The small spaces can give your Interior design team an A1 headache, but only briefly!
In Residential Interior design, undesignated and poorly configured small areas tend to be undefined, and therefore used without focus or efficiency. A small house may start out as cozy and adequate for just two adults, one child and perhaps a dog or cat; but as the numbers increase, or a home office becomes necessary, sufficient space to function well becomes a major issue.
Small Commercial Interior environments present layered challenges! Principals want their retail operation or professional services practice to grow, but as success evolves, insufficient space creates serious roadblocks and delays. Additional employees must be accommodated, and the need for expanded inventory raise big space concerns.
Make-do can carry the situation just so far – and no further! Assuming that, at this time, a move or construction for an addition to your existing building are not options, let’s take a look at some of the ways that small space environments can be improved through innovation, efficient space re-planning and creative space use.
There is a tendency to look at the square footage of an area as a single plane, upon which a fixed number of elements can be placed and used. That’s all that will fit, and that is that! Walls may help with some shelving or cabinets, but those give little relief to traffic patterns or where to place needed furniture or equipment for new circumstances.
Small houses usually have small rooms – the construction rationale being: it may be small, but there are plenty of rooms! At first, for a new family, that’s a charming advantage; later, not so. Fortunately, there are a few innovative directions available, and even some corrective demo! A wall removed can make one large from two small rooms.
Up is an under-used direction, so why not a conservative loft office with a narrow spiral stair?
What wasted space might there be, just outside the door? Enclosing and weatherizing an underused, small outer porch could be a small home office, cleverly outfitted – or a nursery or an extra bathroom?
Your Interior Designer will want to know about the specific activities of the family in order to consider modifications that meet frustrated or new needs of the residents.
Accommodating a growing small business that is outgrowing its commercial space presents a lot of questions. When staying where you are is a must for another few years, at least, then creative you must be! First take a look at your operations factors. Is there a process that you could outsource, such as your accounting process? Is there a storage basement or dedicated room with contents that could be efficiently – and conveniently – stored offsite? Just those two (or similar) functions could give you a breath of fresh air in a crowded operation, allowing a new space plan, reconfiguration of your foot traffic, and relief for crowded workspace. And don’t forget about looking up – nothing like a loft for executive perspective!
You know your small space limitations, and you know about the growth that must be addressed – in home or at work. In depth conferencing with your Interior design team at the front end is essential. The biggest enemy of small space use is trying too hard to just squeeze in and grin and bear it! It adversely affects everything from personnel attitude to frequent mistakes. It is difficult to present retail inventory invitingly and profitably – when customers must deal with overcrowding! And, at home, a crunched family can get moody in a New York minute!
Small space headaches can become simple solutions, hiding in plain sight – help is on the way!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
