M&D Interiors helps Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties rethink office space

When an office layout no longer works, Lisa Clemens of M&D Interiors steps in to figure out the “puzzle” of reconfiguring a workplace layout that functions well.

Baltimore County Historic Courthouse

Lisa Clemens gets excited to walk into a room and realize the space isn’t perfectly square, the corner office doesn’t function anymore, and that employees would rather have access to windows than a larger break room.

“The office world changes more often than people realize, and adjusting to those changes and making everything work with the space is a puzzle,” says Clemens, Associate and Lead Interior Designer of Murphy & Dittenhafer’s Interiors division. “I enjoy that aspect of it. Sometimes, when you put pen to paper, the space just tells you how it wants to be.”

For Anne Arundel County Government, staff are spread across four identical buildings in the Riva Road Heritage Complex. Most of the spaces in those buildings have unique interior challenges because the angles of the spaces aren’t orthogonal and some of the rooms cut off awkwardly.

Many times, Clemens gets a call from a County department when they’ve outgrown the space or found that time has changed how it’s used. Now, she says, it’s an opportunity to rethink the space to accommodate more people or design it in a way so that it functions better.

AACSP Office of the County Executive

What space planning means

It’s not paint colors and new furniture that Clemens is suggesting when helping with office and workplace space planning. Rather, it’s learning how people use the space and working with what’s already there.

In many cases, employees are reheating food and eating at their desks rather than sitting in a break room. More digital record systems mean old storage rooms are obsolete. And hybrid working conditions, which increased in the pandemic, mean workspaces can be more fluid as people work remotely – and frequently come and go from home to the office.

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Programming is also important, she says. Clemens wants to know if an office is more of a place to land or if it’s used to meet people privately? Does each square foot have an intention or is some wiggle room intended based on the position someone has?

Those questions help her decide next steps and lead her to get creative in offering space planning to her clients. Rarely, though, is it just one idea that wins, she adds.

When she presents two or three spaceplan options to a client, it’s usually bits and pieces of each one that they love the most. That’s where Clemens works to create an integrated system that helps meet as many “wants and needs” as the space allows.

AACSP Central Services Admin Offices

Making it about the people

With Anne Arundel and Baltimore Counties, Clemens has worked quickly with multiple departments to get them back to work in spaces that meet their needs.

“It’s satisfying when you come up with things they wouldn’t have thought of — which you can do when you have a little more objectivity,” she says. “When you’re not in the office all day long it’s easier to throw out the assumptions.”

She also appreciates that office/workplace environments are changing just as quickly as the people who work in them. When she can figure out a way to make the office environment comfortable for the person who loves structure as well as the individual who can’t stand the idea of a cubicle, she considers that a win-win.

“It’s not just about looking at a space and seeing where a desk will go or where the coffee maker is stationed,” she says. “It’s about learning how people want to function and feel at work. That’s really what space planning is about, and I’m excited for the opportunity to create that for people.”

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