New Feature: Collections – Browse Offices by Room

Over the last couple years, I’ve been trying to think about how to take Office Snapshots from mere ‘blog‘ to ‘the best office design resource on the internet‘. I’m happy to announce a new feature that should help move me in the right direction.

Collections

Our office posts have always been archived by date, company name, location, business sector, all offices, and more recently by the designer, but these collections group the photos themselves by what they have in common.

The Collections homepage is here

Screen shot 2014-01-24 at 2.03.08 PM

And the first set of collections released in are grouped by the type of room or office setting they show:

Screen shot 2014-01-24 at 3.01.29 PM

Naming Conventions

One of the things I had to do was come up with appropriate names for the different areas found throughout the typical office. This might not seem like much of a task, but I found a few reasons that made it difficult:

    1. Geographic Differences – Designers from different countries name rooms differently, so I used more generic names that tried to encompass the basic idea of what was in the photo.
    2. Vague Photos – When looking at a photograph of a table and some chairs, it is impossible to know if it was intended to be for a cafeteria, break area, or meeting space.
    3. Multipurpose Spaces – Because many aspects of modern offices are used for multiple purposes, using a name that would adequately describe the space was important.

I opted to use a broad names that were more inclusive, which has the effect of some names being left out. One example would be inclusion of Boardrooms into the broad category of Meeting Room (large).

More Photos Coming Soon

The set of photos added to the Collections is not our entire database, but is instead aimed to show clear representations of each design element. What has been added goes back a couple years or so, with more coming soon.

What is a Breakout Space?

The largest collection of photos are of Breakout Spaces – these are basically informal areas that can be used for breaks and relaxing, but also for small informal meetings. Generally speaking, I added a photos to the Breakout Space collection when they had plush seating, couches and a coffee table.

Some tables and chairs of normal height could probably also be breakout spaces, but I sent them to be in the Open Meeting Space (small) collection instead.

Feedback

Please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. If there are any bugs or suggestions for future collections, I’d really like to heard about them.