An office interior that is healthy for body and mind

Brain, Mind and Body is an important trinity says Kit-Har McLaughlin of design and consulting firm McKellar Glasgow “these are the three levels at which all those involved should think and work together to achieve that healthy and smart and flexible office.” At the Scottish Society for Physical Therapy (SSPT) in Glasgow, McKellar brought this vision very convincingly in practice.

A Healthy Office Interior

How do we design a healthy office interior? For interior designer Kitt-Har McLaughlin it is very straightforward. According to the creative director of McKellar Glasgow, the modern office should be healthy & smart’. “For both brain, mind and body,” she says. ” ‘Brain ‘ stands for all the measurable and ttangible things. ‘Mind’ stands for everything that has to do with the unconscious, like the sensory experiences and the psychology of an environment. And ‘Body’ stands for everything that has to do with physical health.” That this approach can lead to beautiful concrete results, ha been proven by McLaughlin recently at the new offices of the Scottish Society for Physical Therapy (SSPT) in Glasgow.

The SSPT has seventy-five employees. The organisation wanted to create an open agile working environment for their employees, which above all should be healthy but above all flexible. McKellar advised them on the move and was responsible for the interior design. Office Furniture Glasgow provided the contract furniture. “In this new headquarters office in Glasgow there are many aspects of the vision ‘Brain, Mind and Body’ visible and noticeable,” said McLaughlin. “It’s not either/or, but both/and.”
“The SSPT-Office is proof that healthy and smart offices are feasible,” continues the McKellar designer. “So long as all parties involved, cooperate in realising it and are convinced that their different interests in this model are best guaranteed. Especially for the long term.”

The healthy and smart office

A healthy office has been created by Office Interior Design Glasgow through the application of sit-stand workplaces and an activity-related office with collaboration and meet & greet areas where employees will have to be much in motion regularly, to get there or to get a coffee for example. But also a lot of attention has been put into the acoustics, climate, sunlight, the right light color and the amount of artificial light with LED’s. Even though it is an open office, employees have the feeling to have a place of their own where they can work. Everyone has the choice to, depending on the task, an open or closed workplace. Communication as a starting point but also enabling, privacy and concentration when needed. 

Smart by the very effective usage of the amount of space. The 75 employees use now about half the space that they did before by utilising the flexible places. In the passtt, most had the situation in which one shared a room with fixed workstations, with a colleague. But also smart by the sophisticated office concept. The centrally placed Meet & Greet area is not only there to drink coffee and have informal consultations, the space is also used for agile working with touch down areas that allow the organization to capture grow and size down easily. Right next to the meet & greet area the general consultation rooms are located.

Sitting is the new smoking

Activity is a topical theme and of course gets a lot of attention at the SSPT. The entire length of the floor is therefore called ‘Activity Street’, realised where all kinds of novelties in the field of dynamic working  can be tested over a period of time.