Maximizing Value with Interior Glass Door Solutions
Light It Up
As noted, solutions like glass dividers, enclosures, partitions, and doors blend well into daylighting designs. And while the benefits of daylighting are well known and documented, highlighting a few noted studies and expert insights can be useful.
Take a 2014 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Lighting Research Center (LRC) study of the impact of personal light exposures on sleep and mood. Here the researchers found that while artificial lighting was supporting work tasks at hand, employees still suffered from lower moods and less restful sleep in winter when the windows provided less natural light.
Additionally, other LRC studies have identified a direct correlation between daylit environments and occupant productivity and comfort, and that daylighting supports the mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate human circadian rhythms.
Another study done by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology found that employees working in naturally lit environments had higher levels of energy than those in artificially lit workplaces.
“According to several studies, access to natural light may be the most sought-after amenity for employees,” explains Dyer Brown’s Zeigler. “It is easy to see how this will affect the leasing of commercial office space as increased availability of daylight deeper into the floor plate drives up overall value to tenant firms.”
Naturally, daylighting—in addition to acoustics, ergonomics, and indoor air quality—factors into an increased focus on health and wellness in the way that buildings are being designed today.
With direction and guidance from initiatives like the International WELL Building Institute’s WELL Certification and the Center for Active Design’s Fitwel program, designers and building owners are paying more attention to how their buildings affect the physical and emotional states of their occupants.
Compounding the issue is another challenge affecting a noted percentage of workers: burnout syndrome. Officially identified by the World Health Organization as an occupational phenomenon in the international classification of diseases, burnout syndrome is described as feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion and a lack of vocational engagement. This, in turn, causes reduced productivity and a decreased feeling of accomplishment.
Because stress levels contribute to this issue, Eppstein Uhen Architects recently conducted a third-party survey of 500 workers across the country to gather data on employee satisfaction levels in relation to their work environment in addition to how they viewed their work-related stress levels.
Surprisingly, the survey found that 75 percent of respondents reported moderate to high work-related stress levels. And from this subset, 30 percent identified a lack of distraction-free spaces in their work environment as contributing to their stress.
In a recent Work Design Magazine article, “Move Over Stress: An Engaged Workplace is Set to Perform,” Eppstein Uhen Architects Workplace Strategy Leader Heather Turner Loth proposes that the three main factors that could help drive down stress levels in the workplace are safety and security, knowledge sharing, and well-being.
Addressing the latter issue, DMAC’s MacEwen relates, “Wellness comes in many forms. From the spaces we design to the materials we choose, it all has an impact on the bottom line. Wellness is about creating spaces we want to be in, that engage the senses and support our everyday lives in a sustainable way. That is our responsibility as designers.”
THE CO-WORKING PHENOMENON
Driven by a large and growing market of self-employed knowledge workers, digitally savvy professionals, and millennials’ preference to work on their own terms, the co-working market is booming.
With independent workers comprising 36 percent of the U.S. workforce, and 19,000 co-working spaces hosting 1.7 million “gig” workers worldwide in 2018, the co-working phenomenon has been characterized by Liz Elam, founder of the Global Coworking Unconference Conference, as the fourth industrial revolution.
Offering amenities such as gourmet coffee, snacks, a variety of seating and desking options, printing and WiFi, and perhaps even a wellness/nap room, these savvy architectural spaces are attracting members who do not want to be tethered to traditional office environments.
“Workers are choosing where and when to work, and with whom to work,” states John Arenas, CEO of the co-working franchise Serendipity Labs. “They want a work-life balance and to work in ways that they are most productive.”
Frosted glazing on this sliding door provides a transparent yet private workspace at Serendipity Labs in Alpharetta, Georgia.
Additionally, these folks are not interested in dealing with a long commute to a company headquarters, nor are they settled with the isolation of working from home on a regular basis. While “third places” such as cafes and public libraries do offer some diversity, they lack the corporate service and confidentiality standards of a proper workplace.
The upshot is that co-working spaces are successfully filling a major niche that has arisen in the global workforce.
Design Is Key
While one of the things attracting co-working clientele is the vibrancy and buzz of working alongside other knowledge workers, a successful co-working space must be equipped with private, quiet spaces for confidential meetings and individual focus work. To preserve the daylighting, vitality, and flow of the open area, flexible glass partitions are an ideal solution.
Enclosed glass areas essentially carve out individualized spaces when the mode of work at hand requires a higher level of concentration in a distraction-free environment.
The mix of private phone booths and enclosed conference areas alongside lobby-style seating with comfortable chairs, couches, and shared tables offers the variety and choices that this co-working generation is seeking.
“Of paramount importance is the freedom to be part of a wider group while also having a personal sense of privacy in a non-intrusive environment,” writes Dola Mohapatra, founder, WorkMatterz, in a blog post, “Why ‘Space’ is Important in a Coworking Space,” on Medium.com.
Offering some additional insights into how these co-workers are driving this new real estate marketplace, in a recent Work Design Magazine article titled “Supporting Coworkers’ Well-Being in the Gig Economy,” Caren Martin, Ph.D., CID, NCIDQ, FASID, FIDEC, associate professor emeritus of the College of Design at the University of Minnesota, explains that co-workers’ needs for support are greater than salaried corporate employees whose parameters and boundaries for work, leadership direction, process, and systems are prescribed. On the contrary, “the self-employed co-worker is ‘making it up as he/she goes.’ Certainly, the physical space needs and amenities are critical,” she says.
Furthermore, co-workers interest in health and wellness is producing more human-centered designs with ergonomic furniture, daylighting, and good indoor air quality and acoustics.
Glass door solutions play an important role here. They preserve an open floor plate, enabling the perimeter daylighting to flow through the space, and they mute the noise bouncing around the surrounding areas.
Also falling under the larger umbrella of health and wellness is that by housing growing percentages of workers, co-working offices are enabling corporations to occupy smaller footprints, thereby reducing building operations and energy needs. Space sharing is growing in leaps and bounds, 24/7.
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