Hasta La Ideas

Bright red louvres screen the gabled walls of this office building in Tilburg, the Netherlands, by Dutch architects Équipe (+ slideshow).

Proyecto Roble is the headquarters of landscape firm Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten, who asked Équipe to upgrade an existing building that had become too small.

The architects demolished the canteen of the old office, then added a new structure stretching out in its place. Constructed around a chunky timber frame, the building has an asymmetric shape with floor-to-ceiling glazing along its sides and the red slatted timber across its ends.

“The original building wasn’t that old so we tried to reuse it,” architect Daniëlle Segers told Dezeen. “We demolished half of the structure then reused as much of the materials as we could, for example the old brickwork was used in the foundations.”

Describing their decision to use red paint, Segers explained: “We had a discussion about leaving the wood in a natural colour, but it wouldn’t stay beautiful in the future. Now, when you approach the building you notice the colour stand out against the green, but it’s still a natural pigment.”

The roof of the building is covered with a mixture of sedum grass and photovoltaic solar panels.

Meeting rooms are located in the old building, while all the offices occupy the new building and are lined up beside a spacious corridor.

The architects designed custom furniture for use throughout the building, then added reclaimed chairs and LED lighting.

This is the second bright red building we’ve featured in the last week, following a temporary theatre that recently opened in London. See more red buildings on Dezeen.

Photography is by René de Wit and Équipe.

Here’s a project description from Équipe:

“Proyecto Roble” extension of Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten in Berkel-Enschot

“Proyecto Roble” by young office Équipe is a grass roots project, a building embedded in the local context in the rural south of the Netherlands. The client, owner of landscaping firm Van Helvoirt Groenprojecten, had a vision for his headquarters to be a flagship model of sustainability. This was to be a key project where sustainable innovations replace money-issues as the bottom line.

The building is a custom designed environment with no standard details. The project was undertaken as a research into the potentials for creating a positive workplace. Key themes were broken down into components and expressed in the design. “Feel Good!” was the catchphrase coined that encompassed the different themes as renewable energy, passive climate control, abundance of natural light and the relationship to the external landscape, which was to be a showpiece of healing environment garden.

Sustainability was thus been payed attention to in all stages and all scales. From a period of studying what ‘sustainability’ actually means to making sure everyone on the building site understands and embraces these principals.

A.o. a new way of tendering was used, called the Building-team Plus and a new formula was invented to document decisions on materiality and techniques.

The new extension immediately catches the passing motorist’s eye, a sleek red form in the agrarian landscape, replete with a fully integrated photo-voltaic-panel roof and a green roof. The green roof transcends its cosmetic role, and is a testing ground for emerging water filtration technology. In the beginning of the 20th century Tilburg was re-known for its textile industry, collecting the workers pee in pitchers for using it as a bleach. Now this project goes back to this tradition inventing worlds first sloped constructed wetlands.

Urine is separated from the black water using it a as a nutrition ingredient for making fertiliser in the clients landscaping activities. Further the grey water runs through the grass roof leaving it as clean water that can be used in the building again. This is only one of the multiple innovations in this project that has been designed to the smallest detail: from building to garden, from the bicycle shed to the bespoke interior and signposting.

The building consists of two parts, connected by the clay stove. Heated with prune wasted from the greenery’s own business, this element brings together the office-employees and the outdoor workers. Thus connecting the new extension to the traditions of the family business. Besides the pleasant indoor atmosphere the clay stove also brings technical advantages. The air heating pump could have less capacity and in addition the heater is used as a hot water boiler.

The north part of the building consists of offices. The linearity of the building is emphasised by the interior elements, that are placed on the coloured pathways. By using red linoleum on different areas of the floor and furniture the interior keeps a coherency to the exterior looks of the building.

The southern part of the building is a oversized foyer that connects all spaces. This multipurpose lobby, used for bigger and smaller, organised and spontaneous meetings, provides a green and transparent link to the outdoor world. The play of lines has been made expressive by folded raw aluminium lighting trays that float the length of the building.

