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Movable Walls Make the Grade
By Beth Leibson
Movable walls are moving into the corporate environment, penetrating the market and helping companies save on initial and long-term facilities walls.
“We used Haworth’s movable walls for the private offices in our new corporate headquarters,” says Eric Floyd, Vice President at Kansas City, Missouri-based construction company JE Dunn. “We chose them for their flexibility, design features, quality and competitive price.”
“We designed the entire building with flexibility in mind,” Floyd explains. The six-story, 205,000 sq.ft. structure accommodates private offices as well as open floor plans. Throughout the facility, JE Dunn opted for underfloor HVAC and lighting that could easily adapt to the churn and technological change that is common in the construction industry.
“Also, the design and look was appealing to us,” says Floyd.
For open offices, too
Movable walls aren’t just for private offices. “Our old building was 90% open office,” says Ken Brandsen, Sr., Senior Project Manager, Haworth and formerly Manager, Facilities Design and Management for the furniture company. “Our new facility is 60% open offices and 40% collaborative spaces, both formal and informal.”
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A conference room and a workstation benefit from both privacy and transparency with the elegance and functionality of AddWall movable walls from Inscape.
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To maximize flexibility, Haworth opted for movable walls. “This approach allows us to take a large space and divide it into two,” says Brandsen. “Or more.”
Tenants vs. landlords
According to Inscape’s Vice President of Marketing, Sharad Mathur, “Tenants look for the most beautiful walls. Since they tend to move every three to five years, they are more concerned about aesthetics than durability while landlords want a flexible and long-lasting product. “No landlord can lease a space with someone else’s walls,” says Kristin J. Moore at DIRTT Environmental Solutions.
“What this means with drywall is that the space must be gutted and rebuilt regularly. This is more expensive—for the landlord as well as the environment.” Using movable walls enables a landlord to easily personalize a space for a particular client. “For example, it can take as little as three hours to reconfigure a conference room,” says Mathur.
When you add in raised access flooring, which increases flexibility, you have “a very compelling financial story,” says Earl Geertgens, President of FreeAxez USA.
With a sound transmission class (STC) rating of up to 45, Haworth’s Enclose walls offer acoustic qualities comparable to many fixed-in-place walls.
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As a result, landlords tend to think more long-term about walls than do tenants, says Inscape’s Mathur. And movable walls work in just about any type of office environment. “I’ve seen them used in Class A space and in re-purposed industrial or derelict spaces,” says Bill Black, National Director of Strategic Business Solutions at Haworth.
Adding raised access floors
“Facilities managers gain exponential benefit when they leverage the collective benefits of movable walls and raised access flooring working together in a space,” says Black. “Raised flooring acts as plug-and-play flooring.”
Historically, raised access flooring was consigned to data centers, says Laura Stradler, Assistant Product Manager of Flooring and Technology, Haworth. “Nowadays, they are common all over, including in offices, libraries, and casinos.”
The advantage is enhanced indoor air quality (IAQ). “If you put drywall on top of a raised floor,” says Black, “you’ve just put a contaminant on top of good air flow.” The easy and relatively dust-free reconfigurations are particularly appropriate for environments such as healthcare where quality IAQ is critical.
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Raised flooring can also create perfectly level floors, which increase the flexibility of movable walls. By having perfectly level floors, Black points out, a facilities manager can use the same movable floors anywhere on a floor – or throughout an entire building. This flexibility could be potentially useful for landlords who regularly reconfigure spaces for new tenants.
In addition, raised flooring can incorporate HVAC, power, voice, and data access in a compact space – as opposed to putting all ductwork in the ceiling. By shaving the height of a building, says Black, raised flooring can have a significant impact on the construction bottom line. “Once you have a building that is ten, 11, or 12 stories,” he adds, “you almost get an extra floor for no additional cost.”
Some movable wall manufacturers, reports Geertgens of FreeAxez USA, suggest that an office that has movable walls but lacks raised access flooring “doesn’t have the complete system.” He points out that such facilities may be able to move offices easily, but are still “tethered to power poles” for power, voice, and data. Geertgens also says that in Europe and Asia, about 90% of offices use the combination of movable walls and raised access flooring.
“Since we chose to use raised access flooring,” says Floyd, “it made perfect sense to use movable walls as well.” JE Dunn chose raised access flooring for its localized temperature control and flexibility. “It would have made no sense to put permanent walls on top.” |
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Inform movable walls from Inscape allow for the creation of private work zones with doors connecting to the open work area.
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Acoustics play in
“People worry about acoustics with movable walls,” says Bill Griftner, National Business Development, Trainor Modular Walls. “In fact, movable walls are more susceptible to problems with acoustics because they have to be put up in pieces and taken down in pieces.”
The biggest challenges are ceilings and air conditioning, Griftner explains. If there is a gap left between the ceiling and the top of the wall, called a flanking path, there can be a problem with sound transmission. “Careful installation is very important,” says Griftner. “If movable walls are installed correctly, they have about the same sound transmission class (STC) as drywall.”
Talking dollars
JE Dunn chose Haworth’s movable walls for their flexibility, design features, quality and competitive price.
Geiger’s downtown Chicago showroom uses Trainor’s seamless glass walls with gypsum side wall returns.
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“Usually the biggest elephant in the room when it comes to movable walls is perceptions about cost premiums,” says Black.
“The truth is that construction and facilities management decisions are often high-risk decisions,” Black explains. “So if you’re very good at what you do and have lots of experience in it, you are apt to go with the process you know – drywall – rather than take on a new approach – movable walls.”
Movable walls, explains Black, aren’t properly comparable to drywall. Drywall really just divides a space in two, but movable walls, the executive explains, offer paint or paneling, doors, frames, hardware, and glazing. They can even provide power, voice, and data to workspaces.
Floyd begs to differ. It’s not possible to make a blanket comparison between movable walls and drywall on initial cost, he maintains. “Every project is different. You have to do a cost-benefit analysis that is site-specific, project-specific, and quantity-specific,” he explains.
“You have to look at where a project is being built, how large it is, and the furniture impacts,” adds Floyd.
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Furniture, for instance, played a large role in JE Dunn’s decision, says Floyd. “By hooking furniture onto the walls, we were able to save space and money on each office,” he explains. “And when you have 350 workstations, that adds up.” When JE Dunn did its cost-benefit analysis, the construction firm found movable walls to be cost competitive.”
And that is only the initial cost. “Everyone agrees,” says Floyd, “that if you move walls once or twice, they pay for themselves. Movable walls are much cheaper than building drywall, tearing it down, and building new drywall.”
Cost Comparison: Modular vs. Drywall
Turner Construction performed an independent study of part of Haworth’s new headquarters building, in Holland, Michigan, completed in 2008. Turner analyzed a small portion of the 300,000-sq-ft. building (approximately 8,000 sq.ft.) to determine whether the modular approach resulted in cost savings. Researchers did not include foundation, core and shell, and exterior walls as those costs would be the same for both types of construction. Ken Brandsen, Senior Product Manager for Walls at Haworth was then manager of facilities design and management, for Haworth.
Overall, modular construction came out ahead, at $87.57 a square foot, compared with $104.52 per square foot for conventional construction. And modular beat the clock too, taking an estimated 7.6 weeks as opposed to drywall’s 10.4 weeks. |
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