How to Choose the Right Materials in your Office Design

A comprehensive office design involves much more than just an office layout plan. If you are looking to freshen up your workplace it is well worth considering a complete re-think of the interior design of your office, from floor coverings to partitions, furniture and ceilings. With so many different areas of the office design to cover, the choice of materials for each can become quite baffling. Here are some tips on choosing materials for your office design.

• Environmental Considerations: Choosing sustainable materials for your office design is a fantastic way to reduce your office's carbon footprint and promote more environmentally practices throughout your business. Timber sourced from sustainable forests can be used in attractive floor coverings. Recycled plastics are strong and work well in all sorts of office furniture and fittings. Additionally, your office or workstations design can be complemented by using organic non-volatile paint for walls and ceilings.
• Unusual Options: The use of unusual materials can give design an interesting twist. Instead of choosing conventional smooth wood, plastic or metallic surfaces, consider using materials with more tactile appeal, such as textiles, in your office design to mark your office out as individual. Some offices have been known to successfully use such unconventional materials as cardboard for furniture and partitioning. Using largely ignored materials such as cardboard can be an ingenious approach to save money in redesigning an office.
• Walls: Instead of just giving your office walls a fresh coat of paint, why not consider using blank walls as a canvas for expressing your company's character? A simple design can benefit greatly from creative wall surfaces, as they influence the mood of the whole room. New walls can be implemented in the office design, and can be made out of anything from wood panelling, to frosted glass, lightweight compressed wood board and portable metallic units with inbuilt storage spaces. For the existing walls, paint is an obvious option and is available in a multitude of colours, shades, finishes and textures. Designs with a reception feature wall painted in a striking colour or touchable finish will attract anyone's attention. Tiling, wall paper, wall decals, metal sheeting and wood panelling are other interesting choices for adding life to an office's walls.
• Combining Materials: With the multitude of useful materials available for your office and workstations design, it could be tempting to either take a very enthusiastic approach or try to use them all, or get overwhelmed and stick to the simple choices. It pays, however, to take a considered approach to using different materials in an office design. Too many clashing materials and the office become visually crowded and messy, too little and the office can seem dull. Often choosing one or two interesting materials to use throughout your office design can be very effective.