OFFICE FOR A BIG FAMILY

We are pleased to share our latest project for an international marketing company headquaters in London. The Arcademy Design studio has been commissioned to fit-out a 3000sq m office in the central London that spreads over 2 and a half floors. The main demand from the client, an international marketing company, was to design a “home office”. The only problem being that it was for a “family” of over 250 people.

The chosen approach was to design a vibrant office space with a number of very distinct areas that would accommodate all these individuals. This led us to designing 21 meeting rooms, a library, auditorium, boardroom, a social space having a capacity of containing all the staff, many breakout areas, 8 quiet rooms suited to working alone and 1-to-1 meetings and booth style suites.

The idea of a dynamic office design presented us with a problem of finding a continuous language of representation that would unify the whole scheme. The office location being situated just around the corner from the Oxford Street presented us with the solution. We decided to follow the theme of the most characteristic places in London. The genius loci of these places has been translated into the tools of space framing, colour palette and materiality. This resulted in the furniture from over 60 manufacturers, including many bespoke items and over 30 wall finishes.

For example, the meeting room featuring the Spitalfields Market theme is a fuzzy enclosure with a minimalist approach towards a materiality of a space where an opportunity is being given for a more intimate experience.

Another form of achieving the domesticized office look was to reinterpret the concept of a glazed partition. We decided to treat it not as a wall but as a window instead. The partitions had taken a shape of the picturesque cottage window with curtains to control the privacy in the meeting rooms. The idea was so straight forward that after moving in, the pots with plants started appearing by the “windows” just like in a cosy suburbia.

The ceilings contained varying bulkheads and beams of all different heights, with the ceilings as low as 2m in some areas. Surprisingly, the result of having an “imperfect” ceiling layout running along the office significantly reduced the corporate feeling of a space and allowed us to be more creative and adventurous in the ceiling setting out. The creative excitement almost got out of hand and we ended up with around 30 types of light fittings.

This project presented us with an opportunity to test a number of ideas of how we approach a workspace design and celebrate the individuals of the collaborative place.