Your employees spend up to 35% of their waking hours inside an office that is frequently envisioned as protecting the interior from the outer elements. This thinking has created towering buildings lined with fluorescent lights and white-walled cubicles. But perhaps we should think about the great outdoors as the great indoors.

Why Does Nature Belong in the Office?

Biophilia is the phenomenon that makes a walk outside refreshing and breathing stale air conditioning for eight hours mind-numbing. Researchers have found that employees in offices with “nature inspired elements” are more productive, more creative, and more healthy than their industrialized counterparts.

By reducing the “nature deficit” in your building through renovation, you open the door to employees that will consistently enjoy their job, leading to a more prosperous workplace.

The changes are as simple as a new color for the carpet, some indoor plants, or greater sunlight. However, many corporations are taking things a step further with amazing results.

How Could You Bring Nature Inside?

It’s hard to know where to start when approached with large scale information. Below you’ll find examples from some of the world’s most well-known corporations to help get the ball rolling and spark your own idea.

  • Google has made their building completely sunlit through the use of solar tubes and skylights.
  • Apple has a new building in Silicon Valley that only requires heating or A/C for 3 months of the year. They bring in outside air rather than recycling stale office drafts.
  • Facebook has a giant green rooftop garden you wouldn’t want to miss.
  • Amazon will complete their biosphere offices in 2018, complete with tree houses, swinging walkways, and plenty of flora.
  • Convene has designed landscaping terraces, interior plants, and water features into their meetings spaces and office facilities to help employees reconnect with the outside.

All of these designs have one thing in common: they’re working to blur the line between indoors and outdoors, creating a vision of a more connected and productive business. Your office could experience the same transformation, and it starts with a simple call. There are plenty of contractors qualified to build and renovate offices, but only Antham Construction goes beyond business renovation as experts in modern design trends.

Grow your employees’ creativity and productivity by contacting us for a comprehensive plan on reducing the nature deficit in your workplace.

Want to learn more? Read more in our natural office series:

 

Commercial office renovation