Blog

QubiGlass: The Spatial Solution We’ve Been Waiting For!

Arming your office with invaluable safety solutions will be a crucial part of your business’s game plan heading into the upcoming winter months. Rather than focusing on decorations and outfitting the workplace with seasonal accouterment, your transition to winter may look a little bit different this year!

As a business owner, this pandemic has been rough for many reasons. While the Coronavirus loomed over us, we had to steer the ship in uncertain waters, lead our team forward with little preparation or training, and continue on amidst a global crisis with an undefined end in sight. It has been our responsibility to ensure that our employees are safe and healthy, COVID-free, and comfortable enough to return to a physical office environment. This has become one of our most daunting tasks as leaders, and even more so for those of us ill-equipped to separate our workers from one another swiftly. Many of us leading an entire workforce grappled with this issue and desperately sought spatial solutions to achieve the necessary safety barriers within the workplace. Without the time or budget to completely redesign our office spaces, most of us have felt somewhat powerless- until now.

With the introduction of QubiGlass by Space Plus, A Division of the Sliding Door Company, we’ve now been able to work with what we have in our current office environments and improve the safety and quality of the workday of all of our employees. These systems have become especially important now, as more and more workers return to shared office spaces and the start of flu season is upon us! These new systems are an integral facet for those of us running businesses.

In our modern era, most office spaces and conference rooms enjoy a vast open floor plan with little physical separation or view-blocking partitions. And until this transformative year, open floor plans were celebrated! However, with the current pandemic, it’s completely unthinkable to maintain large sweeping open spaces indoors in which the virus could easily travel from workspace to workspace. That’s why the best way at stopping an airborne viral spread indoors is to put up spatial dividers and limit contact between employees.

How It Works

QubiGlass systems work by wrapping around pre-existing cubicles or walls to upgrade them with a glass protective layer. This new QubiGlass design makes it seamless to work with what you have and enclose your existing spatial dividers in this glass system, with hardly any disruption to the office during installation! This innovative system is affordable, quick, and painless to integrate into office interiors, and can be installed in less than one day! Compared with other alternatives that require abrasive construction taking up weeks or months, QubiGlass Partitions allow you to get back to the normal workday as soon as possible.

The best part? These sturdy glass systems are extremely versatile. Not only do they work as an addition to wall partitions and cubicle walls, but they are also available in freestanding form, with an array of unique configurations available. Spatial dividers and glass office wall partitions should be able to work with your space, not against it, especially in these turbulent times!

Glass VS Plastic

Throughout this pandemic, there has been much debate over the difference between glass and other plastic glass forms such as Plexi or other synthetic acrylics. So, why is it important to use glass for cubicle surfaces rather than fabric material, plastic, or wood?

Glass is much more sanitary, easier to clean and disinfect, and is far more durable than all other materials used for cubicle lining. And while plexiglass and other acrylic alternatives are shatter-resistant, glass will stand the true test of time. Acrylic is very porous, and after months and years of cleaning with harsh chemicals to disinfect, the plastic surface area used in these acrylic glass replacements will begin to wear, yellow in color, and fog while glass will remain unscathed throughout the years. QubiGlass spatial systems are designed for durability and longevity.

Putting these tips into play, you can safeguard your staff, employees, and your customers against this fall flu season! For more ideas, inspiration, and related blogs, head over to Space Plus, a Division of The Sliding Door Company for all the best in commercial space-saving solutions! From Bi-Fold doors to swing doors, wall dividers to suspended systems, Space Plus has it all! Schedule a free consultation with one of our showroom professionals and order your very own custom QubiGlass partitions today!

Blog

The Real Importance of Interiors on Mental Health

This past year, in particular, has been a strenuous marathon in mental strength and shear resilience amongst the rapidly changing world around us. Beginning with the unprecedented fires in Australia, the lockdowns, protests, upcoming election and now with the environmental catastrophes across the United States, such as the hurricanes and wildfires we have all been exposed to quite a lot. Perhaps the most extreme emotional turmoil than any of us had experienced in our lives thus far. And now as we begin to reemerge from the confinement of our homes, we head back into group environments that were once places of joy, camaraderie, and integration to find a very changed landscape.

These days, it is second nature to look the other way when crossing someone on the street, if not to avoid crossing the street altogether. It’s normalized to pretend people around us don’t exist because we’re told to remove ourselves from potentially dangerous situations that could lead to the spread of the virus. While these social norms are in place to protect us, they can also be extremely damaging to our human psyche. Feeling mistrust towards all strangers, and in some cases, towards family and friends, has created a collective body of people who resolve to live and work in solitude. So how can we find solutions for reintegration without compromising our humanity in the process? Below we’ll examine some ways in which we can update our interior commercial spaces to protect us from COVID 19 while also regaining some of our human relationships.

The New Open Floor Plan

We’ve all seen them. We’ve probably all experienced them. The Open Floor Plan of the future looks a little different than what is typically imagined. The open plan of today is achieved by bringing the indoors outside. Most restaurants that were allowed to reopen have transitioned to outdoor seating, filling sidewalks and once busy streets with benches, leaving room for 6 feet of separation and plenty of arm room from patron to patron. Investing in pleasantries such as tall, leafy plants and string lights, these businesses have dressed up their establishments in attempts to normalize the very abnormal circumstances. This model, now also adopted by the business world, so far appears to be the safest medium in which to bring people together in a safe, socially distanced atmosphere. The open-air space provides a sense of security for customers and employees alike, eliminating the chance of stagnant, stuffy air that may carry air droplets containing the virus. Even though restaurants and office buildings have begun taking the temperatures of staff and patrons, the vast majority of those testing positive for the virus are asymptomatic. Meaning, a simple temperature test provides little insight about contagious carriers. But with this new model of outdoor dining, open-air office spaces, and outside school lessons, there is less fear about contraction, and as the numbers indicate fewer recorded cases.

Glass Wall Partitions

Indoor Solutions

To accompany the outdoor alternative to coexisting, there are some new and seemingly successful indoor solutions for safe reintegration as well. Glass Wall Partitions and wall dividers are being installed widely throughout office space, schools and waiting rooms to protect workers and customers from spreading the disease. By creating safe, functional environments within larger office buildings we can invite employees back into the office to help readopt a sense of normalcy and collaboration into the workday. People are rightly exhausted from months of working from home. Understandably, many are itching to get back into a healthy home/work-life balance. But we cannot bring workers back into communal environments without updating these interior workplaces to meet the current circumstances. Our collective mental health is has suffered greatly over the past year, and our interiors have understandably become a critical catalyst for our mental happiness or lack thereof. Our commercial interiors should be elevated to compensate for how much time we’re forced indoors. Bringing in plants, more natural lighting, water features, and even pleasant scents all help to soothe our senses and create an elevated place to exist. Stress is caused by so many uncontrollable exterior factors, but interior design is something that certainly can be improved.

Interiors should be designed to spread and enhance beautiful daytime light, drawn in through wide windows and skylights. We aren’t meant to exist for the majority of the day in dark, depressive, artificially lighted indoor environments. By providing light-allowing windows and full-sized Glass Wall Partitions, your office space can bring health back to the workplace. Consider replacing light-blocking interior walls with modern, easy to clean, sliding glass wall partitions and floor to Sliding Glass Room Dividers to improve mental health and morale during the workday.

By providing a more health-centered office environment that integrates beautiful greenery and increased natural light, you can improve the quality of life and health for your employees and customers alike. Visit Space Plus, A Division of the Sliding Door Company online to view our online catalog, and Get a quote from one of our professionals today!

SP 1019