Light Matters
Special effects office space
Student Project
Objective: To design an office space that uses the hot-desking concept
Background Information:
Light matters is a special effects company that is relocating to a building in Herndon, VA with an excellent view of Dulles Airport. The company is looking to save money by decreasing their square footage. The idea is to use the concept of hot desking, which is an organization system in which multiple workers share a physical work space during different time periods.
There are multiple departments in the space, some of which need to be adjacent to each other as they work very closely with each other. The departments are as follows:
Operations
Business Development
Accounting
Legal
Office Management
Operations and Business Development are heavily intertwined with each other when it comes to doing projects.
Currently, the Accounting & Legal Departments are subleasing in another space for 2 more years. Therefore, their area in the building needs to be cordoned off, for tenant leasing, until said departments can move to the building.
Design Concept:
The idea for the design of this office goes back to the basics, Light. In order to successfully represent the company I studied the concept of light and colors.
Some of the concepts of light are Reflection, Refraction, and Scattering. Basically these explain how a beam of light will react when hitting certain surfaces.
Electromagnetism, Wavelengths, and Frequency are responsible for the colors that we see.
Electromagnetism is the vibration of waves that are composed of electric and magnetic fields.
The Wavelength is the measurement of the distance between the peak of each wave. The ranges we can see are from 400 - 700 nanometers, or Billionths of a meter.
The Frequency is the measurement of how many waves pass a point in a certain time interval. This is what makes up the colors we see. It is measured in waves per second, or hertz. The frequency of visible light, to us, ranges from 430 trillion (red) to 750 trillion (violet). White is when all of the wavelengths of visible light strike the eye at the same time, while Black is the absence of the wavelengths of the spectrum.
My idea was to represent each department as a different color. This would help discern the boundaries from each area.
Operations would be done in shades of reds
Business Development in shades of oranges
Accounting done in shades of green
Legal done in shades of yellows and gold
Office Management done in shades of blue
All of the multi-use spaces, such as reception and hallways done in dark blues, purples, whites, & blacks.
I also wanted to promote the use of as much natural light and environmentally friendly products as possible throughout the space, so every office and enclosed area has clerestory windows. And most of the materials are Terrazzo, Quartz, Low VOC paint, Bamboo flooring, and carpet that is made of recycled content and has low admitting adhesives.
Operations Department
The Operations department is made up of the CEO as well as all of the partners in the company. Since the CEO spends most of his time in the A/V library and film room, those spaces have been placed close to his office. The CEO also requires the best view in the building, so his office is located to where he can watch the planes at Dulles take off and land.
CEO's Office
Business Development
The Business Development department works very closely with the Operations department, therefore their offices and work spaces are adjacent to each other.
