10 Office Design Trends 2022

Amid the pandemic, the world of office interior design is moving faster than ever before. Trends that were slowly catching on a few years ago are now accelerating, resulting in widespread changes to working styles and, in turn, workspace interior design schemes.

In this blog, we take a deep-dive look into the office design trends that are picking up pace in 2022. From office environments that cater to a reduced workforce to collaborative furniture solutions and a spritely new colour of the year from Pantone, there’s plenty to talk about this year!

Read on for some valuable insight and interior inspiration for your own project. Here are our top 10 trends …

Green Design Schemes

With more companies embracing sustainability, the trend for nature-themed office design has evidently been on the rise.

Indeed, those with green corporate social responsibility pledges have taken to introducing a workplace interior design schemes that reflect their values. The benefits of this are twofold: projecting a positive company image to clients and staff while creating a vibrant space that reconnects people with nature.

Popular nature-inspired features include moss feature walls, carpet tiles with textures and colours that reflect the great outdoors, and natural materials such as wooden slats. Combined with energy-saving elements, businesses can really make a positive impact on the environment while reflecting a green ethos through their workplace aesthetic.

Looking for eco-friendly design ideas? Take a look at our blog, “How Sustainable is Your Office Design?”

For 2022, Pantone has unveiled the elegant Very Peri as it’s Colour of the Year. This sees a return to a single colour following last year’s double selection of Illuminating and Ultimate Gray.

With its lively combination of blue and violet-red, Very Peri displays a carefree confidence that encourages personal inventiveness and imaginative expression. This makes the colour ideal for creative companies with a forward-thinking ethos, such as those working in tech, architecture or interior design.

For an interior design idea, consider introducing it to a creative collaboration area to help get the ideas flowing!

Bleacher Seating

Simply put, bleacher seats are the mark of a cool, modern office space. With their tiered, sports stadium-like design, they offer a fun, outside-the-box alternative to closed meeting rooms.

Those who operate with agile working are particularly fond of bleachers due to way they bring employees together for ad-hoc collaboration, but they aren’t exclusive to that kind of environment. Many companies use bleacher seating to bring teams together for presentations and announcements, while coworking companies use them for training and networking events.

Ultimately, bleachers can be a great way to foster a buzzing, team-centric atmosphere and, in turn, keep morale high amongst employees. What’s not to like?

To see how XMA London integrated bleacher seating into its space, take a look at the case study here.

Agile Spaces

If you’re unfamiliar with agile working, it’s where an employee isn’t given a fixed workstation but offered a range of work “zones” to suit the task at hand.

An alternative to the traditional office layout with banks of desks, agile workspaces are modern, practical, and fun! Typically, businesses that operate with agile working get creative with the design scheme, introducing everything from laptop lounges to acoustic booths and gaming areas.

In this post-COVID age, creating a space that offers more than the home environment can be a great way to attract and retain staff. Indeed, if you give employees a reason to come into the office beyond simply doing work at a fixed desk, then they’ll likely respond positively.

As the old saying goes, build it and they will come!

Take a look at Hudl’s office interior design for more agile work zone ideas.

A Hybrid Approach

The forced experiment of working from home during lockdown has seen some companies adopt a hybrid approach, where some employees split their time between the office and home.

This has resulted in some of those companies making changes to their office to accommodate the change. Here are some features of the hybrid office space:

• Zoom Booths – One obstacle of hybrid working is maintaining clear lines of communication between those in the office and those at home. These days, some businesses introduce “Zoom booths” where they can hold digital meetings on laptops. With their acoustic properties, they’re also great for private phone calls.
• Locker Systems – Typically, employees aren’t allocated a fixed workstation in hybrid offices. Rather, they’re given the freedom to hotdesk, meaning robust locker systems are essential. Whether digital or traditional, these allow employees to put their possessions away safely and securely while taking up desk space on a temporary basis.
• Sub-letting – If the landlord allows it, sub-letting is a great way to make use of space that’s been left vacant due to a reduced workforce. This may also require some intelligent space planning and furniture procurement to safely optimise the area for a new team.

Creative Brainstorming Areas

Collaboration is key to the success of every company, so it makes sense to create zones dedicated to creative brainstorming sessions. This can be a simple case of introducing a portable or suspended whiteboard alongside a selection of office furniture, but there are plenty of outside-the-box options available on the market.

