For the past few years, our team have looked at emerging office design trends and this year is no different so here are our predictions for office design trends in 2019.
See our related office trends reports for 2020 and 2021
If interested you can judge our predictions for office design trends to watch in 2018 by reading our article from last year, and if you are looking for an office design & build partner for your new office, you can get in touch by clicking here.
The modern workplace is unrecognisable from what it was a decade ago and as the pace of changes gathers momentum, many of the office design trends are centred around creating a positive workplace experience for clients and staff alike and which also acts to attract and retain talent. Our office design-obsessed team have another article that focuses on the history of office design if you want to learn more about the evolution of the office, but below we’ll focus on some key trends we believe will become prominent throughout 2019.
In 2018, we witnessed an increasingly innovative way of using previously dead spaces (the third space) in the workplace, or what our team coined as ‘the rise of the unconventional work space’ and many of the trends of 2019 build upon this and also trends of yesterday which have become embedded into the workplace of today.
Utilising dead space – the unconventional workspace.
So what can we expect in 2019 and what will be the preeminent office design trends to expect? Well, here’s what the K2 Space team think.
Defining the workplace experience
The world of office design has undoubtedly shifted from a traditional focus on functionality and maximising headcounts to becoming an increasingly staff centric exercise, with the workplace experience now a commonly used phrase within the design vernacular.
The notion of workplace experience stems from the desire to create a workplace where staff feel happy, can work productively and where they feel valued with the challenge for office designers is how to translate these aims into the physical aesthetic and flow. This experience is influenced by a wide range of factors from the quality of tea, coffee and snack on offer to the ability to store bikes and quality of showering facilities but increasingly, progressive companies are becoming more proactive when it comes to defining the workplace experience from the perspective of staff and clients.
The workplace experience is centred around how staff interact with the space. What this means for office designers is that there is now a great deal more time spent in defining the detail whilst also engaging with staff on a more frequent basis to define their needs and wants from the workplace, and as such the process of creating or improving any workplace become far more holistic. This can mean hereto now items/events considered unusual in the workplace like yoga studios, massage rooms, games areas and even spaces to play music are now been introduced as elements that can positively impact the overall workplace experience.
Our mantra at K2 Space is that great staff deserve great offices and in the same vein, many companies now firmly believe (and we agree) that by creating great offices and a workplace experience to match, they will attract and retain great staff who will prosper in that environment. You can read more about defining the workplace experience in our dedicated piece.
Embracing the old & iconic – where old meets new
This trend is not entirely new but has certainly gained more credence in recent times and we predict, this will continue during 2019. Much more than simply adding a nod to the past through the addition of old furniture, this trend focuses on working with older office buildings and spaces and injecting new life into them. From a design perspective, it means preserving the craftsmanship built into the existing architecture, and for example bringing once dilapidated steel, brick structures, and warehouses back to life.
