Home rental website Airbnb has opened an office in Dublin with a reception area modelled on an Irish pub designed by local architects Heneghan Peng (+ slideshow).
The architects designed a horseshoe-shaped bar in dark wood to mimic the interior of traditional pubs found across the city.
The bar is complete with bottles around the top, candelabras at both ends and a suit of armour that is posed to be having a drink between the stools.
Tables and chairs in the adjacent presentation space are also modelled on typical pub furniture, and the ceiling and flooring echo the decor of drinking venues from different eras.
Continuing the local theme, a pair of green and beige Irish telephone boxes form booths for private phone calls.
Heneghan Peng also included the 12-metre-long bench it designed for Ireland’s Venice Biennale pavilion in 2012, which dips and rises as users sit on different sections.
Throughout the office are a series of meeting pods made from oriented strand board, with interiors designed to look like apartments listed on Airbnb from cities across the world.
These rooms are glazed on opposite walls and the name of the city that the design is based upon is written on the side.
Some have seating set into the outside walls for employees to sit and chat in, designed to look like different spaces from the same apartment.
Other larger pods are hinged at the centre so they can be rolled apart to split them into two meeting rooms.
Giant wooden steps are scattered with cushions to create an informal meeting area or workspace.
A wooden pod resembling the woven structure of a bird’s nest can be used for meetings at this sales office for a property development in Mumbai by local firm Planet 3 Studios (+ slideshow).
Planet 3 Studios was asked to create a sales area for the Baya Park development in central Mumbai and suggested incorporating it into the building’s lobby.
The designers produced a space that meets the practical requirements of a public reception while providing private meeting spaces, including a nest-like structure influenced by the birds after which the client company is named.
“Baya weaver birds make exquisitely complex nests and the brand name and identity borrow from iconographic imagery that is associated with the birds,” said the designers. “Our key idea was to build a sculptural, dynamic, fluid form that evokes the Baya nest in an outscaled way.”
The nest is constructed from a curving frame of plywood ribs that narrows as it nears the ceiling and is clad in strips of pine salvaged from inside shipping containers.
Its organic form provides a sculptural presence in the lobby, while the woven surface lets daylight from the adjacent windows filter into the interior.
Other references to nature featured in the interior design include a living wall of plants behind the reception desk that reinforces the client’s organic branding.
A green back-painted glass wall in a separate meeting room continues the natural motif, and complements dark walnut panelling that is used on nearby walls.
The Baya bird logo appears as transfers on windows, which are also used to create a pattern of leaves on the glass behind the nest.
Photography is by Mrigank Sharma (India Sutra).
Here’s some more information from the designers:
BAYA PARK, Mumbai
The sales office for a project is in a sense is a theatrical staging area, informing customers about the brand and what it stands for. The spatial realm in such a case has less to do with the transactional nature of a sale and more with communication in three dimensions to successfully engage, delight and inform. As the only available construct for the customer to validate promise of quality, the space has to hold high standards in design and construction. With customer delight and thoughtful design as expressed mottos, ‘Baya Park’ as the first project of a young developer will be the proof of the concept. Our mandate amongst other things was to design the sales office and we suggested siting it within the building itself. The lobby with generous ceiling height, easy accessibility from outside and required floor area seemed a natural choice. For the developer, the finished interior space usable as the building lobby meant less sunk costs in a temporary installation.
Baya weaver birds make exquisitely complex nests and the brand name and identity borrow from iconographic imagery that is associated with the birds. Our key idea was to build a sculptural, dynamic, fluid form that evokes the Baya nest in an outscaled way. As a room on the floor plan, it serves the programmatic requirement of meeting space but transcends that by becoming an iconic object that reiterates the brand identity in a compelling fashion. The voluptuous form uses the advantage of a fairly empty floorplan and 15′ ceiling height to turn and twist in a way that makes it visually interesting from all around. Constructed out of plywood ribs and recycled pine wood strips repurposed from packing inside shipping containers, this construct allows for light to filter inside creating an interesting play and visual connect with outside.
