The Practical Side of Meeting Room Design

Meeting rooms can be important when it comes to making the best use of your office space. They can be places where you brainstorm to come up with your best ideas, pitch to clients, interview people you may like to attract to your business, and, if you are a manager, they could end up being places you spend far more time in than at your desk on a busy working day!

Meeting Room Design

It is no surprise then that most businesses take the design of their meeting rooms seriously – ensuring the décor gives the right impression, fits with their brand identity, and is likely to impress external visitors. However, what can be just as important is the practical side of meeting room design – after all, if you want people to do good business in these rooms you need them to be comfortable and functional. This may be a less glamorous topic than the right type of art to hang on the walls or the most stylish leather seats, but it can make all the difference. Here are some areas to consider when designing your meeting spaces:

Lighting, Heating and Cooling the Room

You may require people to spend long periods of time in the meeting room, for example in intense meetings or when it is used for training. Meeting rooms are usually fairly small for the number of people that are often using them, compared with open plan office space, so they can easily get stuffy if they are not well ventilated and adequately air conditioned in warm weather. Equally, nobody thinks well when they are too cold, so you'll need good, easily adjustable heating. You can see some really nice looking upright radiators by Warmrooms.co.uk here, which may suit your meeting room décor perfectly.
Lighting is also worth thinking about. It needs to be highly adjustable, so you can dim it for presentations or videos, keep it bright for lively sessions, and have it at a more relaxing, ambient level for things like team building sessions.

Flexible Use of Space

You want to be able to have as many different layouts as possible given the space you have, so you can easily use the room for round table meetings, one on one interviews, and also classroom style presentations or training sessions. This means you need to think carefully about your tables and chairs options, but also about where you put things like a smart whiteboard, video conferencing gear, and electrical points. Being able to quickly transform the room from one layout to another while still making it easy for people to set up their laptops and other presenting equipment will save you a lot of productive time in the long run.
If you are designing a meeting room for your new office, or renovating an existing one, then make sure you prioritise things like comfort and flexibility. A great looking room will not do you much good if it is always too hot or there is nowhere to present things!