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Beyond the standard practice of calculating ‘chargeable area vs. useable area’, it is essential to evaluate the placement of fixed structures in the facility to arrive at its net usable area.
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With ever-increasing spends on real estate by most of the corporates, it's no wonder that facility managers are bound to seek solutions to maximize efficiency within the same space and get more worth from the money invested. With modern infrastructure posing magnificent designs, there is more to study and understand about the efficiencies of these buildings than just said. Besides the basic calculations of carpet area and building efficiency, it is essential to review the spread of fixed features and ensure that it does not disturb the utilization of space.
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Before embarking on an acquisition, consider few important aspects to make your facility more functional, thereby, achieve more space within same chargeable area and same money.
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:: COLUMNS |
:: THE SHAPE FACTOR |
Although it is difficult to get large chunk of uninterrupted space without permanent walls or pillars constructed within but interference of too many pillars may affect the ceiling design, optimal furniture layout and effective space usage. Inconsistent sizes and column spacing usually creates inefficiency and unusable pockets of space, thereby, reducing maximum achievable densities. |
Buildings with unique exteriors and curved designs may not necessarily be space efficient. One should focus on more intelligent and regular building design so that internal space is utilized to maximum. Edges, corners, circular designs and dead-ends waste a lot of space; uniform and rectangular designs facilitate workstation layouts, circulation space and increase the space usability. |
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:: CEILING HEIGHT & WINDOW GLAZING |
:: FIRE ESCAPE |
Better ceiling height and the wall space around the perimeter of the office increases the storage provision without compromising on the floor area. Higher ceiling and bigger windows gives an illusion of bigger space; luminaries reduce the eye stress. Size of windows and distance between them need to be considered since too many windows reduce the storage space and wall units. |
Does the position of fire escape relate well to the natural locations of primary circulation routes? Emergency exit should not interfere with the furniture arrangement and reserved areas inside the office since adequate space needs to be kept vacant near emergency exits for quick evacuation. |
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:: NUMBER OF WET SHAFTS |
:: VAASTU COMPLIANT |
Appropriate number of shafts offer you the flexibility of creating toilets and pantries at desired place but too many shafts disturb the distribution of space for work stations and non common areas, on contrary, fewer shafts may not be sufficient to serve the people sitting in that facility. |
Vaastu orientates, places and dictates the proportions of every detail in building lines, toilets, staircase, ceiling height, entrances, windows, and so on. In absence of Vaastu compliance of the building, you may need to change the layout or leave the area vacant to avoid wrong placement. |
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By reducing redundant space through more efficient design, one virtually reduce Sunken Cost (taxes, operating expenses, capital investment, etc) which were non-negotiable earlier.
It is expected that once occupants become cautious about these points, well structured office facilities will change the efficiency percentage in a big way. The time to design more efficient space is while it is being built since most of the relevant factors are fixed and not much can be done about them later. |
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( This article is compiled by Pankaj Jain, Executive Director at Realistic Realtors.)  |
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