Blog

 

Office renovations are investments that bring your business a lot of dividends. Like any investment though, you have some tough decisions to make. A big one is what you will do with your business while the office renovations are ongoing. Will you have to shut things down until the renovations are completed?

 

It may come as a surprise that it is possible carry on business as usual during office renovations. Many contractors will do their best to accommodate their clients so that disruptions to day-to-day work are kept at a minimum. These are three creative solutions to help keep your business going while renovations are under way:

 

Business by day, renovation by night

The best case scenario is if you can keep your regular business hours and schedule renovation work when you’re closed. First, check with your contractor on how renovations can be carried out outside of your office business hours.

If it all works out, communicate clearly and regularly to employees on how the ongoing renovation will affect operations. Even when renovations are done after hours, there’s bound to be some changes they’ll have to get used to in the next little while.

 

Desk-hopping

Another option is asking your contractor if it’s possible to localize renovation work from one area to the next and shift employees around accordingly. No doubt, this requires lots of coordination between the contractor and your staff. Make sure your employees report any issues stemming from renovations only to you or someone assigned as the official point of contact. Everything will be a lot smoother if the contractor only has to deal with one person in charge throughout the whole project.

You’re asking a lot from your staff with this option so always kindly ask for your staff’s patience. It also helps to keep reminding everyone the positive reasons and end goals for the renovation.

 

Remote work

This is an excellent solution if your business doesn’t require a physical space for customers or client visits. There are a lot of web applications out there that allows businesses to easily manage remote employees, especially if most of your company documents are stored on the cloud anyway.

If you do have proprietary applications or documents hosted on company servers only, consider setting up virtual private networks (VPNs) for your staff to access company servers remotely.

 

Above all, keep calm and carry on!

 

Chaos doesn’t have to be the norm in medical offices. You can transform yours into an efficient one by first identifying where the bottlenecks are in its workflow. Do patients often have to wait for a long time before they get to see someone? Where is the holdup?

 

After you’ve pinpointed what the greatest causes for delays are, you can re-design your medical office accordingly:

 

Automation of information

One of the timeless and most efficient investments you can make is changing the way your office handles information. With the advent of so many cloud-based applications and databases, there’s no reason why patient records need to be processed via paper files. Encourage your patients to book their appointments online and fill out any forms you need before their appointments.

When they arrive, all the receptionist has to do is send the up-to-date patient record and appointment reason to the central electronic database queue of the day’s appointments. Nurses and medical practitioners will then have all the patient’s relevant information right on whichever workstation they happen to be at.

 

Waiting room comfort

A major cause of patient dissatisfaction is, naturally, having to wait in the first place. Even though it may not be possible to eliminate waiting times altogether, you can still make them as painless as possible. The key is to keep patients occupied. If they’re missing any forms or their records haven’t been updated in a while, give them a tablet to fill out electronically so your database gets updated right away with the current information.

Apart from that, the waiting room should be inviting with warm colours and finishes. Above all, put in comfortable furniture that matches your patients’ needs.

 

Double exam rooms

Instead of allotting one exam room for every doctor or medical practitioner, make sure they each have at least two exam rooms. That way, one patient can go through a pre-appointment checkup with a nurse in one room while the medical practitioner finishes up with the previous patient in the next room. This will decrease the amount of idle time for everyone, including the patients.

 

One-way loop

Think about the procedures needed as your patients go through a typical appointment in your office. Then, arrange the layout in a logical way that takes the patient on a single path that keeps moving forward until he or she loops back to the other side of the waiting room to check out with reception. No confused patients, no delays from miscommunications.

 

As you can see, the cure for medical office inefficiency really comes down to one concept: thorough and thoughtful design.

 

What defines modern design builds is the significant role that technology plays from concept to construction to innovative features. With increased technology though comes greater energy demands and that can add up to huge energy bills in the upkeep.

 

To save on energy costs and environmental impact in the long run, here are 3 sustainable technologies to consider for your energy needs:

 

Solar hot water tanks

The sun is the source of life for us and it has an immense amount of energy potential we’ve yet to tap into. Installing solar hot water tanks is one way to do so. Whether you use a flat-plate or an evacuated tube collector, you’re essentially taking advantage of hot sunlight on your roof to heat water for storage in your water tank at home. Some systems like evacuated tubes work efficiently even when the weather is overcast or freezing, which is great for Toronto’s climate.

 

Geothermal heating

Besides turning up to the sky for energy, we can also draw that from the ground. Geothermal heating is another sustainable technology like solar hot water tanks because no fuel has to be burned to create energy. Both vertical and horizontal closed-loop geothermal systems are really just transferring existing energy from outside your house to its interior or vice versa.

In the winter, geothermal heating brings natural underground heat into the house. During summers, the house is kept cool because the reverse happens where heat is taken out of the interior and into the ground. In short, it works like a giant refrigerator in both directions of heat transfer.

