Office floors

Designing office floors

Today we talk about the materialisation of workplaces, flexible spaces and offices that must provide the same living comfort as in the home. But how do we design modern offices? What visions, what spatial dynamics should characterise modern workspaces?

Certainly we need to rethink those aseptic spaces we are used to, which lack life, imagination and colour. We need to work both on spatial dynamics and on the materials used for finishes and furniture. And floors are an important element in this. 

Already now, and increasingly so in the future, people will be able to move from one office to another with their technological support, which will no longer be permanently fixed to the desk. The cables that required raised floors have disappeared, replaced by wi-fi connections. In short, habits, relationships and traditions are destined to change and, with them, the design of office areas and, as far as we are concerned, of their floors.  

Stoneware office floors

Porcelain stoneware flooring is one of the most widely used solutions for those who want to make or redo the floor of an office. There are advantages and disadvantages to using porcelain stoneware tiles, so let's try to understand the reasons why it is so popular in the office environment. 

• First of all, stoneware offers far greater resistance to abrasion than any other material. A good resistance to abrasion is essential to resist the continuous rubbing of a chair on the floor or to resist the presence of abrasive dust at ground level because the offices are those of a metalworking company. 
• Compared to other materials, stoneware also offers excellent resistance to scratching, which is useful for avoiding injuries on the floor in an office with direct access from a gravel courtyard, for example. Or with access from production departments with iron chippings embedded in shoes. 
• Stoneware is probably the cheapest solution (except for laminate) among those available.
• It certainly has the widest range of possibilities. If you want to create an office with a hardwearing floor that looks like real wood, you can do it with stoneware. And so can having office floors that look like marble, onyx or stone. Not to mention that today, thanks to thin stoneware, you can afford to lay slabs over 3 metres long. 
• If you want to add prestige to your offices you can choose polished stoneware, i.e. a tile polished to a mirror finish, which will enhance the decor and add elegance to the whole. 
• A stoneware tile can be cleaned with any detergent, even the most acidic, without the risk of ruining it. It is also non-absorbent and can always be cleaned if it becomes stained. 

The main disadvantages of a tiled office floor are

• the presence of joints, which are much more difficult to clean than with tiles, although there are now epoxy grouts that considerably improve the performance of the floor. 
• the presence of expansion joints (or rather splitting joints) that could "cut" the tiles in two at certain points. 

Wooden office floors

Wooden flooring might seem out of place in an environment such as an office, precisely because of the natural "softness" of this material which exposes it to scratches or abrasions. 
But today there are solutions that take this into account: factory-applied varnishes on pre-finished wooden floors that are much more resistant than they used to be. Or wooden floors that have already been "damaged" in origin, thanks to various treatments: biting, hand planing, antiquing, mothballing... all processes aimed at restoring a worn and frayed wooden floor, so that the new lesions are not visible. 

The choice of wood species is certainly very important: different types of wooden floors have different strengths and characteristics. We have put together a small guide to the right wood species to help you choose the most durable floor for your office. 

Office floors: traditional or raised? 

In addition to choosing the type of floor, i.e. stoneware rather than wood, marble or laminate, it is then a question of choosing the traditional technical solution (glued installation) or the modern techniques involving a raised floor (or floating).

For some years now, this technique has been the subject of interest for those who have to lay office floors because it allows us to create an inspectable cavity under the floor in which the pipes for the electrical and electronic systems will pass. The fact that this cavity can be easily inspected by lifting the raised floor tiles allows us to easily move the connections for the installations. Using a raised floor in an office therefore allows us to change the layout of the desks without major problems. 

In this case too, the advantages and disadvantages of this technique compared to a traditional glued floor must be evaluated. Clearly the cost of the raised floor is higher than that of the cheaper traditional floor.
But there are also other aspects which we discussed in the article on raised floors.

Laminate office flooring

Laminate flooring is the "latest thing" in office flooring. Laminate is a ready-to-lay material that is easy to lay and does not need to be glued but is laid floating on a mat. 
Laminate reproduces various materials, but above all it can imitate a wooden floor with absolute fidelity, thanks to the life-size digital photography of the surface, protected by a layer of transparent PVC. 
Laminate has some advantages and disadvantages, let's start with the former.

• it is certainly the cheapest material you can use for an office floor
• it's easy to lay, so it's also cheap to install
• it is also easy to remove, although not as easy to dispose of as it is a multilayer material that combines PVC with an aluminium foil, which cannot be separated. 

The disadvantages of laminate? 

• One unpleasant aspect is the dull noise it makes when you walk on it. Even with a sound-insulating mat, the situation does not change. The bad acoustic feeling makes the material seem cheap. 
• the bending that occurs when walking on it, due to the fact that it is laid floating, gives a "precarious floor" feeling.

Grey stoneware floors for these new, modern offices.

Click here to see the realisation:

flooring for offices in Piovene Rocchette

Office floors in Arzignano

In the next reference, an industry that produces generating sets in Arzignano, in the province of Vicenza, has chosen wooden office floors. On the first floor of the company, both in the executive office and in the meeting room, we have therefore laid beautiful floors made of national walnut wood planks. The beautiful grains and shading of the walnut parquet flooring lend elegance and refinement to the working environment, contributing to the company's prestige.

Walnut wood flooring for these elegant offices in Vicenza.

Click here to see the complete project: wood flooring in offices

Grey stoneware floors, lapped finish, for these offices in Trissino. A modern, shaded surface for a new look!

Click here to see the creation: floors for offices in Trissino