What makes a wall genuinely reconfigurable?
Not the material, but the way it is fixed. A reconfigurable wall meets the floor and the ceiling through reversible fixings, and the services run inside its own profile rather than in the masonry around it.
It is a distinction a specification does not show, because two walls can look identical and behave in opposite ways on the day they have to move. The question to ask is not what the wall is made of, but how it is fixed and where the cables run.
Where do the cables have to run for the wall to move?
Inside the profile. That is the point everything else depends on.
If power and data run in the masonry or the plasterboard around the wall, the wall is demountable only on paper: when you move it, the services stay where they are and have to be redone, and the cost of the reconfiguration goes back to that of building work. When they run inside the profile, they are released from the boxes and follow the wall.
The same applies at floor level. A post buried in the screed only comes out by breaking the floor, and at that point the saving is gone before it starts.
What difference does single or double glazing make?
It changes the kind of separation you get, not only how it looks.
- CRONO is the double-glazed partition with a cavity: the cavity works on acoustic insulation and can house integrated blinds or venetians, so visual privacy is adjusted without adding anything later.
- HERA is the single-glazed partition with minimal joints: a lighter line where the separation needs to be visual rather than acoustic.
- DECUS are the solid modules, wall linings and fitted walls in pre-finished panels: for where the wall has to contain rather than display.
The three systems are described on the ADAM Office division page.
What is actually recovered when a wall comes down?
Profiles and glazing almost always: they are whole elements and go back up wherever they are needed. Solid panels depend on the cuts, because a new layout rarely repeats the same dimensions.
It is worth numbering them at the first assembly. The detail sounds clerical and instead decides how long the second assembly takes: without numbering, refitting a wall means measuring everything again.
What is worth deciding before assembly?
Where data and power will run, and with how much spare capacity. A wall prepared for two workstations per module can be reconfigured; one prepared for a single workstation cannot, and the difference in cost at the first assembly is far smaller than the one paid at the second.
That is a decision to take with the designer, not one to leave to the site. Anyone weighing up work on an occupied floor can write to us from the Contact page.