Industry guide

Office Atrium & Foyer Slip Testing

Commercial office atriums and reception foyers are typically specified for visual impact — polished granite, marble, terrazzo, large-format porcelain — rather than for slip resistance. In dry conditions these surfaces achieve adequate PTV. In wet conditions, particularly during morning rush hour in poor weather, many fail substantially, producing a foreseeable slip risk that landlord and tenant share.

The polished-stone problem

Polished granite and marble in commercial atriums frequently achieve PTV 50+ dry but PTV 10–20 wet. The dry result satisfies most basic visual inspections; the wet result is in the HSE's high-slip-potential band. When wet weather coincides with rush-hour footfall, every customer or tenant entering the building does so on a foreseeably slippery surface.

This pattern is consistent across the central business district commercial estate — not a feature of poor maintenance but a feature of the specification choice itself.

Landlord vs tenant duty of care

For multi-tenanted offices, the lease structure typically places common-parts responsibility (atrium, lift lobbies, mall) with the landlord and demised-area responsibility with the tenant. A slip in the atrium therefore creates landlord liability, with the tenant joined where the route to the demised area passed through the atrium. Periodic pendulum data of the common parts protects landlord-side defence.

Anti-slip treatments for polished stone

For atriums where wet-PTV is unacceptably low and full surface replacement is not feasible, chemical anti-slip treatments are available that micro-etch the polished stone surface to introduce texture. The visual finish is preserved but the wet-PTV uplift can be 15–25 points. Treatment verification testing independently confirms the achieved uplift.

Office reception-area patterns

Single-tenant office receptions follow a similar pattern but with concentrated peak traffic at start-of-day and end-of-day. The matting at the front door is often inadequate for the footfall — sized for a smaller building than it actually serves — leading to wet-shoe transfer onto the polished surface a few metres in.

BREEAM and the wider commercial standard

Modern commercial offices are frequently specified to BREEAM with health and wellbeing credits that include slip resistance. Pendulum data fed into the building's operations file evidences the credits earned and supports the ongoing risk-management framework.