I want to initiate a complete overhaul of the staff room in a local school, and have been looking at images of other staff rooms on google. The thing is, I imagine something like a cross between Waterstones, Costa, and a faculty common room (with things like daily newspapers, etc.), but almost everything I see online is very, very staffroomy.

Is there a reason staff rooms look the way they do, and are not more inviting/warm/interesting? Why should an Oxford college common room looks the way it does, but the staff room of a normal workplace looks so, well, rubbish?

If you could re-design your workplace’s staff room, what would it be like? How many employees would that affect?

Costaesque sounds let me a good start to me.

If you could re-design your workplace’s staff room, what would it be like?

Teletubbie Land.

Teletubbie Land.

That’s just creepy.

Remove the notice boards…….done.

When our Stn was getting upgraded we had some fancy interior designer come in and promise the world with fancy ideas a slick presentation with lots of colours and fancy furniture. 1 main staff area with smaller soundproof pods to take a break in. She just couldn’t see the problem with soundproof pods in a fire station.

we ended up with room getting a lick of paint and 15 of these chairs 🙄

Wood panelling and some honours boards is what you need

I imagine Costa would look a bit like a staff room if you started with a PFI built box, a kettle, microwave and no budget to do anything with it.

Oxford common rooms probably look the way they do after hundreds of years of tutors skimming off funds to furnish them. Although having stayed in a few old rooms in collages some bits are cool but most of the rooms are pretty dated and draughty student digs like you’d get in any student house, just with a 300 year old posh exterior.

Is there a reason staff rooms look the way they do,

Money – there’s a formula for how big it will be based on the size of the school – designers / developers can’t deviate from that. Add in X chairs and tables that are cheap and a little bit comfortable, use the same carpet as is in the rest of the school, paint the walls the same colour, fill one wall with noticeboards / photocopier, one wall with pigeonholes / intrays, one wall with kitchen units and a wall with Windows. There’s not the money or space to make it anything other than functional. Teachers spend very little time there so no pressure to make it any nicer.

What about a big wallpaper mural of a forest, or some shit like that.

If you could re-design your workplace’s staff room, what would it be like?

An old fashioned bordello.

We don’t have one but I visit lots of other places that do, they all seem to have a similar theme.

No windows
A couple of tables pushed together to form a shit sort of banquet table.
Plastic chairs like school but bigger
The world’s smallest domestic fridge crammed with the lunches of 15 people.
The “tea station” which is always the grimmest place – filthy mugs, filthy spoons, stains on every surface – honestly is it only a non-tea junkie that can see it?
A passive-aggressive note or two about the ‘tea kitty’ or leaving your shit everywhere.
Every single vertical flat surface covered in a competing battle between HSE stuff, Union stuff and Company motivation stuff.

I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re designed primarily to ensure no one wants to stay in them long.

I’m not sure we still have them.

Anything would be better than my current school staffroom. For a start its also the main thoroughfare for the school. Office off one corner, main entry next to it the door to the hall. Other side of the office door is the cleaners cupboard, then the sink and the door to the classes. Past the door is the small worktop with a kettle, a few dishes then the bin. Round the corner is the notice boar and boy is that full. Step past the stairs to the mezzanine loft/hutch that serves as the Heads office and duck under to the laminator and a few crammed shelves. These are partially blocked by a few chairs of the type seen in shoddy waiting rooms, back of some serving as the side of a corridor into the hall. The kids parade through all through lunch time, detentions happen there as well as small group sessions, major bollockings, first aid and PTA meetings. Often all at the same time. The nice high ceiling is looked at frequently as the potential site for another hutch.
As there are 3 teachers, 3 TA’s, a secretary and an occasional Head ( he has 3 schools) all who eat lunch with the kids we are not over crowded though.
Coffee morning tomorrow so there will be tons of cakes.
Not all staff rooms are like this. Some are pokey, some are whopping. The big school have a seat for all staff and they are never more than half used. The small ones have 2 staff for every chair and they sit on the floor.

I’m not sure we still have them.

I think yours are called lay-bys aren’t they?

Ours has a fruit fly infestation.

A vegeterian foid bin. A coffee grinds bin a couple of bridge industry magazines and a bike to work map of edinburgh.

I might leave a copy of singletrack in there!

“staff room”

What’s that?

Is it a communal toilet or a hallway ?

If you have room enough for an unused space I’d say fill it full of coloured balls and let some kids go mental..

Or refurbish it into a bedsit and sell it on a student rental at, ohhhh say, £900 a week.

I think yours are called lay-bys aren’t they?

Oh we dream of lunch in a lay-by.

Staffrooms look like staffrooms because budgets are limited, there are certain functions a staffroom needs to fulfill and most people don’t give a toss as its just a place to eat lunch and gossip.

As long as I can get a seat and a brew I don’t really care.

Pump track natch.