For example, at the 2021 Workspace Design Show, Logovisual introduced its unique whiteboard system called ThinkingWall. Made specifically for visual thinking and planning, ThinkingWall is made from acoustic properties to help cancel noise, making ideal for ad-hoc collaboration sessions in open offices.

Some even combine two curved ThinkingWalls to create a closed-off space for private discussions. Talk about convenient!

For more trends and highlights from Workspace Design Show 2021, read our blog here.

Resimercial

Resimercial interior design has been around for some time now, but it’s more relevant than ever given the shift in working styles due to the pandemic.

A cross-pollination of “residential” and “commercial” design, resimercial aims to replicate the comfort of the home in the workplace. This means introducing homely elements such as soft seating areas with pillows and throws; living-room decorations like rugs, plants, coffee tables and photo frames; and warm wooden finishes on floors and walls.

Again, this comes round to creating an office “experience” for employees. With people working at home for so long, savvy companies are making workspaces as enticing as possible to attract and retain staff. You have to be careful with the trend though: make the design too nice and the employees won’t want to leave!

Inclusivity

In our recent blog on workplace wellbeing, we looked into how one London workspace is being transformed to support diversity. The design takes into account age, gender, technical literacy, physical and cognitive ability and culture.

The space will be fully accessible to support the needs of those with mobility, sensory, mental and neurological issues. It will also provide hundreds of “unassigned” workstations to fit different work and personality preferences and include a hub where the older generation can teach younger generations and vice versa.

This is perhaps more of a future prediction than a trend, but nonetheless gives a fascinating insight into how the office interior design world is evolving to meet the needs of a diverse workforce.

Coworking Developments

According to research by Coworking Insights, the number of coworking spaces worldwide is set to grow by 116% by 2024 and reach a projected 41,975 spaces. That will mean around 5 million people will be using coworking spaces worldwide.

With coworking going through a meteoric rise, it’s only right to include it on our list. But what about the coworking design trends themselves? Here are a few ideas:

• A Corporate Shift? – While coworking spaces are typically associated with freelancers and start-ups, a recent Q&A with Locate in Kent suggests that this isn’t necessarily the case. Indeed, with companies weighing up their future workplace requirements, some are using coworking spaces as interim solutions. This has seen some coworking operators provide private spaces for these teams in addition to single workstations for individuals and smaller groups.
• Technology – According to Coworking Mag, technology has taken over to the extent where coworking offices may no longer require a manager to oversee them. With new technology like access cards, booking systems and digital visitor management machines, it’s possible coworking offices will largely run by themselves.
• Niche Spaces – Niche coworking spaces target a certain sector, meaning the design will cater to a specific demographic. For example, that could mean tech-centric spaces for coders and developers, with state-of-the-art desktop computers, laptop stations and wall prints with inspirational quotes from the likes of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

For more coworking ideas, take a look at our blog: “How to Create an Enticing Coworking Space”.

Offices Geared for Wellbeing

Businesses will undoubtedly learn some valuable lessons from the pandemic, and this is likely to impact the future workplace design.

For example, in a recent blog, we looked at the elements that could improve employee wellbeing. These include medical-grade purifiers to improve indoor air quality, exercise enabling spaces with storage for bikes or on-site gyms, or an office set up that caters to flexible working.

For another great example, take a look at Google’s new London HQ, which is equipped with a basketball court and 25-metre swimming pool.

With buzzwords like inclusivity, wellbeing, agile working and resimercial, it looks like the overarching trend for 2022 is that business are putting employees first. Whether it be through creating a comfortable space that replicates the home environment, investing in elements that support physical and mental health, or encouraging skill sharing through interior design, there appears to be a shift in the way businesses are approaching their workplace transformations.

As far as employees are concerned, this can only be a good thing. For businesses, they will surely reap the rewards that come with building modern environments that foster happy, productive workforces.

If you’re thinking about making changes to your workspace interiors, then Rap Interiors can help. Our in-house team of interior designers can guide you on everything to space configuration to furniture and finishes, giving you everything you need to build the perfect space for your requirements.

To book a consultation to discuss your project, please fill in the form below and a member of our friendly team will be in touch.