How to Design Your Office for the Next 50 Years
Longevity at its finest.
Designing for the ever-changing needs of each new generation can be overwhelming, but the office environment has an undeniable impact on employees’ productivity. As a result, building out space to foster new ideas and boost morale should be at the top of employers’ priority list. How do you find the balance between designing for the new generations’ needs, while maintaining a high ROI and longevity of your office furniture?
As a designer, you shouldn’t have to sacrifice the longevity of a design to accommodate the endless generations of workers coming down the pipe. Design pieces should have longevity built in.
For years, Clarus™ customers have expressed a need to update drab cubicle walls for generations of workers to come, without replacing the entire furniture system – or add collaborative space in the middle of the office, update the conference room, and create long-lasting design. But how do you know a design won’t become outdated in 10, 20, 50 years? You choose specific design pieces that will last through the next 5 office renovations, pieces that will always be “in.”
Here are three tips to ensure your employees will love your design, even 50 years down the road:
- Choose an essential design piece, and invest BIG. The glassboard is a nearly perfect example of an essential, irreplaceable design, because it’ll never become obsolete. Just think, the use of texting, emailing, and instant messaging continues to grow – but what’s the first thing kids learn in school? To write. The written word is a fundamental communication tool that’s been around since the age of hieroglyphics, and glassboards make your existing wall space into a functional, purposeful writing surface that’ll never become obsolete.
- Pick a design piece with 20+ years of longevity. So though a writing surface is an essential design piece, why choose a glassboard? On average, white boards must be replaced every 4 years, because they stain, scratch, and ghost. When it comes to longevity – glass is the clear winner (no pun intended). Glass never stains or ghosts; its nonporous surface guarantees it’ll never soak up ink. And glass is tempered, so it won’t break. To ensure your design lasts a lifetime, pick design pieces with ridiculous longevity.
- Go simplistic with the design. When it comes to design, simplistic pieces can be used in any space – repurposed, rearranged, or paired with new colors and materials. Glassboards provide a crisp, clean look that will ease into any design you choose for the next 50 years. Glassboards can complement and elevate your brand with custom colors and high resolution prints.
So why is Clarus an expert when it comes to ROI and designing for long-term investments? Well, Clarus glassboards function as a simple, collaborative brainstorming tool that can be customized to accent your brand throughout the office.
Pin items to the board with a magnet, write on the wall with a sharpie, build out a personal calendar – and it will all come clean. Glassboards increase ROI without forcing you to completely renovate your office for each new wave of generational employees.
As you design your workspace to appeal to millennials, Generation Z, and the next century of employees, choose simplistic, essential design pieces with years of longevity built in.
To learn more about how glassboards add years of longevity to your workplace design, visit our products page.
