EFFICIENT OFFICE BUILDINGS
Can Offices be designed to enhance employee productivity?
Productivity is understood to be measured in terms of the rate of output per unit of input. Efficient architecture is an important factor in the determination of productivity. Effective and efficient use of space means creating the right environment for learning, communication, and collaboration. In terms of architecture, productivity can be classified as Individual Productivity or Organizational Productivity.
Individual productivity
Architecture greatly impacts the personal productivity of the user. Visually appealing buildings offer a great overall sensorial experience enhancing the user experience along with the safety and thermal comfort. Architecture is a balance of art and science that together if planned well on the factors listed here, can greatly enhance the individual productivity of the user.
Organizational productivity
Space should be in sync with the organizational culture, requirements, hierarchy, and other organizational tenets. Building shelter activities are performed by groups of individuals that together perform as a team. The built and unbuilt aspects of an architecture should reflect the organizational culture for optimum efficiency. For example; in a factory, if the spaces are not allocated according to the process flow, the building can actually result in a lot of loss of productivity and vice-versa.
Organizations that are extremely hierarchical need to respect the same. Right from spatial allocation, space sizes to visual and sound privacy, creation of thresholds to the types of desking systems, all need to reflect the same. While, non-hierarchical organizations would in contrast have open plans with collaborative spaces, ample room for flexible use of space, visually connect and breaking of thresholds as a requirement.
Architecture as a visual identity
Your architecture office building is the most primary tactile and visual identity you can create as an expression of how you want your brand to be perceived. The space aesthetics, its functionality, the work environment, the materials used, the design language, the environment sensibility, and several other parameters interplay to express this.
Architecture as a communication channel
Whether interior or exterior, architecture is the communication channel for brand identity. Buildings and their campuses create scenarios in which the interaction between customers, the public, and employees take place. One of the roles of architecture itself has always been to transmit messages of diverse nature constituting a powerful element of informative and persuasive communication. The architect acts as a translator of culture and corporate image, making them tangible and turning them into physical space.
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