Planning of an Office
In my earlier articles, we discussed how to incorporate various requirements that are essential in any office after which we discussed some important design factors to be considered in an Office Design. So lets group them as design considerations.
Apart from design considerations, the planning system is also of great importance which facilitates the easy and smooth functioning of an office. For successful office planning, grouping and interconnection will facilitate easy movement, save time in traffic and locating a thing and help reduce the excess staff.
Architects and Designers have established two major types of Office Systems over a period of time. The main bulk of planning for any office is the arrangement of work space for the medium level personnel.
Two major Office Systems
- Open Office System
- Closed Cabin System
In the former system, work space is arranged in open space while in the latter cabins, partly or fully closed, are employed.
Plan of Office Systems
The furniture and other arrangement of office system is based on two types of layouts:
- Gridiron, and
- Random
The random layout depends on the designer’s whim, but gridiron based layout is worked out on a frame.
Gridiron Plan Office System
The grid plan allows for two types of systems:
Open System and Closed System. In the open system, work spaces are arranged in a big hall while in the closed system, work spaces are arranged in cabins. The cabins can be either fully closed or partially closed, though partially closed is preferred by most as it combines the advantages of open system and fully closed cabin system.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Open Office System
This system allows openness, gives spaciousness, saves space and expenditure, is easy to render as mass-produced furniture can be used.
It connects all the arrangement visually and demarcates territorial right. The openness freedom promotes camaraderie and team work. It also discourages underhand dealings and other unwanted affairs. Absence of privacy, traffic nuisance and extra expenditure on acoustic control are the disadvantages.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Closed Cabin System
This system affords privacy which for some persons is essential for efficient and smart work. It also give status to the employees because in most offices cabins are meant for executives only. It gives incentive to individually minded employees as they are not under the physical supervision of ant one.
It is more expensive as it requires bigger space, extra expense on cabins, made to order furniture, cost of installation of ventilation, electric, acoustic systems with better workmanship. The privacy gained might lead to underhand dealings and unwanted affairs.
In our next article, we will discuss the “Importance of interior Design in an Office”.