By CATHERINE MURRELL, The Courier-Journal

INTERVIEWING . . .

Name: Neal Zimmerman

Position: Architect and author of "At Work at Home: Design Ideas for Your Home Workplace." Zimmerman lives and works in West Hartford, Conn.

Résumé: Zimmerman has 25 years experience designing work spaces. He originally focused on corporate work environments, but switched to home workplaces after designing his first home office in 1994. In addition to "At Work at Home," Zimmerman is the author of "Home Office Design" (Wiley, 1996) and numerous magazine articles on home work spaces.

Quote: "When you're working in a traditional office environment, there are usually a lot of controls placed upon you about how you can organize your space. But when you're at home, you're the master of your destiny. You've got a great opportunity to create space around you that is a reflection of who you are and what you like."

The counter height for this computer workstation can be adjusted to suit the user. From "At Work at Home"

Q:  What are the elements of a successful home work space?

A:  After studying hundreds of offices, I realized that any good home workplace has three basic elements regardless of how large it is, how small it is and how much time people spend there.

The first feature is balance -- you need to balance your work life and your home life in a way that the two work harmoniously together. The second feature is organization. Every good home workplace is well organized for comfort, for efficiency and just in the physical organization. Thirdly, every good workplace has a personal spirit about it, a reflection of the person.

Q:  Any advice on designing a home office on a budget?

A:  Although there are a lot of glamorous workplaces in magazines that cost big bucks, that doesn't mean you can't successfully plan a workplace to fit into a small corner of a small apartment.

If you're just starting out in your own business or telecommuting for the first time, there just may not be the budget for serious expenditures. The real question is: What do you need to do in order to make it work successfully at a minimum at cost? You don't need to spend a fortune on furniture and equipment right away.

You're going to need minimally a workstation and you're going to have to pick a place where you have some kind of privacy. For instance, if you're using a shared space, you're going to have to consider how that may affect your peace and quiet as you're working.

Some people choose the corner of the bedroom, and that may work if you're living alone. If you have a husband or wife or partner, it may be more difficult. You're going to have to schedule around that.

You're going to have to control the space that you choose to operate in. That control centers around three features: privacy, protection and separation.

You're going to need some kind of privacy in order to work. You also need to be able to protect your work from kids or a pet that may upset it. Lastly, you need separation.

Let's say you choose a little area in your family room in which to work, and at 3 o'clock in the afternoon the kids come marching through and turn on the television set. That's not an appropriate separation.

You either need to choose another location or make a social arrangement with family members that for a certain period of time either you're not working there or they're not playing there. In tight spaces and with tight budgets, quite often a social arrangement has to be made. Not everything can be solved with drywall.

Once you've chosen a location, you're going to need to have some kind of workstation upon which to do your work. That's not as simple as going to the attic or garage and opening up a card table.

It's important that you determine beforehand the kind of work that you do and the kind of station that you need to do your work. I've come up with an acronym to help people with this -- CAMP. That stands for the four possible types of workstations that people might need or use in their home work environment.

Most people need a computer to work on. If you're working at home, you'll also need an administrative area, a place where you open your mail, pay your bills and perhaps take telephone calls, take notes and organize your files. Some people have an occasional meeting at home and they'll need a meeting station.

Lastly, some home workers do specialized kind of work that may require another kind of work surface -- a project surface. Graphic artists or people who work with manual tools would need a project surface.

So there is the potential in any given home workplace to have four workstations -- stations for your computer, administrative tasks, meetings and projects. Sometimes these stations can overlap. Your administrative area may be designed to also serve as a project surface. It's important that you determine which of these needs you have beforehand, or you may end up with a workplace that isn't adequate to your needs.

Once you've determined what you need, there are inexpensive ways to set up workstations. Quite often people go to lumberyards and buy doors and set them up on pedestals or on file cabinets. That's a quick and inexpensive way to set up a workstation with some storage below it. You can customize it to the length and depth that will fit in a specific environment.

One place you should not skimp is on a task chair. That's because it's the place where you spend most of your time in your workplace. If you're spending eight hours a day in your workplace, then you're spending as much time in that chair as you spend in bed. You want a chair that provides good support and that allows you to adjust the lumbar support and height of the seat. Preferably, it would have adjustable armrests as well.

A good task chair can make a big difference; not only in your comfort, but also in your overall health.

Q:  Can you describe the basic process of setting up a functional and comfortable office?

A:  There are five basic steps that you have to take to develop a successful home work place. No. 1, you have to know your needs; we've discussed that already. No. 2, you have to choose your location carefully. The choice of location is going to have a lot to do with your success of working at home. You need the privacy, the protection and the separation, and you also need a space that is commodious enough to provide room for the various workstations that you may need.

There may be more than one location where you can locate a home office in your home. In choosing a location, you want to consider the nuances between choosing a basement space, choosing a corner of a family room or choosing an attic space.

A basement may be unused space, but it may also be damp and un-insulated. And it may not have a view. I think a view is very important when you're working at home, to be able to look outside and see some kind of landscape.

On the other hand, if you go into the attic, the attic might have a commanding view but you may have power problems and the floor may not be strong enough to take the load. All those factors need to be weighed when you make your choice.

Three, once you've determined what your needs are and you've chosen a location, you need to develop a plan. That plan is probably the hardest part for many people, especially for those who have trouble with measuring and drawing.

This is when the idea of the four separate workspaces gets married to the floor plan. If you can't draw or sketch, it's a good idea to retain a local design professional for a few hours to help you develop your plan. From that plan, you'll know if the space will work and how it will work.

It will also tell you about lighting requirements and help you determine a budget for setting up your space.

The fourth step is to create a comfortable and healthy environment. That means thinking about your lighting, comfortable seating and ergonomic tools.

Lastly, you should design a space for who you are. When you're working in a traditional office environment, there are usually a lot of controls placed upon you about how you can organize your space. But when you're at home, you're the master of your destiny. You've got a great opportunity to create space around you that is a reflection of who you are and what you like.

It's a place that you can make comfortable, that can suit your needs not only in terms of color, but in terms of photographs and any kind of art and various objects that are a reflection of your interests, your passion and your life.

After all, what are you working for but to support your life to begin with? When you go to work, especially in your own home, you shouldn't go there to suffer work. You should go there to enjoy where you are.

"Interiors" is published each Saturday. Do you have a question of general interest or a suggestion for a profile? Call Catherine Murrell at (502) 582-4637 or write to her at "Interiors," The Courier-Journal, 525 W. Broadway, P.O. Box 740031, Louisville, Ky. 40201-7431. Individual replies are not possible.  

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