Week 12 Interior Building Systems

WEEKLY SUMMARY 

In this week's readings we went through the landscape of interior building systems in regards to their configuration and overall layout. This in depth look on space planning to regards of different components within the space and was extremely helpful and informative on how it pertains to us as interior designers in the field of affective design. 

When understanding the built environment of an interior space it is important to realize that everything that is to be used within the space must be taken into account for. That means things such as electrical wiring, monitors, technology and outlets must be thought out in their placement properly beforehand. The orientation of furniture  and desired usages of different areas must be known, as well as proper air flow and circulation within the entirety of the space whether it be open planned or walled off. All these aspects must be thoroughly investigated before a building is erected, and goes to show just how vital interior designers jobs really are. 

Electrical components need a sophisticated layout of outlet placements, either in the floors or the walls, wire routings for power and phone lines, and WiFi routing positions. Not only do these electrical components dictate overall layout, but also general alarm and security features need to be taken into account when routing pathways within the building's frame and interior.  

When regarding the flow of any particular space, stairs and pathways of egress are a vital component to interior building systems. All interior areas must have adequate lanes and pathways for occupants to safely exit a building in the event of a fire or other serious emergency. Along with safety concerns, vertical elements of passage play a huge factor in developing the formed pathways through the interior winding throughout the space. 

BENCHING SYSTEMS

Benching systems is the typical open plan workspace design generally utilized in most commercial office settings where a large quantity of employees have to share a single large area. Much like the traditional, well known cubicle design layout, the benching system consists of desks lined in rows sharing a common wall typically running the length of each section. The partitions between each deskspace are typically formed by panels, drawers, or shelving space acting as a divider between the two. This fashion of layout lessons the clutter of cubicle walls taking up more than the necessary amount of space to create work sections and areas to move around freely. Other advantages include increased airflow throughout the entirety of the office structure allowing affective and free flowing air transmission to circulate through the space, helping to decrease cases of SBS (Sick Building Syndrome), as we learned in last week's learning. The opening of the space with less partition panels as seen in cubicles, benching systems tend to have an inflow of more natural light brightening up the space as a whole, decreasing electricity costs in lighting in turn, and elevating overall health of the worker with access to sunlight. 

While health benefits of the working environment and movability space are important, there are many more aspects that benching systems help to improve in the workplace. When taking into account productivity in terms of space planning and desk orientation,benching systems tend to work better with collaboration between coworkers without complete isolation in a closed environment. And since the desks are easily configured into its original form without much physical manipulation, reorienting desks for temporary collaboration, meetings, and workshops are quickly done with more efficiency. 

As we have transitioned through the traumatic yet informative events of the 2020 covid-19 pandemic, things in the world of interior design, building construction and management haven been evolving. While the tightly compacted work environments of office spaces are a more efficient use of utilizing the given space, in regards to widespread and quickly spreading illnesses these such environments became difficult fields to navigate for social distancing. Because of this most or all work operations were transitioned to remote positions until the stay at home order was subsided. Since its passing, much of the conveniences of synchronized work schedules of revolving days of being in the office and working remotely will most likely be popularized. This would allow for the overall space to be less occupied at any given time while allowing for more convenient schedules for the employees. Along with this transition, many corporations are likely to reconfigure their office design to be sectioned off with more separate pods rather than continuous strips of linked desks to better mitigate spatial distance between other groups in cases of spreading illnesses.