SPACE PLANNING

Because of the capital outlay, it is often tempting to re-organise and refurbish piecemeal. However to be an effective and efficient business, all the various elements of the office have to work together and need to be planned as an overall strategy

A point that is often forgotten is that it is normal everyday people that have to work in the office environment. Personnel need a secure and safe environment, with sufficient workspace, and the right type of equipment, be it a workstation or storage.

There is little sense in investing in floor to ceiling storage, if there is no safe way for the staff to reach the top two shelves! In the same way that the floor boxes for connecting the network to power, data and voice need to be carefully positioned to reduce the need for power extension blocks, and to avoid the connections being accidentally knocked by chair castors and feet, horrifyingly crashing the system.

There are no secret solutions for producing the most efficient and cost effective office environment. A complete understanding of your company's infrastructure, together with a defined goal of your future objectives, merged with thorough planning and expert professional advice from Grantly Commercial’s experienced project managers, will certainly produce clearer solutions to providing an efficient an effective working environment.

Once the new office space has been agreed, exact requirements can be compiled. At this stage 'as is' drawings should be detailed to give a visual impression of what already exists. This will also assist in actually planning individual moves.

---

Detailed drawings should include:

Building outline

 

Services such as power, data & voice

 

Heating, ventilation & air-conditioning systems

 

Personnel

 

Other information will also affect any successful layout and needs to be taken into consideration:

Inter-departmental working relationships

 

Storage requirements

 

Paper flow systems

 

Departmental noise levels

 

Building Control and Fire Officer