
Benefits of an office refurbishment
A few pointers to think about when considering an office refurbishment.
On this page we answer some of the general queries we receive about office fit outs, including:
Find inspiration for your office refurbishment by looking at Dale Office Interiors’ previously completed projects including Go Outdoors, Visualsoft and Rare Creative. Alternatively, we share our expertise, tips and ideas in our articles Why Great Office Design Matters to Your Staff and Your Bottom Line and 5 Meeting Room Redesign Tips to Increase Creativity.
For more inspiration you can view Dale Office Interiors’ Pinterest boards which cover everything from furniture and finishes to partitioning and pods and booths.
Office redesign projects are bespoke to each individual client and space so it’s very difficult to provide a typical cost. Considerations include whether the project is a shell and core, category A or category B fit out and the quality of furniture, fixtures and finish.
These changes in cost occur due to the time, nature of the changes, materials used and the specialist involvement in the project.
You can download an example of a typical schedule of works for an office fit out here.
Although each project is unique, an office fit out will generally involve these stages:
1. Agreeing the scope of the project
2. Engage design and project teams
3. Feasibility studies
4. Design and project development
5. Clarifying of all compliance aspects
6. Pre-contract agreement and compliance
7. Project programming
8. Project delivery and management
9. Post occupancy and project evaluation
In many cases companies choose to work with an office interiors company that will take on the project management role for the entire fit out process. This will include liaising with other specialists such as furniture suppliers, lighting designers, and ceiling and partition companies, for example.
At Dale Office Interiors, we provide our clients with a schedule of the work involved in the fit out and a plan for how this work will affect your company day-to-day whilst the work is taking place.
Alterations to a building may require building regulations approval to ensure compliance. A competent workspace design and build company like Dale Office Interiors will advise on this aspect.
At Dale Office Interiors we take care of this aspect for clients and can gain building regulations approval on your behalf.
BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) refers to the assessment, rating and certification of how sustainable a building is, including office space. BREEAM guidelines advise on how to minimise the environmental damage caused by an office refurbishment or fit out. This could be improving the overall performance of a building in terms of saving energy and water or retaining and improving existing features rather than demolishing them.
You can learn more about BREEAM’s standards for refurbishing existing buildings on the BREEAM website.
Dale Office Interiors help clients ensure their projects meet BREEAM guidelines, so if you are refurbishing a space or planning a new build and are unsure of how to meet BREEAM standards, speak to the team on 0114 233 1115.
This will depend on the scope of an individual project but most projects will include some alterations to M&E (mechanical and electric) services. These services include air conditioning, lighting, heating and power in general. As part of the service from Dale Office Interiors, we ensure compliance in this regards by working with Part P qualified electricians to ensure electrical contractors are competent and qualified.
Your office interiors company will be able to design the finishing touches to your fit out for you. For example, Dale Office Interiors work with clients to design a finish that will help reflect your company’s brand, improve the wellbeing of staff, be comfortable and highly functional and be future-proof so it can grow with your business. Most importantly, our goal is to create a space that inspires your team to do the very best for your customers.
Commercial leases generally contain covenants that restrict what the tenant can do. If you’re a tenant wishing to carry out improvements to the office, your first port of call should be to check what the lease permits and prevents.
This of course depends on the size of the space. The best way to answer this question is to lay out the configuration of desks in the office, leaving a reasonable amount of space around each workstation or block of workstations.
As a guide, the government’s Health and Safety Executive states that the volume of the room, when empty, divided by the number of people normally working in it should be at least 11 cubic metres. But this is a minimum figure and may be insufficient if much of the room is taken up by furniture, fittings and equipment.
If you talk to us at Dale Office Interiors, we’ll be able to advise you on the best and safest configuration of desks, plus other furniture and equipment, for your space.
Put simply, because the people in it – and those who you currently or hope to do business with – matter. Here are a few of the most important reasons to consider:
This is a big decision, and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly or without sufficient guidance and support. Our designers at Dale work closely with clients to advise on design solutions that not only make efficient use of space but reflect your company’s brand and improve staff wellbeing. Here are a few starting points to consider incorporating in the design:
You can see more advice on how to boost company branding and culture with interior design here.
This is an important question, and there’s a lot of interesting research to be read about it. At Dale we decided to conduct our own research involving the people who matter: staff. We carried out a survey asking 500 members of the public what they thought would improve their productivity at work in relation to office design. Four of the most prominent answers were:
We can help you find the best and most cost-effective ways to achieve these goals – get in touch to find out what we can do for you.
A few pointers to think about when considering an office refurbishment.
Advice on the decision-making process, a typical fit out time frame and supporting staff through the process.
Read our comparison points to help you decide whether to relocate to a new premises or refit your current space.
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