Four Workplace Design Hacks from the Team Behind CANOA

Learn how to quickly and efficiently design a large workplace floorplan using design hacks made possible with CANOA.

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‍Our Head of Creative, Alma Lopez, and Head of Brand, Liz Wert, walk us through how they designed a 20,000 sq. ft. workplace in less than fifteen minutes using their top four design hacks made possible with CANOA.

‍Four Workplace Design Hacks

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Design with data in real-time: always stay on budget and schedule

A project dashboard for NYC workplace project shows budget tracker and floorplan.

Start by setting project milestones which will help you create design guidelines. Understanding FDOB (first day of business), budget, carbon goals and plannable square footage allows you to design and collect real-time data simultaneously. This means you can make informed decisions about the furniture you select based on cost and lead-times.

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CANOA Hack: Watch your project dashboard and schedule while designing. In real-time you can see if you are staying on budget and schedule so when you are done, there won’t be a need to make changes.

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Designing with Zones: easy space planning

A floorplan designed on Canoa's platform shows how you can separate zones of a space by colors.

Workplaces have shifted to be designed environments where individuals choose their most effective method for accomplishing work. Zones help us divide our space into these specific methods or what we call activities. Whether you are designing for team collaboration, focused work, individual work, or cafe space– setting your zones will help you strategically select and place products on your floor plan.

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CANOA Hack: Each zone is set by a color on your floor plan.

While you can customize your zones, CANOA has six pre-set zones: Gather, Collaborate, Recharge, Work, Outdoor, and Cafe. Our zones also calculate square footage and cost in real-time.

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Personalized Curation: A better shopping experience

A workspace floorplan designed on Canoa shows the furniture kits that are included in the design.

Curation is the fun part in the design process, yet it’s hard to find new brands and products. Our marketplace makes it easy to search and find a myriad of new and second-life products as well as ready-to-use design templates merchandised by our in-house creative team. Search and add favorite products to your own catalog.

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CANOA Hack- Our templates are categorized under collections that match our pre-set zones. Browse templates under collections: Gather, Collaborate, Recharge, Work, Outdoor, and Cafe. When ready add them to your project and then drag and drop each template into the correct zone. This makes design purposeful and easy.

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Collaboration is key: design is better done together as a team.

A comment on the workplace floorplan shows that someone loves a design element, demonstrating collaboration in Canoa.

Multiplayer mode brings synchronous and asynchronous workflows into our design process. This helps your team design together and connects all external project stakeholders in your workflow. The cursor chat feature allows you to instantly collaborate with your team while the comment feature allows for feedback to be given at any time.

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CANOA hack: We have eliminated cumbersome design workflows like saved files, multiple design versions, and presentation decks. Right from your floor plan you can view presentation mode, track feedback and check revisions.

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‍Start Creating today for free.