This post first ran in 2018.
Commercial design is an essential part of your business’s marketing strategy. Your building’s architectural design is a hallmark of your brand. Send the wrong message, and you may lose clients or customers. Send the right one, and you can enhance your brand identity and recognition with your target audience.
Moreover, the design of your building can have significant effects on your productivity, comfort and safety.
Here are some key considerations I always bring to the table with commercial design clients to help them explore what will work best for their businesses.
Commercial Design Aesthetics
It seems obvious – your commercial design aesthetic should support and reinforce your brand identity. It should resonate with the customers and clients you hope to engage. But I’ve had clients who focus more on their personal likes and dislikes than on their potential customers’, or who want to emulate designs that they’ve seen that speak to them, even if they might not be the best fit for their business.
Do natural materials like wood and stone reflect the aspirations of your customers and clients? Or is your audience more attracted by modern, sleek designs that feature innovative new materials accented with bright colors, for example? A business catering to a clientele that seeks comfort above all else might consider designs that use lots of textiles and softer lines.
Differentiate Your Space
This is crucial for businesses whose buildings are in close proximity to other businesses. I’ve seen too many storefronts that blend in too much with their neighbors, making it easy to overlook them and losing potential foot-traffic business. Good commercial design strikes a balance between harmonizing with a building’s environment and standing out from the crowd.
A key element is ensuring your signage is clear. When talking with your architect, think about your signage early – where will it be placed on the building, and what kinds of materials will you use? The exterior design of your building can affect how you can use your signage.
Make it clear where the entrance to your space is. Glass storefronts are great for displaying work and products, but if your space is part of a block of glass storefronts, it can easily get lost. Recesses and unique elements like a different style door or facing materials can help differentiate your space from its neighbors.
Design with an Eye Toward Productivity
If your design helps define brand, it can also help define how you work, for better or worse. I strongly urge all my clients to think about how their structures will be used, and this is doubly important for commercial design. A poorly considered design can have an effect on your and your workers’ productivity.
Think about your business workflow. Will you be taking lots of deliveries? Consider the location of your delivery and staging area in relation to your office space. Do your workers or customers need lots of room to move around your space? Pay extra-careful attention to wall or partition placement and its effects on traffic flow. Put yourself in your customers’ and workers’ shoes and walk the space yourself before making decisions.
Comfort and Safety
A related issue is the comfort and safety of workers and customers/clients. Commercial design has to follow all local and national regulations for safety, of course, but there are additional things you and your architect can incorporate into a design that can increase comfort and safety for everyone who uses your space.
General Comfort and Health
Using building and design materials, like low-VOC materials, that reduce exposure to potentially harmful pollutants, can help keep your workers and customers healthy.
Design elements that maximize natural light can also increase a space’s health quotient. There is some evidence that suggests that natural light can increase worker productivity and job satisfaction, and possibly improve mood. That said, it’s also important to ensure your space doesn’t overheat or suffer from glare problems. A flexible solution, like solar tubes or solar shading, can help.
Ventilation
Adequate ventilation is also important. What is “adequate” for your space will depend on the kind of work you do there, of course – a restaurant or a beauty salon has special ventilation requirements, for example – but all businesses can benefit from commercial design that incorporates good ventilation. While having windows that open isn’t always possible (or desirable), there are other options for increasing airflow in a building. There are too many ventilation options to explain here, but they include a wide variety of systems, from simple vents to fully integrated mechanical and natural systems. Your architect can discuss the options with you.
Incorporate Plants
Making space for vegetation is another potential mood- and health-booster. Indoor plants may help improve air quality by removing pollutants, and, like natural lighting, may improve mood and productivity. Adding a few potted plants or a planter is one simple way to do it, but innovative commercial design plans can also incorporate areas for planting greenery as part of the design. (When planning for vegetation, be careful to consider allergens, and consult a landscape design or gardening expert before selecting plants.)