Above: site plan

The facades are made of open detailed, wooden slats painted red with water based ‘nature paint’ thus creating different transparencies between inside and outside. The structure of prefabricated cross laminated timber elements is left unfinished, the imperfections of the timber adding to the natural serenity of the interior. The timber imbues the internal spaces with a positive connection to nature, something which contributes to the landscaping firms green image. All interior elements, apart from second-hand chairs and desk LED lamps, were custom designed. They are specifically designed in consultation with the personnel. Chairs and table carriages are second hand, like all kinds of smaller parts in the interior design: the door handle of the employees entrance (a re-used banister), the magazine stand (heating pipe) and the fruit boxes in the sample cabinet. Also in the furniture low environmental impact products were used. Special research was done to investigate what material could be best used in what elements and how should these materials be connected. Just like for the exterior the ‘decision document’ was used to explore the considerations in the building team plus and to be able to document conclusions. This proved to be a very useful tool that helps making choices that exceed standards or norms. During the whole process norms were never leading anyhow. Choosing consciously prevailed following scores. (Nevertheless all calculated scores are excellent) F.e. were passive house theories and Dutch energy performance norms may lead to small windows in the north facade, this building has high windows from floor to ceiling that provide the employees with a view to the landscape and lots of northern light.

Above: floor plan

Project title: Proyecto Roble
Address: Oisterwijksebaan 8a 5056 RD Berkel-Enschot, Gem. Tilburg the Netherlands
Client: Van Helvoirt Pensioen BV
Architect: Équipe voor architectuur en urbanisme
Project architects: Huib van Zeijl, Daniëlle Segers
Employees: Adam Murray
Interior design: Equipe voor architectuur en urbanisme
Garden Design: Studio Van Helvoirt

Function: office
Original building year: 1996
Research & design: 2006-2011
Start building: May 2011
Deliverance I employment: June 2012

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by Équipe appeared first on Dezeen.

The New York headquarters of location-based social network Foursquare is filled with themed rooms based on the digital badges users earn from “checking-in” at different places using the service.

Foursquare director Dennis Crowley and operations director Derek Stewart worked with interior designer Audra Canfield of Designer Fluff to develop a concept for the interiors, intended to create a fun and relaxed working environment that matches the style of the website.

The team created a series of meeting rooms, each designed around a different badge. These badges are hung above the entrance to each room to help employees to find their way around.

The Swarm badge, which Foursquare users earn by visiting busy places, is designated to a room with a beehive theme. Tessellated yellow wallpaper lines one wall, while pendant lights resembling beehives are suspended over the conference table and a honeycomb-patterned clock hangs from the wall.

A nightclub-themed room is assigned to the Socialite badge, which users pick up by visiting one of several exclusive venues in New York and San Francisco. This room features flocked wallpaper, a cow-skin rug and a crystal chandelier.

Antique cameras fill the Photogenic room, based on the badge earned for visting photo booths, while the Bookworm badge, for libraries, denotes an area with recycled magazine wallpaper and back-to-front books on its shelves.

The badge given for visits to vegetarian restaurants appears above the door of a meeting room containing a grassy floor and terrariums filled with plants and plastic animals. Meanwhile, the Vinyl room has records covering its walls.

Other spaces in the headquarters include a lounge, where the team have added a pair of phone boxes, a bar and a general office with a simple monochrome colour scheme. “I felt a grey and white backdrop would allow the living colour of the office to speak for itself and also balance the fun and maturity that they desired,” says Canfield.

The Foursquare New York offices are the latest in string of playful designs for technology company headquarters. Others completed recently include Google’s Tel Aviv offices, which contain oranges trees and slides, and Adobe’s Utah campus, where employees can play basketball and ping pong. See more of the offices here, or read a column from Dezeen columnist Sam Jacob calling for an end to the “tyranny of fun” in office design.

