From boutique bars to bijou offices; cool cafés to hot bistros and beyond, small commercial spaces call for smart design thinking.
The key to nailing a brilliant interior design for your business is to maximise every inch of that tight floorplan, employing some inventive thought and multipurpose ingenuity to create the feel of something much larger.
We picked the brains of our expert design team to uncover their big design ideas to transform your small commercial space - here are 5 of the best:
When all else fails, go up and/or across
Limited floorspace? Look to your walls and ceilings.
It’s amazing how much space you can gain by going high up, or fully across a wall - the trick is to restrain the depth of a piece to stop it from becoming too dominant.
Whether you go floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall or up and over, making good use of your vertical and horizontal space is a great way to maximise function in a limited area.
And while yes, this is a fantastic way of gaining more storage, with a little smart planning you can create something truly stunning.
The talented team here at DesignTonic designed and custom-built a full wall of media storage for IncSpaces (shown above) to deliver on three fronts - to provide wow-factor function with a presentation wall sure to impress clients, to add extra ambient and feature lighting to the boardroom and to incorporate storage space to hide unsightly or functional items away until needed.
DesignTonic X North Brewing Co
Alternatively, let’s turn to a bar setting and visit the original North Bar, where our team made the most of the floorplan to provide visitors to this much-loved Leeds institution with a wall of comfortable, luxe leather bench seating.
Teamed with the flexibility of circular tables and stackable chairs, the result is the ultimate cool, craft brew haven.
Brilliant Bespoke
When space is restricted, opting for bespoke furniture (like the media storage shown piece above) is the best way to ensure you’re making the most of every inch.
Allowing you to maximise tricky alcoves, high ceilings and awkward corners, the advantage of made-to-measure pieces is that they can use all the available space and cope with any idiosyncrasies.
And of course, choosing custom-built furniture doesn’t just mean that it fits your space perfectly - it also means you can design it to fit your requirements perfectly too.
From the function to the size; the colour to the shape, tailor-made pieces make a unique statement - not to mention the fact that, being hand-crafted, they are likely to be high-quality and sustainably built to last.
Our team are masters at creating bespoke pieces that bring commercial spaces to life - get in touch to see what we can create for you!
Smart Multifunction
There’s a lot of focus on multifunction in interior design right now, and with good reason! Just as our homes need to work harder for our modern lives, so too do our places of work and leisure.
Creating areas and choosing furniture with more than one function are crucial to a small commercial space that works hard for you.
Booth seating that you can move around? Tables that incorporate storage and seating, and can facilitate both collaborative meetings and individual work? Yes please.
Similarly, a small office may not have room to individually house collaborative areas and breakout zones, but there’s no reason why these relatively similar functions couldn’t be served in the same area with some imaginative tweaking.
DesignTonic X Pink Door Coffee Shop
Impactful Alcoves
In an office setting, difficult alcoves provide the perfect spot for some good-looking storage - but in a café or bar, they can serve as something altogether more contemporary.
Offering both dine-in and take-out options, our design for Pink Door Coffee Shop in Harrogate uses booth seating to comfortably seat the maximum of bums - but to maintain a good flow through the space, we needed to apply some creative nous to one jutting wall.
Discover more about this stunning coffee shop design
The solution?
The perfect Instagram spot - a flower-bedecked swinging bench (with prominent branding, of course) provides the ideal place for customers to snap a selfie and spread the news about Pink Door while waiting for their morning latté.
Phone Booths
Our modern way of working calls for a variety of spaces - combining places to come together with places to enjoy some downtime; places to work with remote teams and/or clients with places to knuckle down and concentrate.
When it comes to these latter two requirements, the ideal solution is a space where you can literally shut yourself away from the normal hustle and bustle of a workplace - and where better to do that than in a phone booth?
Fitted with acoustic screening, vented for the perfect airflow and kitted out with plush, luxe interiors, these relative newcomers to the office commercial interiors scheme have fast become a favourite of both our team - and our clients.
With single and multi-user options available, these really are a brilliant way to provide the escape needed for real productivity - plus they can be moved around as you do, making them the ultimate in flexible office furniture.
