The Upside-Down Office

Here’s a new way to think about your office configuration: Most of the components that are traditionally stuffed into the ceiling space can be shifted under foot. Raised access floors, in which an open space between 4 and 18 inches is built into the floor plan, can turn the typical office space upside-down.

“The name itself says it all,” says Carey Brendalen, a principal with Architectural Alliance, a firm in Minneapolis. “It gives you access to all of your power, voice, data, cooling, and heating systems. It’s all right there, and it’s all accessible.”

But why would you want to move the stuff in the ceiling to the space under your feet? With the relocation comes greater accessibility, flexibility, and energy efficiency.

Raising the Floor

Raised access floors have been used since the 1960s and 1970s in such specialized environments as clean rooms and data centers, which needed the under-floor space, or plenum, to deliver conditioned air and accommodate the massive quantities of cable that are required in such rooms. Managing the cables in the floor enables the control of heat gain in data-center equipment, and gives users easier access to cords and cables when they need to make changes or repairs. In the past decade, raised floors have also become more and more popular commercially, especially in office spaces.

“People have been embracing the concept more in the last 10 years,” says Dale Holland, chief technical officer at Dunham Associates, Inc., a mechanical and electrical consulting engineering firm in Bloomington. “It started for cable management, but now one of the biggest driving forces is energy efficiency. We use it in a lot of office buildings now.”

On the surface, raised floors look and feel no different than solid floors. Panels, often made of concrete or concrete and steel, are supported at each corner by pedestals. The pedestals can vary in height, depending on how deep the access space needs to be. If the space is just being used for data cables and electricity, then between four and six inches may be enough. If it’s going to accommodate the air-supply system as well, up to 18 inches may be required.

The panels can be covered with carpet tiles or another floor covering or, if it fits the design of the space, left as they are. Each individual panel can be lifted to provide easy access to the systems located below. The floor-covering tiles, which are often staggered over the panels, can be lifted and replaced easily when necessary.

Floor-to-floor heights remain close to the same, which means that in most cases, total building height remains the same. “You’re basically reallocating the space from the ceiling to the floor,” says Leigh Rolfshus, senior project architect with Minneapolis-based architectural firm Hammel, Green & Abrahamson. “It’s about the same amount of space. But it’s much easier to do in the floor than in the ceiling [because it is much more accessible].”