Create a space you love
Qdesign What’s on the agenda for office in 2018?
ATHERE’S never been a more exciting time to design office interiors, creating bespoke environments and supporting new expressions of workplace culture.
Offices in 2018 will still be created with flexibility and domestic design in mind, blurring the divide between home and work space. We’ve seen a noticeable shift away from traditional corporate spaces by using elements that mimic the ‘feel’ of more informal settings. Velvet, smoked glass, marble and copper all made their way into workplaces in 2017 and are still very much on trend, as is experimenting with fabrics, texture and colour.
The emergence of biophilic design has played a huge part in introducing green areas into offices, adding to the growing importance of health and wellbeing which became really topical last year. Employers can no longer only pay lip service to staff wellbeing, and this opens wonderful opportunities for transforming your physical space. We’ve already seen an upward trend in incorporating games rooms, yoga studios and retreats within the office – and let’s not forget how this helps attract and retain talent, an added bonus.
Technology is pushing forward the requirement for unconventional work spaces through providing staff with more choice of where and how to work. Being able to pick up and work anywhere in the office, as seamlessly as you would at your desk, is a huge advantage.
The challenge for designers now is to create space-efficient offices which include areas to relax, collaborate and focus – and everything in between! We need to focus on creating memorable user experiences so that employees fall in love with their offices again.