Post Pandemic / Covid 19 Office Interior Design Trends
As we’re coming back to the workplace, we’re seeing more and more trends coming up at FINCH As one of the leading office interior design companies in the region we like to keep our finger on the pulse.
In the last three to four months, we’ve received a lot of office interior design queries from an array of clients. When going through their interior design briefs it’s amazing to see the same terms coming up again and again.
So with that in mind, we thought we’d put together the top 5 most briefed elements for you. Without further ado here’s our top 5 post pandemic / Covid 19 office interior design trends of 2021.
A home away from home, but not to work from home
This is quite a surprising one, however it has come up a lot. With our large multinational clients and smaller boutique ones alike. A leading office interior design trenc in Dubai seems to be, “make it feel homely”. It seems we’ve been so used to working from home, that we enjoyed many of the elements and benefits it gave us. Now interior designers are being asked to take those benefits and to bring them into a corporate environment.
This translates to comfy breakout areas, more sofas, and rugs, bringing in carpet, adding comfier vibes. In affect losing the strict office layout and creating more relaxing environments. Our clients are identifying that we don’t want to be tied to a desk. We want to be able to flip open our laptops or iPads in different areas.
We’ve also missed the human connection during the pandemic. Whilst we want to be more socially distant in terms of proximity we’ve missed being socially engaged on a face-to-face basis. Hence the requirement to bring a more relaxed human element into our office interior design ideas board.
Which brings me to our next trend.
A greater focus on spacing within office interior design
Whilst social distancing remains the buzzwords of 2020 and 2021, it’s impact on office interior design cannot be denied. We are now more aware of our surrounding than ever before. We’ve had a year of wearing masks, and shuffling along the aisles of supermarkets. Standing on distance stickers and facing the walls of elevators has also been prevalent. It’s fair to say we’ve never been more aware of the space around us, or lack thereof.
With this in mind, office interior design and interior designers have to take note. This has seen our clients request more pods and spacing between desks and believe it or not, smaller but more meeting rooms rather than one large one. Desk pods like this beauty from Chelsea Green in the UAE are awesome. It allows individuals or couples to conduct meetings with distancing protocols in place, whilst also allowing people to get away from the desk. We’ve been using the Nook Pod from Chelsea Green and it’s transformed how we do business in smaller teams. We love it.
Desk spacing has long been overdue. Thankfully due to the pandemic, the 1980’s cubicle rat race era is formally dead. The idea of workers factories always made me cringe and now thankfully we have legit reason to say no to it. It’s amazing how many business owners in the past tried to stuff as many people in as little sq mts as possible. Just watch any of the old 80’s 90’s movies, Wall Street anyone?
Smaller meeting rooms means that small groups can now have meetings in a safe and spacious environment. They no longer need to clutter around a cubicle or desk. Instead we now have smaller meeting areas but more of them allowing teams to conduct meetings safely
Bring on the sanitization, lets keep the office interior clean
Y’all have probably used more sanitizer in the last year than you have in your whole life. And it seems our clients are taking notice. We’ve had things placed on a brief that perhaps were not thought of before. These include sanitizer units, hygiene friendly materials, easy to clean surfaces, assigning individual drawer’s, storages areas or lockers for each employee so as to avoid contamination. These areas are something that we’ve never really highlighted in the past, but now they’re front and center.
Biophilc Office Interior Design / Bringing the Outdoors In
Plants, nature, greenery, fresh air, diffusers and air purifiers, all important elements in briefs we’ve received. We’re all about clean air and circulating clean air. We’ve spent many months working from our gardens. Looking out of our windows or talking to our plants has been something we’re all guilty of during the WFH phase.
So it’s inevitable that we would now crave more of this in the office. If we didn’t live in the desert, there would be more demand for external office spaces. Unfortunately there’s climate issues here, but it is a big thing in Europe now. Perhaps architects could take notice of this in the future.
However, it’s awesome to see clients taking more notice of this and to see nature play such an important role in office interior design. As interior designers we’re now having to add this string to our bow and to research and study botany for our clients in the future. As without a doubt, it’s going to play a more important role in the future than ever before.
Zoom has changed the way we do business!
Zoom Rooms, is not a term I thought I’d ever hear. But it is a thing. We’re now being asked by our clients to create zoom rooms. Essentially they are just cool meeting rooms with video conferencing facilities. Nevertheless, they don’t need to be boring. Clients now want them to be dope, to have the best technology integration and to facilitate larger meetings. One client loves the idea of branded backgrounds they can change and another has asked for a cinema zoom room of sorts with beanbags. Zoom rooms, who would have thought it?
Whilst there are lots of other office interior design ideas for the post pandemic area as well as lots of other office interior designers in Dubai and UAE and abroad writing awesome articles, the items contained in this list are what we see that keep up from our clients. It would be interesting to see what your clients want too. Do they have any cool office interior design ideas for a post pandemic /Covid 19 world that we haven’t covered?
