Planning For The Right Office Furniture
A man is known by what he wears, and a man who runs a business is known by the way he furnishes his office. Office furniture, like clothing, is not just a thing of use. It can have beauty and soul. You may remember the office of Marlon Brando as the Godfather in the film of the same name. It is a dimly lit office in which he reclines on a weathered rust colored chair, stroking his cat, and speaking words that spell havoc to the disfavored. It is an office, which exudes power and which has literally grown out of the man. There are companies with more money than is good for them in a hurry to scale the ladders of status that invest fortunes buying famous paintings.
You may remember the office of the Mafioso played by Marlon Brando in Godfather with its dark lighting and the dark brown weathered chair, the seat of power from whence the orders for bump-offs originated. It is certainly the picture of an office that has grown around a man.
Functionality, beauty and comfort are the things one needs to keep in mind. Since furniture, next to the building itself, is a major expenditure, and one not easy to undo and alter, you really need to put on your thinking cap, and see it form every possible angle before you decide.
There are open offices and closed offices. An open office is designed to facilitate interaction between the employees whereas a closed one aims to have them bent over their work most of the time. We certainly do not want to imitate those dystopic organizations depicted in movies like The Apartment where armies of wage slaves are seated in a vast array of tables in rectangular formation.
This depends on your business philosophy as well as the nature of business. People are not islands and there is a golden mean to everything. The arrangement of the workstations will follow the flow of work and the kind of symbiosis aimed at.
Equally to be considered is the relative positioning of the workstations. Do you want people to talk to each other or do you want them like dummies glued to their papers or key-boards or whatever it is? It depends on your business philosophy as well as the nature of business but there is an optimum separation where people do not unnecessarily breath down the backs of each other nor are separated by light years.
Storage spaces are a particularly tricky matter, since every office has very specific and different needs, and it may be to your advantage to get it made to specifications.
As a last word of advice, avail professional guidance in your design and choice of office furniture. Professional expertise, coupled with your own clarity of will give your office the infrastructures it deserves.