A live green wall as the backdrop for the reception area reiterates the biophillic nature of the development, offering a small live patch as conversation starter for the larger park to come up within the building. The logo colours are rendered in backpainted glass as cladding and layered panelling in smoked walnut veneer complements the green, cladding large areas leading up to enclosed meeting room. Mid century modern pieces of furniture, solid surface acrylic reception desk, identity makers on building glass… all come together to complete the look. Clean, contemporary and yet mildly whimsical… much like the project and the developer.
Interview: Clive Wilkinson, the architect behind the office design at Google‘s Silicon Valley headquarters, tells us how he convinced the internet giant to move away from “humiliating, disenfranchising and isolating” workers’ cubicles (+ transcript).
Speaking to Dezeen during this year’s Design Indaba event in Cape Town, Wilkinson recounted how he and his team had to persuade the tech company to switch from a typical cubicle layout to a more transparent workspace when the firm first worked on offices for Google in 2005.
“We had to do quite a bit of convincing to make the founders move away from their cubicle model,” he said. “We managed to turn all of their enclosed rooms into glass rooms.”
Clive Wilkinson Archtect’s Googleplex offices in Silicon Valley, 2005. Also main image
Wilkinson said that California is still home to the most exciting office interiors right now, because tech companies like Apple, Twitter and Airbnb are “phenomenally rich”, but that there’s still room for more workspace innovation there.
“The San Francisco and Silicon Valley area of America is a massive test bed of new working but it’s not completely radical yet,” he said.
However, Wilkinson believes that more American companies need to catch on to the way these firms design their workspaces, as the majority of them are still using the cubicle offices he detests.
“I’d say 75 to 80 percent of America is cubicle land,” he said. “Cubicles are the worst – like chicken farming. They are humiliating, disenfranchising and isolating. So many American corporations still have them.”
Googleplex offices in Silicon Valley, 2005
He contrasts these American firms with Australian corporations, like the Macquarie investment bank he designed the One Shelley Street offices in Sydney for in 2009. He claims their smaller size makes them more conscious about the quality of workspaces for employees.
“American businesses are very conservative and issues of real estate don’t tend to get the attention of the CEO,” Wilkinson explained. “Conversely in Australia, where corporations are not that big, real estate does get the attention of the CEOs. They are mindful of the massive impact that an environment can have on productivity and effectiveness of the company and are prepared to take it pretty seriously.”
Googleplex offices in Silicon Valley, 2005
Wilkinson said that he enjoys designing interiors because they have more effect on the users than a building’s exterior.
“In our design practice we are fundamentally trying to address psychological issues,” Wilkinson told Dezeen. “One of the reasons I really like workplaces and interiors is that the impact on humanity is much more powerful than dealing with inert architectural shells, or the decorative outside dress of a building – which frankly is what most architects do.”
Googleplex offices in Silicon Valley, 2005
He went on to describe the current rift between external and internal design, which arises because a building’s use is often unknown or subject to change while it’s being designed, so the interior isn’t considered until later on.
“The content in the interiors of buildings has become banal,” he asserted. “Interiors have become the element of human culture than you insert into the inert box of architecture.”
“There’s a notion that you can’t build big buildings for owners who have highly specific needs because needs change and therefore that building will be compromised by its specificity,” he added. “So architects are placed in a market of building shells.”
Read the full transcript of the interview below:
Claire Thomas: What are you working on right now?
Clive Wilkinson: The BMW Campus masterplan in Munich is the most fascinating because we aren’t know for urban design. It’s a huge honour and incredibly weird that we’ve been invited to enter an urban design competition with massive car parks and buildings and traffic – we’re not known for that at all. Fortunately I have some background in that before I got pigeonholed as an interiors guy. When I worked in London we did work on urban design scale projects back in the 1980s.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: You trained as an architect. What got you interested particularly in inside spaces?
