Walls with a Twist: Designing a Functional Conference Room in an Open Plan Office
Part of our design philosophy at Visnick & Caulfield is to think about how to give every foot of a space purpose. This is especially important when designing enclosed spaces, such as conference rooms. We also often strategize on how to broaden and maximize the use of natural light in a space. In order to do this we generally rely on glass.
Yet not every space we meet comes equipped with these features and thus requires careful planning and innovative design ideas to create a functional final result. This was the case in our project for the workplace of energy intelligence company PowerAdvocate.
Image © Visnick & Caulfield
One of our goals was to create a large exterior conference room that could be both visually and acoustically private, but still allow natural light to flood into the rest of the interior office space. We also wanted to give them plenty of wall space to brainstorm.
The conference room was designed to fit in a large corner column bay set against two perimeter window walls, an architectural feature that we love. However, the natural light was only permeating the conference area, as the original space was closed off to the rest of the office. A main dilemma we faced was how to open the room up without eliminating wall space for white boards and presentations.
Conference room walls twist to open up work space. Image © Visnick & Caulfield
Our solution was to design conference room walls with a twist: walls that when closed provided white-board space on the inside and beautiful mill work paneling on the outside, but when open would be visually interesting and work to broaden the space.
When the walls twist open, they allow access to the open-work room beyond. Image © Visnick & Caulfield
We then chose to flank these walls with floor to ceiling glass panels. In doing so, we were able to maintain a stream of natural light into the open-work area that resided beyond the conference room, even when the pivoting walls were closed.
We also placed a glass door within the right-hand glass panel to allow users to access in and out of the conference room when the walls were rotated shut.
Even when the walls are closed, users can enter through the glass door on the right. Image © Visnick & Caulfield
The result of this innovative design was a conference room that ended up being both functional and aesthetically pleasing. It brought light into the cavernous work room beyond, while still allowing for privacy when needed.
But what we love the most is how this design shows how you can find balance in an open office plan. By using glass and multi-functional wall panels, we were able to keep the space open, but still provide users with privacy when necessary. Overall, this conference room is a great example of an open workspace feature that is designed to function.