Here’s a statement from Audra Canfield:

I didn’t hesitate when I was asked to help design Foursquare’s Soho office in New York City. As a location-based social networking company, Foursquare “helps you and your friends make the most of where you are”. I was hired by Derek Stewart, the Director of Finance and Operations, who had already begun designing the office and had set a tone from which to build a concept. The Foursquare team had decided that they wanted each conference room to have a different unique theme based on their check-in badges, i.e. Jetsetter for airport check-ins, Far Far Away for destinations above 59th St bridge in NYC, and Vinyl for record store check-ins. The badges hang outside the door of each conference room creating a repetition of color and shape throughout the space.

Foursquare’s office dynamic is comprised of unconventional working areas, lounges, and a recreational room including shuffle board, foosball, and ping pong tables. They wanted some of the conference rooms to have the typical long tables and others to have a more relaxing, sitting room style. With a tight budget and time frame, Derek and I worked together with Foursquare owner Dennis Crowley to create both a fun and functional office space that reflects Foursquare’s unique aesthetic. It was important to Dennis that the office be vivacious and hip, but also sophisticated. Most importantly, he wanted it to feel relaxed. Afterall, most of the company’s employees are in their 20’s and 30’s.

For the main office color scheme, we decided to go with grey and white. We brought in touches of the bright blue and yellow with the pillows from my company, Designer Fluff. Around the office you find boldly colored toys, games, books, clothing and so on. I felt a grey and white backdrop would allow the living color of the office to speak for itself and also balance the fun and maturity that they desired.

For Dennis Crowley’s favorite conference room, Herbivore, we decided to use custom terrariums from the Brooklyn based company Twig. Each unique terrarium holds one or more small plastic herbivore animals and is arranged on floating reclaimed wood shelves. Black Eames Eiffel Wood chairs are paired with a wood and iron table. House Pet carpet tiles in the Frog color from Flor further reference the room’s concept. A greenhouse style pendant suspends over the table.

Socialite, the check-in for nightclubs and bars, was a fun room to create because I could really go glam with it. Although my faux fur purple hide wallpaper didn’t make the cut, I was happy with the Flocked Damask and Foil wallcovering Dennis chose. We used a white cowhide rug, a purple velvet lounge chair, a crystal chandelier, and reflective furniture accents.

Photogenic is the badge for places with photobooths. For this room, I hung shallow reclaimed shelves that displayed antique cameras mounted on a chalkboard painted wall. The back wall is to be covered with the Instagram photos taken by all the employees.

The Swarm badge is a bee motif. I found this great Osborne & Little wallpaper in a yellow/green, white and grey over-scaled pattern that referenced the beehive’s architecture without being too literal. The Nelson pendants also subtly reference the hive while adding class and sophistication as well as a feeling of playfulness.

Bookworm is my personal favorite. Since it is the check-in for libraries, we wanted to create a cozy corner office. One line of books turned backwards revealing the simple texture of the book’s pages evoking the diminishing time of ‘the book.’ Recycled magazine wallpaper from Pollack & Associates creates the backdrop again subtly referencing pages, words, their meanings and textures. Mix-matched chairs and a bench stacked with books all in varying brown tones help give this room an eclectic, lived in feeling.

Foursquare was an adventure in design and a great learning process for me as a designer. Everyone was great to work with and I was proud to be part of their team in my own way.

The post Foursquare New York by Audra Canfield,
Derek Stewart and Dennis Crowley appeared first on Dezeen.

Shimmering steel panels chequer the facade of this office building at an aluminium plant outside Buenos Aires by Argentinean architects Adamo-Faiden and Estudio Silberfaden.

The small two-storey block adjoins the southern corner of the Hydro Aluminium factory, where it serves as an administrative block for the Norwegian metal company.

Adamo-Faiden teamed up with Estudio Silberfaden to design the offices, which feature floor-to-ceiling windows and glazed internal partitons to increase natural light.

There’s also a terrace and garden covering the roof, protected behind a wire fence.

A steel staircase connects both office levels with the top floor terrace. Behind it, doors lead through to the main building on each storey so the stairs can also be used by employees inside the factory.

