Walk into an office building for the first time and it takes just a few seconds to form a first impression.
Although the importance of office lobbies often is underestimated, a properly designed reception and waiting area sends out a powerful message about a company’s identity, products and services.
Lobbies are effective branding tools, says Vicki Eickelberger, Managing Director at Big Red Rooster, part of JLL. “It is the first moment of the brand relationship,” she says. “It is that sense of arrival and expectation. You are setting expectations for future interaction.”
Practical and pleasing
A well-designed lobby welcomes visitors and guides them to the next stage of their journey, she explains. The use of décor, color schemes, furnishings, and ambient music should blend to communicate an immersive expression of the brand.
Photo montages, for example, establish a sense of time and place in the lobby of Boston’s 53 State Street office building. The images reflect the building’s place in Boston’s history. At Salesforce’s San Francisco headquarters, visitors are greeted by a 106-foot-long video screen wall. The wall engages guests by displaying a rotating range of images including gently cascading waterfalls and tropical rainforests.
Indeed, multi-media assets displaying appropriate content can provide a distraction for visitors waiting for their hosts to meet them. Equally industry or in-house magazines or leaflets can help to communicate more information about the company’s strengths and reinforce their image.
Yet everything, including security screening areas, should tie in with the overall design. “Security is crucial to ensuring workforce safety, but we need to make sure it is integrated into the design so it isn’t a glaring afterthought,” Eickelberger says.
Creating successful designs
While there are many approaches to designing lobbies, it’s about working with the space available to create something memorable without being overwhelming.