Workspace Design – Illumination and Well-being in Workplaces

groupDCA strives to craft workplaces that reflect the brands ethos whilst fabricating an environment that promotes employee well-being, facilitates collaboration and spawns inspiration. With 70% of one’s day spent in the office, stressful environments are induced by boxy and commercialized infrastructure, undermining one’s health and social conditions. In the midst of planning and designing an office layout, tangential components of design – such as lighting schemes – are often overlooked.

A good illumination scheme is a crucial player in sustaining personal health, ultimately steering motivation and production. Lighting structures a vital part of visual ergonomics and perceptions, shaping workplace productivity. Natural light protects vision, boosts concentration and creates healthy working conditions. Poor and misplaced lighting can cause visual discomfort, fatigue and gloominess, taking a toll on employee efficiency. Combining effective daylight harvesting with efficient artificial lighting constructs an optimal illumination system. Natural light if supplemented with strategically placed and adequately numbered table lights, floor lamps and ceiling fixtures can uplift aesthetics and yield positive outcomes.

The layout of Primarc Office evolves along two opposite walls endowed with long windows,
optimally utilized for natural lighting

Primarc Office by groupDCA reinforces the same paradigm by fabricating the design around this principle. The layout of the office evolves along two opposite walls endowed with long windows, optimally utilized for natural lighting and vistas to various spaces such as reception, cafeteria and work-stations. The design of this office not only incorporates efficient lighting but also recognizes the challenge of an often disregarded phenomenon – over-lighting a space. The meeting rooms, conference rooms and private cubicles have been tactically shielded from excessive daylight that may disrupt visual presentations. The dynamic design of this office facilitates an effective assembly of natural and artificial lighting, brought together to suit the vibrant and dramatic tone of the office. Energy efficient LED lamps reduce heat emission, energy consumption and minimize the load on artificial lighting systems, aiding the sustainable approach embarked on by groupDCA.

The meeting rooms, conference rooms and private cubicles have been tactically shielded from excessive daylight that may disrupt visual presentations

Contemporary workspaces are about efficiency, mobility and flexibility. Ditching closed cabins to open plans, not only reduces the barriers that obstruct natural light from coming in but can also position strategically planned landscape and open areas amidst the built form. Materiality, arrangement and treatment of surfaces also influence the lighting level of a space. A bright, illuminated office, deployed with adequate lighting levels, strategically calculated and arranged, enhances the visual appeal of a space whilst augmenting optimal efficiency of the employees. Endeavoring to put together the right narrative to craft engaging experiences, the deliberate process of light selection and customization to create the perfect lighting ambience forms a crucial part of groupDCA’s design ethos.

Workspace Design: Reimagining communal balance in workplaces

The design ideology of groupDCA embraces flexible and interactive configurations of workspaces in an effort to keep pace with shifting office trends. In recent times, contemporary practices are keen on employing transparent and adaptable environments to promote constructive dialogue and collaboration amidst employees. 

Responsive designs crafted by groupDCA cite an insightful paradigm of the new language of workplace ethos. A balance between physical and social infrastructure in a workplace instills a sense of place whilst nurturing community building and teamwork. These multi-functional spaces can be a café, breakout zones, a quiet room or even a corridor as seen in the design of Nando’s Office by groupDCA. A Long linear corridor divided into various interactive zones accentuates the spatial drama of the space, whilst providing for an array of open, co-working and individual space. Designed as per a brief of creating a vibrant and vivacious space, the playful and informal design of the workplace breaks away from the monotony of a stereotypical office.

Sketch of Nando's Office: A long linear corridor divides the space into various interactive zones
and accentuates the spatial drama of the space

 

The relaxed environment of such arrangements reinforces work culture in an informal extent and instigatesproductive discussions. With a pragmatic approach of crafting an egalitarian workspace, groupDCA's designs foster creativity, collaboration, and conversation. With 48-50 hours a week, every employee spends an overwhelmingly large amount of their time in the office. This emphasizes the significance of treating social spaces as premeditated design standards than just an extension of spare areas. These ideologies, if deployed effectively, compose inclusive designs that tend to the well being and productivity of its employees.

- Amit Aurora and Rahul Bansal

Workspace Design: Eliminating Hierarchies and Establishing Engagement

groupDCA's design philosophy behind conceptualizing workspaces is driven by a focus on spatial setting and disregarding traditional notions of professional hierarchy, thereby encouraging democratic engagement within the workforce. The firm strongly believes in conceptualizing collaborative and flexible spaces that do away with physical metaphors of authoritarianism.

Office layouts, over time, have come to delineate the culture of the organization, thereby lacking communication, whilst hampering work productivity and well-being. groupDCA recognizes the need for more interpersonal relationships, an environment of free discourse and communication of ideas. In a world full of static workplaces, the firm focuses on crafting spaces that foster creativity, collaboration and conversation in addition to promoting good health and well-being of its users. Dissolving hierarchal segregations to accommodate socially and physically transparent infrastructure is an integral factor in the design of these spaces.

By acknowledging the significance of socio-democratic offices, groupDCA’s designs recognize and reflect the growing trend of flexible workspaces. Open plans, economically efficient and flexible, have been interpreted to be employed in their designs, in a bid to boost team-work and co-ordination. This concept has been embraced and innovated in the design of Enrich Office and Academy, Mumbai. The plan of the office has been conceptualized as an adaptable floor plate, free of private cabins and physical barriers. 

The fabrication of interactive spaces, such as the discussion booths in the open cafeteria, functions as a breathable extension to the reception, thereby fostering healthy communication and discussion. Workstations have been aligned with windows, allowing ample glare-free daylight into the spaces, unobstructed by walls, promoting employee well-being and productivity. The office design, as a result, reflects the brand’s guiding philosophy, which is predicated on establishing a collaborative work environment that supersedes conservative hierarchal structures.

groupDCA’s endeavor of crafting office spaces that reflect an egalitarian structure can be observed in their receptive designs that are inclusive of natural influences drawn from social and physical perspectives. These designs eliminate orthodox norms and steer towards adaptive workplaces that are characteristically flexible and agile to suit the ideologies of a new-age work force.

-Amit Aurora and Rahul Bansal