“This pavilion annex wants to answer two specific needs,” explain Marcelo Faiden and Sebastian Adamo. “First, to build office space for administrative, technical and management areas, and secondly, to incorporate a circulation system linking the levels of both buildings and finishing in an open area.”

Adamo-Faiden often design buildings with terraces on the rooftops, including a building that could be either offices or apartments, and the recently completed house Casa Martos. See more architecture by Adamo-Faiden.

Other recent projects in Argentina include black-painted housing in Patagonia and a house with an exceptionally tall front door. See more architecture in Argentina.

Photography is by Gustavo Sosa Pinilla.

Above: site plan

Above: ground floor plan

Above: first floor plan

Above: roof plan

Above: cross section

Above: front elevation

Above: side elevation

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Adamo-Faiden and Estudio Silberfaden appeared first on Dezeen.

A mysterious dark tunnel leads into the boardroom of these offices in London by architects Studio Octopi (+ slideshow).

As the UK headquarters for advertising agency 18 Feet & Rising, the offices were designed with a utilitarian aesthetic that can easily be replaced in a few years as the company grows.

Studio Octopi were asked to incorporate four qualities into the space; emergence, vortex, action and illusion. “Inspired by the client’s four words, the project took on a theatrical approach,” architect Chris Romer-Lee told Dezeen. “Surprise, anticipation, unease, fear and relief were all discussed in connection to the client’s journey from arriving in the agency to getting into the boardroom.”

The architects divided the office into three zones – designated for working, socialising and pitching – and differentiated them using low plywood screens and woven flooring with different patterns.

The dark-stained plywood tunnel is the largest installation in the space. With a tapered volume, it sticks out like a large funnel to announce the zone where client presentations take place.

“The tunnel acts as a cleansing device. All preconceptions of the agency are wiped before entering the boardroom,” explained Romer-Lee.

Outside the boardroom, the workspaces are arranged in a curved strip that stretches from the entrance to the far wall. The steel-framed desks were designed by Studio Octopi last year and each one integrates power sockets and a lamp.

A kitchen and cafe area for staff is positioned at the centre of the curve, while informal areas for meetings or relaxing wrap around the perimeter as a series of window seats.

Romer-Lee runs Studio Octopi alongside co-director James Lowe. They also recently completed a courtyard house in the south-west of England. See more design by Studio Octopi.

Dezeen columnist Sam Jacob discussed offices designed for creative agencies in this week’s Opinion piece, saying that “offices designed as fun palaces are fundamentally sinister”. See more creative office interiors on Dezeen.

Photography is by Petr Krejčí.

Here’s a project description from Studio Octopi:

After designing 18 Feet & Rising’s work desks, Studio Octopi were commissioned to work on the fit-out of their new 5,300sqft offices in central London.

Appointment to completion of the fit-out was only a period of two months which was quicker than the time it took to design and build the 18 Feet & Rising work desks. To achieve this timeframe the client transferred full creative control to Studio Octopi. Only a brief four words were issued by the client; emergence, vortex, action and illusion.

CEO, Jonathan Trimble stated that all final approval decisions were granted to Studio Octopi. 18 Feet would collaborate as equal creative partner but not as client. It was agreed that the project would emerge on site.

We identified three principle zones within the agency: work, socialise and pitch. Each zone was then supported by a secondary tier of: read, make and plan. The zones were defined by black stained plywood walls and woven vinyl flooring. These act as theatrical devices in function and appearance. As with theatre the design enhances the presence and immediacy of the experience.

The work desks were arranged within a cog form. On entering the agency, the end of the cog disappears out of view. It is difficult to perceive the space denoted as a work zone, there is an illusionary aspect to the design. Power and data was taken off the existing overhead supply and distributed to the desks throughout the low plywood walls. Break out spaces are scattered to the perimeter provide views across neighbouring buildings. To the inside of the cog, the kitchen opens onto a central café seating area. There is no reception; the café area fulfils this role.