Accessible and Universal Design
Another concept related to comfort and safety is commercial design for accessibility and universality. While accessible design is intended to consider the needs of people with specific physical disabilities, universal design goes broader. Wikipedia defines it as “broad-spectrum ideas meant to produce buildings, products and environments that are inherently accessible to older people, people without disabilities, and people with disabilities.”
While some elements are required by law, there are additional design options that can make your space a safer and more welcoming and productive place for your workers and customers/clients.
Wide doorway clearances and automated doors are helpful not just for people who use wheelchairs, but for larger people or those who use other assistive devices, aides or service animals. Height-adjustable displays and workstations not only help with ergonomics, but also demonstrate your business’s commitment to user-friendliness and service. That also applies to keeping controls within a comfortable reach zone and using easy-to operate buttons rather than small toggles.
If your space is large, or if your customers/clients are likely to spend time waiting, design your space with adequate room for resting areas with ample seating.
Using materials with non-glare surfaces and contrasting colors at edges and area boundaries is helpful not only to those with visual impairment, but also to anyone who is tired or distracted – as we all are from time to time.
Disaster-Proof Your Space
As the recent firestorms have reminded us, we are increasingly vulnerable to natural disaster. While national and local building codes aim to protect us from some of nature’s more hazardous events, there are additional things you do to incorporate disaster planning into your commercial design.
Earthquake
In addition to following California’s exacting standards for seismic safety, business owners in earthquake country should think about ways to minimize safety and economic risks that can result from a big tremblor. When designing storage areas, keep in mind that storing heavy items overhead can pose a risk to anyone unfortunate enough to be below when a quake hits. Consider including low storage space for large or heavy items. Also think about incorporating furniture or design elements that can provide cover for your workers or customers in case of an earthquake. Large, solid tables or built-in counters with enough space for a person to hide under are quake-smart choices.
Fire
Fire is another significant risk, as we have recently and tragically been reminded. Fire-safe design includes elements like clear signage and paths to exit ways. If your business uses flammable materials, your building design should include safe storage options like safe rooms and safety cabinets. UC San Diego’s website has a useful primer on flammable liquid storage, but always discuss your needs with your architect as you begin the design process.
Even if your building is steel-structured, you might benefit from using intumescent paint or coatings, which swell when heated by fire to create a insulating barrier that can reduce the destructive speed of a fire, buying firefighting time and increasing the chance your building’s contents will survive.
Flood
Some businesses are located in high-flood-risk areas. In Marin, commercial areas of San Anselmo and Corte Madera, for example, are regularly inundated, and occasionally flood enough to cause damage to homes and businesses. Your architect can help you determine your area’s base flood elevation (BFE), which is the level flood water is predicted to reach during a “100-year flood.”
Your building’s lowest floor should be at or above the base flood elevation for its location. If any part of the building is likely to be below the BFE, you and your architect should consider implementing a watertight design and use flood-resistant materials.
If you do business in an area prone to flooding, even if your lowest floor is above BFE, your design should consider the need to store vulnerable materials – textiles, papers or anything else vulnerable to water damage – above ground, and/or in watertight containers.
Green Design
I believe that any new design should take advantage of green building materials and practices. Green design can include a wide array of options, including solar energy, recycled materials, sustainable concrete, and general energy-efficiency.
If you want to take your commercial design to the next level in environmental friendliness, talk to your architect about LEED certification. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a broadly recognized green building certification program developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.
With LEED, a building project that meets certain prerequisites can take extra steps, depending on the type of project, that earn points toward certification. These vary from simple (adding bicycle facilities, for example) to more complex energy-efficiency design elements and practices. A project can receive one of four levels of certification: certified, silver, gold or platinum.
A LEED certification can demonstrate your business’s commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility.
Commercial design is complex, and every business’s needs are different. Good communication and planning with your architect at the very beginning of your project can help you ensure that the space where you do business is safe, productive and an excellent representative of your brand.