Plan office furnishings - from an empty room to a dream office

What should be taken into account when choosing a location?

Depending on where your office is located, there will be different setup requirements. If you are planning an open-plan office with customer traffic, an attractive reception area should be taken into account, whereas for a home office a simple desk and office chair combination is sufficient. An office space can come in two forms:

Open space office 

An open space office is usually one huge room in which the individual areas are only separated by cupboards and room dividers. This open working atmosphere promotes communication among each other and can strengthen team culture and cohesion. Decision-making processes and hierarchical discrepancies can also be minimized. However, if you prefer a private and particularly quiet working environment, a One Space office is the better choice for you.

One Space Office

A One Space office is, as the name suggests, a separate office space for one or two people. The resulting privacy and low noise levels make concentrated work easier. This can be an advantage in jobs that involve a lot of work with numbers. In a One Space office, however, communication with each other only takes place in the canteen, the tea kitchen or in meetings. Depending on the company, this may well be sufficient.

In summary, when selecting a room, it can be said that the rooms must be able to be adapted to the company. In addition to work space and a break option, most companies also need meeting rooms and quiet areas. An additional lounge and creative area can also help your colleagues make the most of their abilities. When we think of a creative area, we imagine a space in which there is plenty of space for creative thinking, sketches and notes. These can be put on paper using whiteboards or posters. In addition to the note-taking options, individually combinable and movable tables and seating are an advantage so that you can sit together as a team. In a study from Switzerland with over 600 respondents, 66% of participants said that they would welcome separate rooms for concentrated work. 62% of the test subjects would like attractive common rooms or areas for spontaneous exchange with one another. Communication in a casual atmosphere has a decelerating effect and helps to approach problem-solving more objectively.

Interior – which office furniture do you integrate into your furnishing concept and how?

Now that you are well informed about where when planning your office furnishings, in the next step we will look at the what, i.e. the interior design of your workplace. To set up an office in your home office, you hardly need more than a desk and an office chair. We advise you to focus primarily on ergonomics in order to optimally support your physical and mental health while working. Also make sure that your desk has the option of height adjustment so that you can work ergonomically and with concentration both while sitting and standing. We also recommend a floor protection mat to protect your floor from damage caused by office chair wheels.

In a commercial office setting, a desk and office chair combination is not enough, but more on that later. First, let's look at the furnishings of the room. Office spaces are often carpeted. The floor covering has various advantages, most importantly it lowers the noise level and dampens noise. This can also prevent reverberation in a room. In addition to improving the room acoustics, a carpet creates a cozy atmosphere and loosens up the working environment.

We recommend that you choose a more robust floor covering for the kitchen and the break area, as well as for the reception, as more dirt accumulates in these rooms. PVC or vinyl, for example, are suitable here; these robust floor coverings also impress with their easy-care properties.

If you have a large open-space office, you can separate the individual workstations from each other using room dividers; these often also have noise-reducing properties. The area can also be divided into individual areas using office cabinets. Office cupboards also offer plenty of storage space for, among other things, folders, files or work utensils. The employee's area itself consists of office furniture similar to that of a home office. Here too, special emphasis should be placed on function and ergonomics so that you and your colleagues can work healthily and productively at all times. In order to be able to plan the office furnishings, you can also ask about the individual needs of the employees. While one person is completely satisfied with a simple desk-office chair-roller container combination on a floor protection mat, another may be able to work most effectively on a sitting ball or work stool. By including employee opinions, you can plan your office furnishings and at the same time strengthen employees' loyalty to the company. As already mentioned, the workplace should always be ergonomically designed. This can be easily achieved with an electrically height-adjustable desk and a high-quality, ergonomic office chair. By additionally incorporating plants and occasionally decorative items, the office will gain a feel-good atmosphere and your colleagues will also be happier.

Expert tip:

If you are in the middle of planning your office furnishings, consider including soundproof telephone boxes. These boxes are perfect for taking part in meetings or longer telephone conferences in an open space office. Thanks to their sound-insulating and noise-dampening properties, you have perfect room acoustics and are not disturbed during important conversations. Conversely, your colleagues' concentration during work is not made difficult by partial dialogues.

After the what comes the how. You will find out how to place the office furniture correctly in the following chapter. Depending on whether you are planning the office furnishings for a single room or an open-plan room, there are different tips to help you with the placement. In an open-space office, care should be taken to ensure that there is enough air between the individual workstations so that workers do not feel cramped or restricted in their activities. It is important for all rooms Desk at right angles to the window, as it is not conducive to work if the sun's rays limit the view of the screen or even blind the employee. The sun's rays hitting the screen also make it difficult to see and thus make the activity itself more difficult. Topics such as the optimal sitting height or the ideal desk height have already been discussed in detail in separate guide articles. Therefore, they will not be further formulated here. To give you an insight into what the interior design of an office can look like, we will now present a few examples to you.

	Like in this example image for the milieu Home office As can be seen, the desk is set up at a right angle so that the man can see everything on his laptop. If you take a closer look at the picture opposite, a height-adjustable desk with a T-frame is used here and a sitting ball is used as an office chair alternative. This encourages a correct sitting posture just like an ergonomic office chair.
	Here is one Open space office shown. Here we work in rows that leave enough room for movement. Here too, the desks are positioned correctly and have small partitions integrated to demarcate areas.
	The graphic below shows a One Space Office for one person. As in previous examples, the desk is correctly placed. Likewise is a ergonomic office chair available, which promotes a healthy sitting posture and supports productive work.
	Here is one creative meeting room shown. The whiteboard provides space for notes. The small conference table invites you to creative team meetings and promotes collective thinking.