Clive Wilkinson: Life’s a series of forked paths and you make choices without knowing what the ramifications are. When I got out of high school I wanted to write poetry – seriously, that was my life ambition. I wanted to go and do a literature course at Cambridge in England but my parents couldn’t afford to send me so I ended up going to architecture school here, because my sister was in architecture school.
I’d heard all about the first year course, which was a real Bauhaus course, where you didn’t actually design any buildings you did all these conceptual things like points and lines and space and sculptures. I thought it was mind liberating. I went into it not caring whether I passed or failed, and as a result I did better than anyone else because I was able to experiment and play, and not think about what the teachers wanted but do what interested me.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: Is fearlessness also something you aim to bring out of people who use your workspace designs?
Clive Wilkinson: I think there’s far too much fear in the world. Fear makes people sad and reluctant to do things, and it puts them mentally on a path of waiting for things to happen to them. In our design practice we are fundamentally trying to address psychological issues. One of the reasons I really like workplaces and interiors is that the impact on humanity is much more powerful than dealing with inert architectural shells, or the decorative outside dress of a building – which frankly is what most architects do. They don’t really think about the insides any more; they’re not asked to think about the insides any more because the content in the interiors of buildings has become banal. Interiors have become the element of human culture than you insert into the inert box of architecture.
Claire Thomas: What’s behind this inertia?
Clive Wilkinson: It’s driven by money. It’s driven by developers and by the economics of cities. And you can’t blame architects for that at all, it’s market-based. There’s a notion that you can’t build big buildings for owners who have highly specific needs because needs change and therefore that building will be compromised by its specificity. So architects are placed in a market of building shells. That’s very different to two hundred years ago when people could build gorgeous buildings that were highly specific but also very flexible.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: What is wrong with workspaces today?
Clive Wilkinson: There’s an unfortunate dilemma that has occurred in the marketplace where people feel disconnected. Our clients are asking us to do things that are not healthy at all, part of a fear-based reaction to the alienating and disenfranchising accept of large corporate offices.
Claire Thomas: What’s the worst example you’ve seen of that?
Clive Wilkinson: I don’t think many people build bad examples any more, the general trend is to open up the workspace and increase accessibility and transparency, and choice and opportunity.
Claire Thomas: Lots of people still work in old un-refurbished offices.
Clive Wilkinson: Cubicles are the worst – like chicken farming. They are humiliating, disenfranchising and isolating. So many American corporations still have them. I’d say 75-80 percent of America is cubicle land. They still want six-feet-high panels around cubicles and I fight clients on this subject constantly because it is so stupid.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: Who has horrible cubicles? Give us some names!
Clive Wilkinson: Google was cubicle land when we started working with them. We worked on the original Googleplex work space. We had to do quite a bit of convincing to make the founders move away from their cubicle model. We managed to turn all of their enclosed rooms into glass rooms. That led us to this interesting tent roof system that we used throughout their offices.
Claire Thomas: What’s your view on glass as a material in offices? Everyone is glass crazy now but don’t you want privacy at times when working?
Clive Wilkinson: We’ve had to walk the talk with what we do. I think there are simple behaviour changes that people need to go through to adapt to glass. I don’t have any issue with being seen all the time. We built our own offices in LA and all our meeting room front walls are glass. I work on the same type of desk that every one else works on so everyone is connected in the same way as the very large desk we designed.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: Open-plan, modular workspace with lots of glass seems to be the current accepted way to work. Where’s office design going next?
Clive Wilkinson: Workplace culture can be supported in a very sophisticated way by work tools, and work settings that are customised to different kinds of work – both individual and collaborative. That’s the future. It’s not sunk home in America yet because American businesses are very conservative and issues of real estate don’t tend to get the attention of the CEO. Conversely in Australia, where corporations are not that big, real estate does get the attention of the CEOs. They are mindful of the massive impact that an environment can have on productivity and effectiveness of the company and are prepared to take it pretty seriously.
