However coming back to work will look for your organisation, we’re on a mini-mission to stop
office interiors filling with generic plastic screening, shouty signage and sterile surfaces!
We’ve already talked about how crucial workplace wellbeing will be in post-COVID commercial
interior design, and how we see this as an opportunity to make sure our “new normal” is better
than before.
For employees looking forward to safely connecting and collaborating with colleagues after
months at home, walking back into an office that’s sanitised and screened off beyond recognition
would be a pretty jarring experience.
But we all know that measures are needed; not just for right now, but also to futureproof our
workspaces against new strains or outbreaks - or even another virus (please no!).
Thankfully, we’ve sourced some virus-safe ways to break up your office space which are versatile, functional AND look great.
Living Green Walls and Screening for natural health
The huge wellbeing benefits that plants offer to the workplace are reason enough to introduce
greenery into office design schemes - from improving staff’s mental health to reducing stress to
boosting productivity - but here we’re more concerned about how they can help in the context of
virus transmission.
Whether plants really make a major contribution to purifying air indoors is still up for debate,
despite that famous NASA study. But what they definitely do is to increase air humidity - and that
is one of the key factors in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
Researchers from TROPOS analysed the 10 most relevant international studies on humidity and
the virus, and found that the airborne transmission of COVID was “strongly influenced by relative
humidity”.
Their recommendation of at least 40% humidity (and ideally between 40-60%) in public buildings
has been incorporated into both WELL Building Standard COVID response strategies and Fitwel’s
Viral Response model.
Because much of the water absorbed by plants is lost as 
water vapour, they can raise the humidity in a room by as
much as 15% - looking beautiful all the while.
It’s no secret that we love a bit of biophillic design (and we’ll
probably shoehorn it into every blog we put out!), so we’ll be
happily making much use of the super-flexible living screen
options from our good friends at PlantPlan:
• Moveable green walls and moss walls. Mounted on
castors, they look stunning and they’re so versatile!
• Cabinet top troughs for existing dividers - a really effortless
way to introduce planting into the office.
• Grouping floor-standing plants for a simple, all-natural and
eye-catching screen.
Design-Led Acoustic Screening for comfort and style
Another multi-benefit option is to introduce acoustic screening.
Office noise can intrude from a huge range of sources, from colleagues’ conversations to external
traffic, and is especially evident in today’s more open spaces.
Acoustic discomfort has been linked to all kinds of health issues, but we all know how noise can
disrupt and distract, knock concentration and productivity and just be generally hugely annoying.
From full floor-standing screens to protective desk partitions, we’re huge fans of Agile Acoustics’
innovative office acoustics range.
Our favourite products for pandemic-safe screening? We love the new AgileHex, a freestanding
design which is easy to move and offers a bespoke print option so each tile can feature your logo, brand colours or image.
Our clients are also making great use of the the new AgileWRAPAROUND, created in response to
the pandemic.
Created to provide a prettier and more functional alternative to plastic desk screening, the design- led WRAPAROUND is easy to position, dismantle and store, offers optimum sound absorption (unlike perspex and plastics, which bounce sound and create echo) and has an NHS-approved, 30 day anti-microbial surface that can be retreated as many times as you like.
Bring the Colour with Screen-Printed Dividers
Colour and imagery are such an important part of office interior design, and using screens to
inject a pop of vibrancy and creative distraction is another fantastic way of using your space
dividers to boost that all-important workplace wellbeing.
One of the key items in our design toolkit, we’ll be using custom-printed screens from our friends at leading contemporary office furniture company Elite Furniture to add that all-important, on-
brand touch to client’s offices.
Stunning paper softwalls for modular versatility
How beautiful are 
these freestanding
paper softblock
room dividers from
designers
Stephanie
Forsythe and Todd
MacAllen for
Canadian
company molo?
Lightweight and
thus easily
moveable, these
modular
honeycomb dividers are made from “strong sheets of fire retardant paper” that work as flexible
building blocks to create a huge range of spaces - from one single wall, long, curving partitions or even a whole environment.
Available in brown, blue and black, each unfolds from flat-pack to offer a curved or linear partition up to 4.5m long. Sections can be connected using magnetic end panels.
Best of all, brown and blue soft blocks are made from FSC sourced wood and all softblocks are
100% recyclable. A new sustainable favourite at DesignTonic!
We create amazing spaces for work, rest & play. If you’re looking for beautiful design
solutions to ease your organisation back into the office - or anything else related to
commercial interiors for that matter - drop us a line today.
