Corrections or additions?
These articles was published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on December 15,
1999. All rights reserved.
Room with a Cube: KSS Architects
The ubiquitous cubicle that dominates corporate
interiors
of the 1990s may never go out of style, but like all things, it is
evolving. As technology advances at a rapid clip, says Sheila
Nall,
an architect with KSS (Kehrt Shatken Sharon) Architects at 337
Witherspoon
Street, so too the modern cubicle is starting to look like a different
animal altogether. “Cubicles are becoming a lot more
interesting,”
she says, “with fun components like things that attach to the
screens, and work surfaces that clamp on and roll away.”
What’s hot in today’s corporate interiors: “dynamic
workspaces,”
says Nall, and environmentally-sound materials. What’s not: a standard
100-square-foot cubicle with loose, inflexible furniture, and knots
of wires everywhere.
A minimal impact on the environment is one of the first things that
architects consider, says Nall. “Impact on the environment is
probably going to be a real driving force in design decisions,”
she says. Tiles can be made from recycled light bulbs or rubber used
from old tires. In some environmentally “smart buildings,”
for example, the floors are made of an almost inexhaustible material:
bamboo. “They’re costly but the beautiful,” says Nall of these
new materials, but “as people make a commitment to use those
materials
and they make our clients more aware, the production will increase
and the prices will come down.” In the long run,
environmentally-conscious
planning can save money because “it takes less energy to heat,
ventilate and light.”
Nall discusses some ways of revamping your office space — for
form, functionality, and environmental consciousness — on
Thursday,
December 16, at 8 a.m. at The Princeton Council’s monthly meeting
at the Hyatt. Call 732-615-9096.
Nall moved to Princeton in 1998, after seven years at a large
architectural
and engineering firm in Atlanta. There she worked on space planning
and programming for the 750,000-square-foot corporate headquarters
of the Georgia Power Company. She has a BS in interior design from
the University of Cincinnati, Class of 1975. She lives with her
husband,
an architect and engineer for Flack and Kertz in Manhattan, in
Littlebrook,
where they just renovated a home.
She is currently doing space planning for Celebration, Disney’s
planned
community. Aldo Rossi, the famous Italian architect who recently
died, built two of the three buildings on the project.
The modern day office, says Nall, will have an austere workstation
with flexible walls that integrate technology. “With the advent
of flat screen computers as opposed to the big hulking terminals,”
she says, “furniture manufacturers are looking into building those
into the actual panels of the wall, so it’s no longer sitting on your
desk.”
When Nall started planning in the late 1970s, designers were just
beginning to pull people out of offices and out into open spaces.
That concept proved to be popular throughout the next two decades,
but the idea of “common space” is changing in today’s
workplace.
“We want open spaces that are not specifically work-related, but
provide employees opportunity to run across each other and
brainstorm,”
she says. “As people do telecommuting, there may be more need
for teleconferencing spaces — rooms where groups can get together
and have meetings and conferences.”
People who do different jobs thrive in different environments, says
Nall, and planners need to be sensitive to that. “Editors, for
example, need to work individually and focus on their work, so you’re
not going to want them out in the open,” she says, “but a
marketing group needs open areas where people can get together and
brainstorm.” High-tech, busy programmers need a flexible kind
of space because they need to be able to team up to solve problems,
and when focus is necessary, retreat behind walls. Furniture makers
are designing new workstations accordingly. “They have the panels
on wheels where you can roll it away and open it up,” says Nall,
“but if you want to have privacy you can pull the panel up. It’s
just really exciting. The furnishing manufacturers are the ones who
are studying trends in the way offices need to work or they get left
in the dust.”
Don’t have the time or money to be making esthetic decisions? You
may not think your office is a stage for important business
transactions,
but it is, says Nall. New hires do not sign on for the vacation or
benefits alone, but are drawn to the gestalt of the workplace.
“It’s
harder to get good people because work is plentiful,” she says,
“and everyone is battling to attract and retain young employees
who are knowledgeable in high-tech areas. In the 1980s, when everyone
was hurting so badly, the emphasis was on outsourcing, and reusing
furniture, and now it’s done a 180. You need to compete by offering
a great work environment.”
— Melinda Sherwood
Top Of PageFire-Rated Stairwells
If you work in a building more than 10 or 15 years old,
it was constructed under old fire codes. Those construction codes
have changed dramatically, says Walter Broner, a Hillier
engineer
who is president of a trade association, Construction Specifications
Institute. “In the 1980s codes were not very rigorous. People
recognized what had to be done and improvised.” New codes require
materials that are “fire-rated,” tested by Underwriters
Laboratories
to resist fire for a certain amount of time.
Such firestopping solutions will be the topic for engineers and
construction
professionals at the Construction Specifications Institute meeting
on Thursday, December 16, at 6:30 p.m. at Novotel. Jim Stahl
of Specified Technologies Inc. will speak. Cost: $25. Call
609-452-8888.
If you, as a prospective tenant, are taking office space in a
building,
check out the stairwells there. “Fire-rated construction”
is particularly important for stairwells, because they need to be
safe places to exit the building, says Broner. Only an older building
would have a utility closet opening onto a stairwell. And no stairwell
should have ducts in its ceiling. “The code limits what can go
in the stairwell,” says Broner. “Any penetration would defeat
the purpose of the wall. Everything but sprinklers should be kept
out. The more penetrations you make, the more likelihood that
something
is not properly protected.”
If, anywhere in the building, there is a hole for a pipe or conduit
or duct, there should be no space between the duct and the ceiling.
“It is quite likely that in existing buildings you will find
places
where adequate protections were not provided and the situation may
or may not have been rectified,” says Broner. “Typically codes
do not require owners to keep up their buildings to existing code.
Typically owners become aware of this when they plan a major
renovation.”
“The bigger danger is storing things in stairs where they are
not supposed to,” says Broner. “People find they are totally
tempted by areas underneath stairs.”
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