often this is only an option for a small proportion of existing furniture, but should not be overlooked for its cost and environmental benefits. Refurbish Remanufacturing: Recent developments in engineering processes and materials technology mean that existing and others’ furniture can be returned to as-new condition. This is a quality-controlled process where the long-life components are checked and resurfaced and the softer parts replaced. This furniture looks and performs like new but has an 80% reduced environmental footprint and costs around one third of list price. Remanufactured furniture is being used by RBS, NatWest, British Land, Crown Estate, JLL, Tesco, NHS, Sky, the BBC and many more. Remanufacture Manufacture from Virgin Materials: This is the wasteful and expensive way that most furniture has historically been sourced at great expense (financially and environmentally) and with long lead times. Manufacture from Virgin Materials Least Sustainable

25. Furniture costs (for quick estimates)

26. Layout Style and colour Furnishing options & costs Furniture Flooring Walls Electronics Where to get more help Contents

27. Conversely, usage time can be influenced by the type of seating chosen Choose chairs to suit the time that someone will want to sit on them

28. Choosing the right desk chair (also know as an operator chair or a task chair) is key to staff comfort and productivity. Only buy desk chairs with full ergonomic adjustability (including arm rests) to avoid sore backs and sick days. Two of our favourite chairs are the Giroflex G64 and Orangebox Joy. Mesh back chairs usually provide poor lumbar support – but if you must have a mesh back, choose one with a curved frame to provide more lumbar support, like the Orangebox Do. All of these can be purchased remanufactured at a substantial discount to new. Desk chair = Operator chair = Task chair Orangebox Do Orangebox Joy Giroflex G64 • Top-of-the-range chair • FIRA Ergonomics Excellence Award Winner

29. When selecting a desk chair, make sure that it has the following: Adjustable seat height Adjustable lumbar support Adjustable arm height Seat slide Tilt mechanism (ideally with tilt lock so it is not continually moving, which many staff hate) with adjustable tension Ergonomic adjustability

30. Desk frames are not the highlight of an office design – they are tucked under desktops and are only visible at the ends of rows. Choose a flexible frame system that can be added to, reconfigured and resized. Grey/silver legs are a popular choice because they are a neutral colour and do not show scuff marks as easily as white. Remanufactured desk frames with resized or new tops can create significant cost savings for a new office. Tops can be in a range of timber finishes or colours, with contrasting edge banding (e.g. white tops with a black edge) Desks

31. Varidesk Sit-stand desks are ergonomically benficial, but expensive. Instead of providing one to everyone who wants one, we recommend allowing those staff to trial an on-desk variable height system to see if they use/like it. If, after a week, they have not lifted it from desk height or are tired of it, you have avoided the need to buy a sit-stand desk. We suggest providing a few fixed height stand up desks for all staff to use, allowing them back relief if needed; these can also be used by staff if there is a shortage of desks on busy days. Stand up desks Stand up desk (to right) Tip: there is little difference in price between a manual wind-up sit-stand desk and an electric sit-stand desk

32. Struggling to decide between pedestals and lockers? We have found: Permanent staff sitting at the same desk every day need a pedestal under their desk (if they have a locker they will tire of taking their papers to and from the locker every day and end up leaving it on their desks, creating clutter) Hotdesking staff can have lockers, but the lockers must be big enough to be useful – we recommend 450mm wide rather than the usual 350mm It is okay to have both pedestals and lockers in an office Keep some spare lockers for cyclists to store their gear Pedestals Versus Lockers

33. The way that we work is changing. Gone are the days of being fixed to a desk; Modern workers are encouraged to move around their office and collaborate with their colleagues, sharing expertise and generating innovations. At the same time, real estate prices are higher, leading to smaller desks and closer proximity to colleagues. So dedicated breakout areas are needed to encourage conversations, away from desking areas. Rules of thumb for breakout furniture: Soft seating should have a seat height of 450mm and firm support. This allows for easy and elegant user access and egress; no-one likes climbing out of a bean bag. It is also ideal for working on a desk height table. All tables should be 700mm to 730mm high (desk height) so that staff can work productively in breakout spaces. Booths should be a minimum of 1.25mm high, up to 1.5m for additional privacy. Any higher will impact the flow of natural light across the booth and office. Breakout furniture

34. Example Booths 1.25m high booth (can have back and front panels) 1.5m high booth (can have back panel as shown) For more about booths, see this link

35. Layout Style and colour Furnishing options & costs Furniture Flooring Walls Electronics Where to get more help Contents

36. Flooring is an often overlooked but important contributor to an office’s look and feel. One colour wall-to-wall is plain and boring. Even adding a small amount of colour (e.g. replacing a walkway) can really make a huge difference while creating virtual walls. And walkways can be created amongst existing carpet tiles if they are acceptable. Carpet tiles or vinyl tiles are the most sustainable options – broadloom carpets and sheet vinyl waste around 30% when cutting to fit a room. Carpet tiles can also be switched out easily when damaged. The most sustainable flooring providers are: Interface - stainability pioneers since 1994 Greenstream Flooring - the UK’s leading carpet reclamation and recycling company which is a social enterprise training long term unemployed with disabilities Flooring

37. Example 1

38. Example 2

39. Example 3

40. Example 4

41. Example 5 Combining Luxury Vinyl Tile (5mm thick) and normal carpet tiles (also 5mm thick) gives a different look and feel to a space

42. Layout Style and colour Furnishing options & costs Furniture Flooring Walls Electronics Where to get more help Contents

43. You can maximise the use of space by using walls (virtual and real) to separate zones Installing fixed partition walls is expensive, blocks natural light and must be removed at the end of the tenancy (usually sent to landfill) There is a range of alternatives: Virtual walls – different flooring creates zones and privacy Hanging walls Storage walls – including bookshelves Green walls – shelves with plants Walls - Virtual and Real

44. Virtual wall examples Different colours and patterns show the extent of zones, providing privacy

45. Examples of hanging walls

46. Storage Wall Examples

47. Bookshelves can create informal but secluded breakout spaces with a quiet library feel for thinking or reading The bookcases can be made from old desktops with any colour of edge banding (see Recovery Bookcases) They also are great for showing off awards and publications Bookshelf breakout spaces

48. Plants work well on top of storage walls

49. Potential wall treatments to consider: Vinyl graphics Paint. Consider recycled paint from companies like Paint 360. In the UK, we send an estimated 55 million litres of paint to landfill or incineration; paint recyclers can help you brighten up walls with a much reduced carbon footprint Street art can be commissioned to your specifications (see some inspiring examples) Feature walls White board paint Wall treatments

50. Optimising the correct amount of paint for a particular wall is important for environmental and budgetary reasons. For a standard wall of 2.5m (H) x 5.5m (W) with no windows or doors you should allow: • 1 Coat: 1.38 Litres of paint • 2 Coats: 2.75 Litres of paint • 3 Coats: 4.13 Litres of paint Paint quantities