What we did with Macquarie investment bank in 2009, using ABW, that’s Activity Based Working, a highly supported way of mobile working, I was told by Macquarie people a year ago that pretty much every other major bank in Australia had picked up this way of working because it made sense to give people choice and liberating them from paper, and reducing carbon footprint. We might as well be in the future now.
One Shelley Street offices for Macquarie, 2009
Claire Thomas: People are working form home more and using Skype and the web to connect. How long before offices are dead?
Clive Wilkinson: Truth is, we’re not as virtually well connected as we think. The amount of information that’s conveyed by looking people in the face and seeing their body language and seeing their eyes in person, hearing the tone of their voice and the subtleties of the communication, is enormous. By using something like Skype, the quantity of that information is reduced exponentially. You get 15 percent of the depth of that information. So coming face-to-face is never going to go away unless virtual devices take us there. But I don’t think they will. You can’t smell someone form across the street, you can’t feel the space they’re in, it might be colder where they are, you might misinterpret each other.
Claire Thomas: Which part of the world gets it right when it comes to using design to help people work better?
Clive Wilkinson: The San Francisco to Silicon Valley area of America is a massive test bed of new working but it’s not completely radical yet. They still haven’t gone completely mobile yet. The companies in that area are just phenomenally rich. Google, Apple, Yahoo and a stream of others – Airbnb, Skype, Twitter.
Claire Thomas: What do they all do right?
Clive Wilkinson: They all have to attract the same talent. One of the biggest motivators for creating good workspaces is being attractive to people you want to hire. There’s a the amount of effort and energy being put into that. We’re not involved but there’s a huge amount of creative workspace being churned out.
Nicknamed “the cheesegrater”, the 224-metre office tower was designed by Richard Rogers’ firm for a site beside the architect’s celebrated Lloyds Building and features one sloping facade to maintain views towards St Paul’s Cathedral.
The exterior of the 50-structure is expressed as a series of constituent parts. A glazed curtain wall sits over the criss-crossing steel grid fronting the office floors, while a ladder frame encases the fire-fighting cores, and a circulation tower runs up the northern side of the building.
Scheduled for completion later this year, The Leadenhall will house offices in its upper levels, but the base will accommodate a seven-storey-high public space filled with shops and restaurants.
Here’s a description of the building from Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners:
The Leadenhall Building
The building comprises a number of distinct architectural elements that provide clarity to the composition both as a whole and as a legible expression of its constituent parts. These elements include the primary stability structure, the ladder frame, the office floor plates, the northern support core, the external envelope and the public realm.
The structure aims to reinforce the geometry defined by the development envelope, which in turn creates the distinctive tapering form, and takes the form of a perimeter braced ‘tube’ that defines the extent of the floor plates. The ladder frame contributes to the vertical emphasis of the building, and encloses the fire-fighting cores that serve the office floors. The frame also visually anchors the building to the ground.
The office floors take the form of simple rectangular floor plates which progressively diminish in depth by 750 millimetres towards the apex. Office floors are connected to the structural ‘tube’ at every floor level without the need for secondary vertical columns at the perimeter.
The northern support core is conceived as a detached tower containing all passenger and goods lifts, service risers, on-floor plant and WCs. Three groups of passenger lifts serve the low, mid and high rise sections of the building, and are connected by two transfer lobbies at levels ten and 24.
The position of the northern support core relative to the office areas means that the structure is not required to be over-clad with fire protection, allowing the whole to be designed and expressed as visible steelwork. This articulated steel frame provides clarity to the whole assemblage.
The highly transparent glazed enclosure makes manifest the structure and movement systems within; its physical presence is a striking and dynamic addition to the City and a unique spectacle for the enjoyment for passers-by.