 

Green roofs

Although green roofs aren’t a technology per se, they’re an ingenious olden-day sustainable concept that’s been refurbished with modern techniques. Nowadays, durable waterproof membranes are laid down over roofs before putting in soil and vegetation. With this setup, green roofs naturally help with thermal insulation so that houses stay cool in the summer. In addition, they help decrease storm water runoff while increasing the longevity of the underlying roof structures.

 

Of course, all these sustainable technologies would be useless if the energy produced is not used efficiently. For that, you need smart home technology that often not only optimizes electricity use, but also saves you time by automating day-to-day tasks. With all these elements in place, your house would be the perfect platform to launch into the future.

 

It’s natural you want your luxury custom home to be as unique as possible. But rather than making it look too random, here are some architectural inspirations to draw from:

 

Colonial Revival

Everything is symmetrical with colonial revival houses, down to the placement of windows. It’s a geometry-filled style where a central hallway leads to all the rooms on each floor. The house’s two to three storeys are usually clad in clapboard siding or brick on rare occasions and topped off by a steep roof.

 

Craftsman

Drawn from the Arts and Craft movement, the craftsman style displays a love for nature and solid workmanship through the use of wood and stone as construction materials. It features a wide porch covered with a roof that’s supported by sturdy square columns that often flare out to wider bases. You can also see exposed rafters and beams beneath the deep, gradually sloping gable roof.

 

Modern

The sky is the limit when it comes to the look of modern design builds. The only focus is on function and clean, minimalistic lines. Despite the expansive windows and odd shapes often found on modern-style homes, they’re designed with energy efficiency in mind. Modern homes also don’t shy away from experimenting with unique construction materials as long as they serve a purpose.

 

Neoclassical

Think back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Neoclassical design goes back to the roots of their architecture with massive columns done in Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian styles. The predominately smooth, white exterior surfaces make the carved details of decorative mouldings and cornices stand out with refined purity.

 

Ranch

If you have a large plot of land, a ranch house may be just the style for you. Rather than building up, all the rooms are sprawled out on ground level. This is the kind of house that will help you stay down-to-earth through its use of strong, natural materials with rugged finishes. The simple wide-open layout is usually enclosed by a generous porch and back deck as well as a low-pitched gable roof.

 

Tudor Revival

Want to bring back the medieval days of yore? With solid construction from brick, stone, and stucco fitted with decorative timbers, you’ll feel like the lord or lady of a manor house. Many architectural details like the chimneys and casement windows are tall and narrow. These details along with a steep roof pitch all give height to the impressiveness of a Tudor Revival house.

 

Victorian

While symmetry is paramount in Colonial Revival houses, the Victorian style is the complete opposite. Asymmetry is a noble attribute and eclectic is the name of the game. Victorian houses distinguish themselves with steeply pitched gable roofs broken up by turrets, patterned shingles, and decorative trim. The exteriors are always brightly painted in pastel shades of various colours and finished with lace-like woodwork.

 

Now your dream house can serve as a firm bridge between architectural traditions and personal tastes!

 

Getting customers to walk into your restaurant is already a great achievement. Now how do you get them to stay and enjoy the experience at your restaurant? It all comes down to comfort.

 

These are the key ingredients that will set your customers at ease:

 

HVAC comfort

You want your customers to feel warm when they come in from the winter cold or stay cool from the summer heat. For that, you need an efficient HVAC system.

Proper ventilation is also important to get rid of lingering smells and make room for the fresh meal preparation scents wafting out from the kitchen.

 

Noise level

There should always be some background noise in the restaurant, whether that’s in the form of music or amplifying the existing restaurant din.

You can approach acoustic design in several ways. The obvious one is hooking up a good speaker system around the whole dining area so you can directly control the background music. Another subtle way to control sound is through the choice of materials during your restaurant’s renovation. Wood and other hard materials will bounce sound around while softer materials like carpet and drapes will absorb sound.

 

Privacy options

Every customer is unique and the same goes for their preferred restaurant experience. Some like to be right in the middle of a restaurant’s hustle and bustle; others like to dine in privacy with ample personal space. So be sure to cater to these two different types of clientele. Besides arranging your tables in the dining area’s open space, put in some booths or dividers for privacy.

 

Adequate lighting

As a general rule, warm lighting is ideal in a restaurant. Don’t mistake that with low lighting though! You should use a mix of both functional and ambience lighting so that your dishes are presented in the best light and still stay true to the mood you want.

 

Ideal window treatments

Sun glare at high noon and during sunsets is always a challenge because it’s distracting to both customers and staff. Think about what the ideal window treatments are to reduce sun glare in your restaurant. Do you want to adjust as needed throughout the day or just twice a day? What window covering style fits with your restaurant’s décor?

 

Above all, remember that every design choice should contribute to a noticeable theme. That’s going to be what makes your restaurant dining area attractive and Instagrammable!