Above: floor plan – click for larger image

Joining the two units is a small opening. Views through the opening reveal the tunnel, the entrance to the boardroom. Approaching the entrance to the tunnel reveals more theatrics. The tunnel walls and sloping soffit are lined in ply however the supporting timber structure is visible on the other side. The tunnel reduces in height and width over its 7m length. The strong light at the end of the tunnel picks out the plywood grain and woven vinyl flooring. Within the boardroom the plywood stained walls form a backdrop for the imposing views of the Post Office Tower.

The client embraced the temporary appearance of utilitarian construction materials. As London’s fastest growing independent ad agency, it’s likely the design will be replaced within a few years. On this basis the fit-out is surprising, a little unnerving, and in places whimsical.

The post 18 Feet & Rising offices
by Studio Octopi appeared first on Dezeen.

Walls, shelves and desks are all made from piles of modular blocks at this office in Paris by French studio h2o Architectes (+ slideshow).

As the workplace for creative agency Hypernuit, the office occupies a ground floor unit that is visible to the street through floor-to-ceiling shop windows.

h2o Architectes were asked to create workspaces for five people, plus a small meeting room. “The refurbishment project had to reflect the dynamic and innovative spirit of the agency with a serene and contemporary space,” explain the architects.

The muted grey blocks come in a mixture of shapes and sizes, and are piled up around the room to define separate areas for each occupant. Shelves surround the desks to offer seclusion, but each one also faces out into a central corridor.

“The balance of these elements and the different scenarios help to define hierarchy and priorities,” the architects told Dezeen. “The modules have different shapes and proportions so that they can be used for as many functions as you can imagine.”

The white interiors of the blocks give a second tone to the plain grey furnishings, offering a simple backdrop to the colourful books, plants and stationary that were inevitably added afterwards.

As well as the usual storage areas, the space incorporates display boards for temporary photography exhibitions.

All of the modular parts were constructed in the workshop then assembled on site to ensure a speedy construction process. The arrangement can also be reconfigured to adapt to future needs and changes.

Architects Charlotte Hubert and Jean-Jacques Hubert launched h2o Architectes in 2005. Antoine Santiard joined them in 2008 and the team have since completed an apartment in Paris for a comic-strip collector and a garden pavilion where furniture forms the entire interior. See more architecture by h2o Architectes.

Photography is by Julien Attard.

Here’s a project description from h2o Architectes:

Hypernuit Offices, Paris

Context

The project takes place on the ground floor of a building of flats, behind a large window looking out onto the Clignancourt Street. The office space to create has a single orientation; it is a well-lit, plainly treated volume with a simple geometry. The commission consisted in fitting-out an office space including five identical desks, a common meeting room and shared facilities.

Hypernuit is an agency employing different people as artistic directors, graphic designers and workers in public relations. The refurbishment project had to reflect the dynamic and innovative spirit of the agency with a serene and contemporary space.

It also had to include a maximum of shelving for storage, the creation of exhibition walls for the display of photography shows. The schedule for the building works was very tight.

h2o architectes created for these offices a sort of indoor landscape thanks to a play with blocks.

These volumes of varied form and size constitute the living space for each person working there. Their adjunction and combination help compose the furniture, the desks, the separation and exhibition walls, the coffers etc.

The different parts were made in a workshop to save time on the building-site. The unitary treatment of the floor and of the furniture responds to the demand of a serene atmosphere.

The space is enlivened by the white color of the thickness of the different blocks and of course by the books and objects brought by each user. Each desk benefits from both openness towards the shared space and a more private area which can be modeled by a play with void and volume.

Design Architects: h2o architectes
Program: Development of an office space for five desks, meeting room and shared facilities
Location: 72 Rue Clignancourt, Paris 18th, France
Client: Private, Hypernuit
Area: 65m²
Date: Delivered January 2013

Above: floor plan

Above: cross section

Above: 3D model view one

Above: 3D model view two

Above: typical modular desk units

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by h2o Architectes appeared first on Dezeen.