The building is designed to express all the constituent elements behind a single glazed envelope. Facades to the office areas require the highest comfort criteria in relation to heat loss, daylight, glare control and solar gain. Here, the facade is supplemented with an internal layer of double-glazing, forming a cavity which incorporates the structural frame.
The external glazing incorporates vents at node levels to allow outside air to enter and discharge from the cavity. Controlled blinds in the cavity automatically adjust to limit unwanted solar gain and glare.
The lower levels of the building are recessed on a raking diagonal to create a large public space that opens up to the south. The spectacular scale of the semi-enclosed, cathedral-like space is without precedent in London and will create a major new meeting place and a unique destination in itself.
Overlooking the space are generous terrace areas within a bar and restaurant that provide animation and views into the public space and beyond. This enclosure is open at ground level to give access from all directions. The public space is fully accessible by means of a large, gently raked surface connecting St Helen’s Square with Leadenhall Street.
The new Melbourne home of the Australian Institute of Architects is a 22-storey tower by architecture firm Lyons with a sculptural facade that breaks down into staircases and balconies (+ slideshow).
Named 41X, the tower sits at a crossroads between Exhibition Street and Flinders Lane. Its facade is covered with angular concrete fins, as a reference to the “chiselled masonry aesthetic” of Melbourne’s public buildings, but they appear to be cut away to make room for elevated public spaces highlighted with bright green accents.
“The design explores the idea of joining together a public and commercial building, by connecting the city street space with Institute occupied levels,” said Lyons director Adrian Stanic. “A major stair, visible from Flinders Lane, facilitates this and makes public engagement a focal point of the building.”
The AIA was the client for the project and occupies five floors of the building, leaving the rest of the floors free for up to 15 commercial tenants.
“This project enables owners or occupiers to create their own identity on whole floors within the building, creating a distinctively vertical business community on this city corner,” added Stanic.
Australian firm Hassell designed the interiors of the AIA’s five floors. These include a first-floor “design haven” containing an architecture and design bookshop named Architext, a cafe serving as a public meeting space and a seminar room.
A terrace is located on the roof, while bicycle storage and changing facilities are contained in the basement.
Here’s the full announcement from the Australian Institute of Architects:
New heights and a new home for architecture as Governor-General opens strata tower in Melbourne
Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC CVO, Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia, has officially opened Victoria’s new home of architecture at 41 Exhibition Street.
Developed by the Australian Institute of Architects, 41X is a 22-storey Five Star Green Star strata-titled commercial tower that accommodates the Institute’s Melbourne offices, including the Victorian Chapter, over five levels. 41X is the first strata commercial office building in Melbourne to target carbon neutrality over its 30 year operating lifespan – accounting for embodied energy, base building operational energy, transport and waste.
“41X successfully shows how private and not-for-profit organisations can have a positive impact on the development of our cities by creating world class, cutting-edge, environmentally responsible commercial buildings,” Her Excellency said.
‘This elegant addition to Melbourne’s CBD makes a bold statement about the value of design. With this building, the Institute is strongly reinforcing the value of architects and architecture to the sustainable growth of our community – tangibly fulfilling its mission of ‘making the world a better place through architecture’.”
Conceived as a hub for architecture, for Institute members and the public alike, 41X is the place for design enthusiasts to meet, with a design haven on level 1, complete with a comprehensive architecture and design bookshop (Architext) and a café run by Axil Coffee Roasters. In addition, the Institute is currently developing a program of public events focusing on architecture and design.
41X is situated on a small footprint block at the corner of Exhibition Street and Flinders Lane and is also home to 15 other purchasers and tenants keen to be part of this exemplar building.
The project’s inception dates back to 2006, when a detailed feasibility study for the site, encompassing a range of potential options for its future including renovation through to relocation, was commissioned.
After extensive consultation, the Institute’s National Council decided that the site would be redeveloped into a small office tower that would set new standards in quality Australian commercial architecture.
In 2008, the Institute held a two-stage design competition. The commission was awarded to Lyons Architects with a concept that explored ideas about the hybrid public/commercial building, the engagement of the Institute with the public and targeting a carbon-neutral outcome.
