Despite the fact that office spaces may vary in terms of architecture, décor or founding ideologies, their interior design virtually always shares a few commonalities. These include workplace furniture staples such as desks and chairs, acoustically sound spaces and defined meeting and working areas.
However, one new element is rapidly joining the list of office ‘norms’ as its inclusion into these spaces has transitioned from strictly to aesthetic to a feature with actual tangible benefits: interior greenery.
Greenery can be as small as the common potted plant, or as large as an entire interior atrium, but in either case, greening up a workspace offsets carbon and improves the health of workers.
With that in mind, given its extreme focus on indoor greenery, the Ljubljana Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Slovenia must be home to some of the happiest, healthiest workers in the world.
Designed by Sadar + Viga Architects, the building’s interiors may at first seem almost reminiscent of a post apocalyptic movie. Smooth and polished walls and floors sweep through the office building, with an eye-catching concrete ribbon flowing through the building creating a stark contrast with the rich organic growth pouring over bannisters and dripping from the ceilings.
The copious greenery not only allows for interior air quality to be incredibly high, it hints at the building’s overall green nature. In order to cater to the growth of such a wide variety of plants, natural lighting is abundant throughout the building. However, in order to eliminate excessive solar gain, the building is cladded with energy efficient double-glazed shading lamellas.
Following the principles of biomimicry and patterned in form and function after a leaf pattern, the interiors have been designed to channel its habitants outside in a seamless fashion.
While this particular development is extreme in its approach to incorporating indoor greenery, it certainly reflects a growing trend in the industry. A green workplace represents a modern workplace, and this trend is only expected to increase in correlation with the positive results and productive environment created by adding a touch of green to our offices.
