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How New Builds Are Influencing Offices To Rent In Manchester
2020 Design Trend Predictions
These trends have been around for a little while now, but Team Chameleon is expecting them to have a bigger impact from now on…
Wellness
We spend around a third of our lives in the office and, on average, about 90% of our lives indoors. It’s imperative to make the office environment into a stimulating place to be by understanding the impact of the psychology of our workspace and making decisions that will positively affect our wellbeing.
Milliken, one of our suppliers, has done a large amount of research on wellness and contributed to the ‘WELL’ building standard and Living Lab. To understand this further and make sure we were incorporating wellness into our projects, we took part in a RIBA certified CPD – a seminar all about how floor covering impacts health and well-being.
Office trends come and go, but the importance of your employees’ mental health is something that should be continuously prioritised in workplace design. In terms of your workspace design, employee wellness can be affected by colour choice and materials, furniture choice and placement, availability of agile working, privacy and zoning, and tea and coffee facilities.
Biophilia
A bit of a buzzword in the office design world in the last few years, and for a very good reason! Biophilia, or ‘an innate and genetically determined affinity of human beings with the natural world’, can have a significant impact on our mental health.
Biophilia links to the wellness and psychology of space, and there’s lots of research behind the theory that being around plants is good for us in lots of different ways. That includes this study by Interface, another one of our suppliers.
We’re a big fan of biophilia, and try to incorporate greenery and nature into a lot of our projects.
Colour of the Year
American colour expert Pantone has chosen Classic Blue as its colour of the year for 2020. The brand describes the colour as capable of “instilling calm, confidence, and connection” and highlighting “our desire for a dependable and stable foundation on which to build as we cross the threshold into a new era”.
For businesses expecting big things in 2020, Classic Blue might be the way to go if you’re looking for a reassuring presence.
A little privacy
Equipping employees with the right environment, one that empowers people to work efficiently and happily is essential to business success. We’ve seen plenty of businesses adopting a more open-plan work environment over the past few years and, while this is great for collaboration, its excess can be detrimental to efficiency.
To focus, some employees might need a little more privacy than others. In 2020, we may be seeing more break-out spaces, sound-proofed working pods, and partitions than in the past few years. With the growing improtant in privacy, see how we incorporate space planing into our office designs.
Eco-conscious
With the current global climate crisis, it’s important we not only consider our personal impact on the environment but also our impact as businesses and communities.
In the UK, the service and industry sectors are responsible for 30% of the UK’s energy consumption. Changes made by UK businesses can go a long way to improving sustainability and helping tackle climate change, while also creating opportunities for cost-saving and boosted employee wellbeing.
In 2020, lots of businesses will be required to reduce their impact on the planet, and the design of your workplace is a great place to start. Click here to read our blog on how to do it and get ahead of the trend.