In 2012, following a rigorous selection process, Hassell was selected as architect for the fit-out of the five Institute-occupied levels.
Paul Berkemeier, National President of the Institute said “We are immensely proud of our new Melbourne home. It is an exemplary, small footprint, commercial building that shows how good design, sustainability and the work of architects can deliver outstanding results.”
Brightly coloured pods resembling submarines contain meeting rooms at the new Moscow office for internet company Yandex by Russian studio Za Bor Architects (+ slideshow).
The architects developed a scheme incorporating colourful communal areas and meeting rooms interspersed among more typical workspaces, which feature a muted palette of grey and white.
“The client, as usual, wanted to see a happy and comfortable interior that would hold a large number of specialists,” said the architects.
The red and yellow meeting cabins are located on the fourth floor, and incorporate transparent panels resembling giant portholes fixed to the exterior of their rounded walls.
Groups of sofas with high padded backs and sides are arranged close to the pod-like meeting rooms to create additional places for secluded working or conversations.
Original features such as brick walls and columns were integrated into the design, contrasting with new additions such as the colourful pods and furniture.
Two meeting rooms on the second floor are constructed as cave-like spaces with curving ceilings and walls covered in grey carpet.
The rounded shells of these rooms are staggered to make room for glazed gaps that allow light to enter, while curtains along the glazed front walls can be drawn when privacy is required.
On the lower levels, a stripe of green carpet meanders across the floor, and loops up onto the walls and ceilings that envelope glass-walled meeting rooms.
“The first three floors are connected with a generic element which is intended to form a giant ribbon that, while penetrating floors, forms streamlined volumes of meeting and conference rooms,” said the architects.
Curtains enclosing the meeting rooms on these floors match the orange and green colour scheme of the surrounding walls and furniture.
Photography is by Maria Turynkina and Dmitry Kulinevich.
Here’s a project description from Za Bor Architects:
Yandex Stroganov office in Moscow, Russia
The main place in Za Bor Architects’ portfolio is held by offices of IT-companies. It has a lot to do with a pretty informal and creative atmosphere that these firms are willing to build up for their employers, because working environment is one of the key factors that affect the company’s attraction. It is worth to note that Yandex – the largest IT-company in Russia, and one of the world’s leaders in this field, has been entrusting their offices to Za Bor Architects for six years already. Today there are 21 Yandex office in 12 cities of four countries of the world, that Za Bor Architects have developed.
Recently one more Moscow office of Yandex was opened in Stroganov building in Krasnaya Roza 1875 business quarter. This reconstructed building is full of columns and inter-storey premises, which influenced the interiors a lot. The client, as usually, wanted to see a happy and comfortable interior that would hold a large number of specialists.
The first three floors are connected with a generic element, that is intended to form a giant ribbon, that, while penetrating floors, forms streamlined volumes of meeting and conference rooms.
The first three floors have the following common elements of all Yandex offices, as open communication lines on the ceiling, unique ceiling lights in complex geometrical boxes, and compound flowerpots with flowers dragging on to the ceiling. Alcove sofas by Vitra are used as bright colour spots, and places for informal communication. Wall finishing is traditionally industrial carpet, marker covering, cork; and of course, a poured floor.
The fourth and fifth floors are constructed in a totally different style. You may only notice two signature elements of Za Bor Architects here – large meeting rooms – architects call them bathyscaphes, and employees named them Orange and Tomato due to their colours.
Such difference in decoration is determined with very complex construction elements and level differences in the building (the ceiling height varies from 2 to 6 meters), balconies, beams that were left from the previous tenants. Nevertheless, here we can see new colours, partition walls and flooring. Here, in these neutral grey-white interiors, rather than elsewhere, there are many workplaces completed with Herman Miller systems, and the largest open-spaces. Also there are cafeteria and game room with a sport corner.
