# Small Office Design: Board Room, MD Cabin and One Workstation Run

> Our design for a small single-floor office: one workstation run of 28 ft, a supervisor's desk, a 10 ft MD cabin and a 14 ft board room, with passages between 4 ft and 6 ft 5 in. When an office has only four rooms, each one has to carry more than its own function — and the board room carries the most.

## The brief

A small single-floor office for an investment business: one run of workstations, a
supervisor, a managing director's cabin and a board room. That is the whole brief — and it
is a harder design problem than a large floor, not an easier one.

On a large plate a mistake can be absorbed somewhere else. Here there is no somewhere
else. **Every room is on the only route through the office**, and nothing can be moved
later without moving a partition.

## The plan, dimensioned

| Room | Size on plan |
| --- | --- |
| Workstation run | 28 ft × 10 ft |
| Supervisor's desk | 8 ft × 6 ft |
| MD cabin | 10 ft × 8 ft 6 in |
| Board room | 14 ft 3 in × 10 ft |
| Main passage | 6 ft 5 in wide |
| Entry passage | 5 ft wide |
| Secondary passage | 4 ft wide |

The passages are the part worth copying. **A passage has to let someone walk past a seated
chair without asking the person in it to move** — below about 3 ft 6 in it stops doing
that, and in a small office there is no second route around. Giving the main passage 6 ft
5 in here costs desks, and is still the right trade.

The plan also marks low-height cabinets along the length of the bay and a TV niche in the
board room wall, which is how storage and equipment stay out of the furniture layout.

## Spend where the impression is made

In a small office a visitor sees three things: the entrance, one passage, and the room they
are taken into. So **the board room carries the money** and everything else is kept simple
and well made.

That shows up as three decisions in this design:

- **Ring pendants over the table.** A horizontal line of light at eye level does more for a
  room this size than any number of downlights.
- **Full-height panelling on three sides**, so the room reads as finished from every seat —
  not just from the head of the table.
- **An upholstered panel wall opposite the timber.** This is the acoustic move, and it is
  the one most often dropped: a board room with hard surfaces on every side is unusable on
  a video call, which is now most of what a board room does.

Related: [acoustic wall panel](/materials/acoustic-wall-panel) ·
[NRC rating](/glossary/nrc-rating) ·
[office lighting design](/services/interior-fit-out/office-lighting-design)

## The supervisor sits on the floor

There is one cabin in this office, and it is the MD's. The supervisor sits at the head of
the workstation run, facing it.

A cabin for one supervisor costs a partition, a door, a light fitting and about 48 sq ft —
space a small office cannot spare. It also removes the one person whose job is to see what
is happening on the floor. An 8 ft by 6 ft desk placed at the head of the bay does the
same job and gives the room an obvious front.

## Storage as wall finish

In a room of ten by eight and a half, furniture standing away from the walls is the enemy.
So the MD cabin takes **full-height storage** on one side and a **low credenza** along
another; the workstation bay takes **low-height cabinets** for its whole length.

Built in, storage becomes the wall finish. Bought later, it becomes a steel cupboard in the
corner of the room a visitor sees first.

Related: [workstations and office furniture](/services/interior-fit-out/workstations-and-office-furniture) ·
[laminate and veneer](/materials/laminate-and-veneer) ·
[false ceilings and partitions](/services/interior-fit-out/false-ceilings-and-partitions)

## Daylight down the bay

The desks run **perpendicular to the glazing** rather than facing it. Facing a window puts
the brightest thing in the room directly behind a screen, and the usual result is a blind
that stays permanently closed — the office then loses the daylight it paid rent for.

Turned side-on, the same glazing lights the full length of the bay, and the small meeting
table at the window end gets the best seat in the office.

## What to settle before construction drawings

- **Headcount at capacity, not today.** Adding two desks to a 28 ft run is easy; adding a
  fifth room is not.
- **What the board room is really for.** If it is mostly video calls, the acoustic and
  camera-facing wall matter more than the table.
- **Where the server and the printer live.** In a small office both end up in the passage
  unless they are drawn.
- **Storage volume in running feet**, agreed before joinery is priced.
- **Whether the office will be handed back.** A short lease favours demountable partitions
  over drywall.

Related: [Cat A vs Cat B fit-out](/glossary/cat-a-vs-cat-b-fit-out) ·
[demountable partitions](/glossary/demountable-partitions)

## Taking it to site

Small offices are usually built fastest and judged hardest. We design and build them under
one contract:
[office design and build](/services/office-design-build) ·
[turnkey office fit-out](/services/interior-fit-out/turnkey-office-fit-out) ·
[corporate offices](/industries/corporate-offices)

**Fitting out a small office?** Send the plate and the headcount.
[Talk to the design team](/contact).

## Frequently asked questions

### How do you design a small office well?

Decide which single room carries the impression, and spend there. In a small office a visitor sees the entrance, one passage and one meeting room — so the board room takes the panelling, the lighting and the acoustic treatment, while the workstation bay is kept simple and well lit. Spreading the same budget evenly across four rooms produces four adequate rooms and nothing anyone remembers.

### How wide should passages be in a small office?

Wide enough to pass a seated chair without asking someone to move. This plan uses 6 ft 5 in for the main passage, 5 ft at the entry and 4 ft for the secondary route. Below about 3 ft 6 in a passage stops working the moment a chair is pushed back, and in a small office there is no second route around.

### Should a supervisor sit in a cabin or on the floor?

On the floor, facing the bay, in an office this size. A cabin for one supervisor costs a partition, a door, a light and about 48 sq ft — space a small office cannot spare — and it removes the person whose job is to see what is happening. The desk here is 8 ft by 6 ft, positioned at the head of the run.

### What makes a board room feel expensive?

Three things, in order: the ceiling and its lighting, the wall treatment behind the screen, and acoustics. Ring pendants over the table give a horizontal line at eye level; full-height panelling on three sides means the room reads as finished from every seat; and an upholstered wall stops the hard-surfaced echo that makes a glazed board room unusable on a call.

### How much storage does a small office need?

More than the furniture layout usually shows, and it should be built into the walls. This design uses full-height storage in the MD cabin, a low credenza along one wall, and low-height cabinets running the length of the workstation bay — so storage becomes the wall finish rather than an afterthought in the corner.

### Can you design and build a small office?

Yes. Small offices are often the tighter design problem, because nothing can be moved later. Send the floor plate and headcount and we will plan it, dimension it and build it under one contract.

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Source: https://hagerstone.com/our-designs/small-office-design-board-room-md-cabin-workstations