Many factors determine design of ultimate trading floor

Real Estate Weekly, Nov 13, 1996 by Ted Moudis

Other arrangements that need to be made up-front with the landlord might include communications and emergency power requirements. For communications systems, the tenant would like as much control as possible over the security of the riser closets, which hold delicate wiring. In addition, the tenant might need access to a rooftop space to install its own satellite dish.

In the case of emergency power requirements, especially for businesses that cannot afford any down time, an emergency generator is necessary. In some buildings, tenants need to install their own emergency generator. If so, this requirement must be included in the site search, otherwise it will be prohibitively expensive.

Business Culture Sets the Tone

Armed with comprehensive guidelines established by the team during the programming phase of a relocation, the real estate broker and client can now enter the market with confidence. While they narrow a universe of choices using these guidelines and financial, logistical and locational standards, the rest of the team must now begin the preliminary design and layout work.

Corporate culture again plays an important role in the process, especially when it comes to designing a company's trading floor. The key ingredient for a designer to understand (and for a trading floor manager to communicate) is how the individual company trades. For instance, we recently designed a 200-position trading floor where the style of management made one senior executive, the trading room manager, the focal point of the trading floor. The room is tiered and laid out in such a way as to provide a clear line of vision from 199 people to this trading room manager, and, more importantly, from the manager to each and every one of the floor's trading positions.

Another major financial company with a 200-person trading floor has a different way of doing business. This operation has multiple focal points, so we designed the room again with tiers - to have all positions in a regimented fashion facing inward toward the lowest level in the room. The head traders are all in the heart of the room, where traders from all sides can get an equal view.

Interviewing a firm's head traders and managers provides a designer with a feel for how the firm's traders work. A company should never let the interior designer dictate the flow of business, but rather should provide as clear a cultural blueprint as possible for the architect and designer to follow.

While the trading floor sets many of the guidelines for the selection and layout of a space, executive offices and ancillary, support areas must also be taken into consideration when setting guidelines for the balance of the space. Some general rules of thumb include the idea that one not design any permanent installation adjacent to the trading room. Designers should plan for meeting rooms or offices near the trading room to allow for future growth and greater flexibility of the trading room.

Another idea is to examine carefully the bathroom capabilities; trading rooms hold many people and standard bathroom installations may not be adequate. Voice and data rooms need to be accounted for and installed with an eye toward efficiency and security of wiring and mechanical systems.