Designing A Harmonious Workspace
We spend a third of our day in our workspace - it’s somewhere we need to concentrate, create and cultivate our thoughts. A healthy working environment is fundamental to our mental and physical well-being and a positive space can promote productivity and contribute to a collaborative working atmosphere. Creating a harmonious working environment is not just about a well-designed space, it’s about combining materials, details and other integral elements to inspire us in our approach to our daily tasks.
Image: House of Grey Studio. Photography by Rory Gardiner.
The Space
The interior layout of any working space is the foundation for all productivity. At House of Grey, whether we’re designing a space for ourselves or for a client, our first consideration is to always identify the main points of natural light and the optimum layout for clean airflow, (with the addition of plants to help purify our surrounding air). These two seemingly basic elements should never be overlooked in their ability to put our senses in a relaxed state.
Intrinsic to all our workspace design are malleable spaces, areas which adapt and flow to the differing daily needs of various tasks. We create open-plan spaces for group collaborations and open dialogues, balanced with small spaces that allow individuals to retreat with their ideas. Underlining our ideology is our own House of Grey’s showroom, adjacent to the Studio’s workspace, which we designed and launched earlier this year. We thoughtfully designed the spaces to communicate between each other - double adjoining doors allow an abundance of daylight to circulate freely and minimal barriers mean that the spaces are bright and flexible while creating a feeling of equality between our team.
Image: Hans Verstuyft for Trizo21.
The Details
Cementing the tone of a tranquil workspace are the details. At House of Grey, we consciously choose design pieces that have a visual simplicity - by removing the visual clutter in our workspace we maximise the mental space we give to our projects. How we engage with our workspace is further impacted by the smaller details such as material choices. Materials such as cork and wool, natural sound absorbers, mean we immediately become more engaged in our projects. Combining these textiles with neutral colour palettes, alongside touches of green (a stress relieving colour) via foliage, can have a real impact on how we feel and mentally approach our day.
Image: Photography by Olivia Langner.
The Humanistic
Creating a human environment encourages communication and connection and time spent outside the office influences how we operate inside our workspace. At House of Grey we seek to develop a culture of collaboration through our valued time spent together outside of the studio. Over the course of the last year we have organised city retreats centred around Gong Baths and Yoga, nourishing our minds helps us to refocus our creativeness and draw inspiration from other practices.
Introduce little details to your workspace which will bring calm to your daily life.