This has constrained partition of the building into two separate office, in fact it helps clients and numerous visitors of Yandex Money department to deal with their issues, without distracting technical specialists, located on the top floors.
Client: Yandex Address: Stroganov business center, 18B Leo Tolstoy str, Moscow Project management: Yandex Architecture and design: Za Bor Architects Architects: Arseniy Borisenko and Peter Zaytsev Project coordinator: Nadezhda Rozhanskaya Furniture: Herman Miller, GlobeZero4, Vitra Lighting: Slide Acoustic material: Sonaspray Acoustic solutions: Acoustic group Flooring: Interface FLOR Time of project — 2012-2013 Floor area: 5800 sqm
British studio Snook Architects used industrial materials, reclaimed furniture and colourful storage units to transform a 550-square-metre loft in Liverpool into an office for creative agency Uniform (+ slideshow).
Snook Architects was tasked with creating a space that combined big, flexible workspaces, meeting areas, private booths, model making spaces, prototyping and electronics workshops, a photography studio, and a huge kitchen and refectory where the team can eat together.
The space was previously used as a storage area for shops that occupy the lower floors of the building.
“As relatively basic storage space the floor was more akin to simple warehouse than office,” architect Neil Dawson told Dezeen. “A series of roof lanterns lit the deep floor plan but produced blinding light during sunnier days.”
In its new state, the space features a series of monochrome spaces that are dotted with splashes of colour to highlight the eclectic array of clients and services the company offers. To counteract the lighting issue, the team inserted louvres that can be closed when the sun is too bright.
The space uses utilitarian materials such as chipboard and plywood. “This was to show how the with specific context the most mundane of material can be transformed into something special,” said Dawson.
The majority of the furniture was taken from the client’s old offices, with the addition of recycled chairs in the canteen.
To satisfy the brief, the team created three zones; the main open-plan office, a service zone replete with model space, photography and meeting areas and a social area for the canteen and games room.
A colourful storage wall in the reception area acts as an exhibition area, where new customers can see what clients the team at Uniform are currently working with.
“The wall itself is an active device. Panels can be clipped on and off as displays require giving an emphasis towards the office or the reception,” said Dawson. “Panels can be left off entirely to give visitors an enticing view of the work being undertaken in the studio beyond.”
The team also installed was a split-flap display behind reception. Based on the old messaging boards in train stations, this is connected to the internet to give up-to-date information on weather, date, time and financial reports from the company.
“The idea is to remind potential clients of the value of alternative thought and presentation within the realm of digital media,” added the architect.
Semi-translucent polycarbonate panels and wooden shelving systems create partitions in this officerenovation for a television station in Hangzhou, China, by Daipu Architects (+ slideshow).
Chinese studio Daipu Architects renovated the two-storey open-plan office to bring more light to the interior and inserted a system of shelving, cabinets and partitions to break up the different spaces.
Architect Dai Pu said he designed the interior layout to be similar to that of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, also using influence from the three-dimensional works of Italian artist Giorgio Morandi.
“No regular partition walls (plaster wall or brick wall) have been built,” Pu said. “The new partition is composed of very light cabinet and one centimetre semi-transparent polycarbonate panel, while the furniture, stairs, handrails and bar counter all come up to constitute the partition system.”
The simple interior features polished white floors with wooden desks, chairs and shelving.
A cafe, kitchen and a mixture of office spaces and meeting rooms make up the lower floor, with extra space for leisure activities including a ping pong and a football table.
In the lobby, a curved plaster-clad staircase with wooden treads leads up to the first floor.
Two rooftop terraces used as interview spaces sit on either side of a large meeting room. The rest of the first floor is occupied with more desks, a corner reading room and another small room with beds for staff members to rest.
Photography is by Xia zhi.
Here’s a project description from Daipu Architects:
Office Renovation of CCTV Zhejiang Reporter Station
This office renovation is located in west of Ba Gua field, Hangzhou, China. The site possesses excellent landscape; however, it was dark and gloomy in the old building. The existing structure had a floor-height of 3.3 m for the ground floor, and the clear height below the beam is only 2.6m, which is comparatively depressing for open office. The height of the second floor was ok, however it did not have enough connection with the ground floor. The old structure layout could hardly exhibit advantage of a double-deck.
So the first consideration was to build up a connection between 2 floors, the connection not only on physical space aspect, but also on psychological perception of people who will work here. People who will be working downstairs or upstairs could feel the existence of the other part of colleagues, thus to create an ambient of teamwork.
A lot of attempts have been made. Finally the Barcelona Pavilion of Mies and the painting works of Morandi give a breakthrough. The work of Mies only offered the idea for the 2-dimensional design, whilst the approaches of Morandi were good examples for seeking the 3-dimensional solutions. In Morandi’s late works, the relations between the main object and the background and their colour relations were becoming assimilated and simplified; it can see that the boundaries of many objects merged into the background in many of his works.
The approach is, if we take the furniture as the object, while taking the structural components like the walls and stairs as the canvas, then to make the object (furniture) merged into the canvas (structure), it can easily pass the perception of flowing to the people as the furniture is the very thing which most connected to the people. The space upstairs now is connected to the space downstairs due to this assimilated effect happened between the building structure and the furniture. In order to imply the space concept and work with the atmosphere, a few works of the Morandi’s paintings have been redrawn and placed in some particular corners.
There is not any regular partition wall (plaster wall or brick wall) has been built. The new partition is composed of very light cabinet and 1cm semi-transparent polycarbonate panel. The furniture, stairs, handrails and bar counter all comes up to constitute the partition system.
The prefabricated partition system saved the cost of on-site work, and it also avoided wet operation meanwhile it saved the time. The partition system, as the most important part of the construction had been put into furniture factory which has advanced equipments; this is also a solution to improve the perfection of construction here.
Location: Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China Design Architect: Daipu Architects Design Director: Dai Pu Design Team: Dai pu, Luo yaqin, Wang tiantian No. of floors: 2 Area: 640 sqm indoor, 147 sqm outdoor Program: office, dubbing, duty, outdoor interview, leisure, storage Client: China Central Television Furniture manufacture: Hangzhou Runzhu Science & Technology Co. Ltd Contractor: Zhejiang Sunshine Decoration Engineering Co. Ltd Design: 2012.06 – 2012.09 Construction: 2012.09 – 2013.09
Norwegian firm Eriksen Skajaa Architects has redesigned the offices of the team behind the Bergen International Festival, creating an environment that’s meant to resemble the backstage areas of a concert.
Eriksen Skajaa Architects created an open-plan office over two floors for the Bergen International Festival, a music and cultural jamboree held in Bergen each summer. This is in contrast to the old offices, which were in a bank and made up of individual rooms.
The designers say the open-plan design is more suited to the company’s fluctuating staff numbers and activity in the buildup to the festival throughout the year.
Eriksen Skajaa Architects said its design aesthetic drew on the idea that the offices are like the backstage or workshop for the festival itself.
The studio used a birch wooden framework, polished concrete floors, and black and white walls. Partitions of wooden shelving and vertical wooden fins along glass walls are intended to give the feeling of being in a workshop.
“We have focused on a production logic where it must be clear that this is a place where you make something,” said the architects. “Hence the element of wooden framework which can give the feeling that the project is not fully completed.”
The firm also made it possible for the festival staff to host small concerts and exhibitions in the new offices and designed the canteen so that it doubles as an auditorium.
The rest of the offices also include two meeting rooms, a box of shelving concealing the stairwell, two private offices and a small padded seat built into the shelving.
The bronze bust of the festival’s founder, singer Fanny Elster, is displayed in a backlit niche within the wooden shelving grid.
Workshop illustration
The company sourced its furniture from Scandinavian companies such as Design Office, