Commercial buildings are a staple of our cities and towns. These are buildings such as warehouses, office buildings, shopping malls, convenience stores, and other types of buildings that are mainly used for commercial purposes. They combine numerous functions, sometimes housing both offices and retail shops. They’re also typically subject to strict regulations by local authorities.

What Popular Trends do Commercial Buildings Follow?
Design Trends

There are plenty of new design trends dominating in the commercial buildings space. Some of these are actually spill overs from the residential space. The focus, for the most part, is on fun and energetic spaces combined with green building designs.

When it comes to the color palette, the idea is to make the building look fun and full of energy. You want your employees to come in feeling enthusiastic about the work-filled day ahead of them. The raining colors are warm, upbeat, and bright ones. These bold colors are contrasted with a fairly neutral background to make them even more vibrant.

When it comes to the spaces, we also see some trends that prevail in most modern commercial buildings. The spaces are much more open and encourage collaboration. There aren’t any cubicles anymore, and spaces have become flexible enough to allow for multiple purposes to be carried out.

The chief reason for this is that, with the advent of technology, work has become less restricted. You can do your work on nearly any device today, from your laptop to your mobile phone. Collaboration can easily be done using online tools. In the physical world, this gives a lot of flexibility to teams on where they meet and what activities they take part in. Organizations are also putting a lot of effort into maintaining the energy levels of their workforce. Consequently, a lot of recreational spaces are making their way into commercial building design.

Material Trends

One of the most important things here is the flooring. Past designs were characterized by flooring that seemed to seamlessly blend into the background, trying to be as unnoticeable as possible. Modern material choices for floors are moving away from this paradigm, focusing instead on brighter designs with geometrical patterns on them. The materials used most include luxury vinyl and carpet tiles. They certainly help to bring out the sense of energy and fun in the flooring, but they also happen to be extremely versatile and can easily be replaced.

Technology has also become part of our modern day office life. As a consequence, considerations are made for it throughout the design and building process. From tech hubs to charging stations, to dedicated media centers, there isn’t an aspect of the building that doesn’t incorporate modern technology in some way. With the growth in popularity of the internet of things, the role of technology is set to be become even more significant going forward.

There is also a push toward green design. The main aim in this case is to save energy and material costs in a way that is friendly to the environment of the building. The use of glass has become quite prominent because it allows in natural light and reduces the need for artificial light, saving some light bills. Better ventilation through the use of various materials also reduces the bills you have to pay on your air conditioning.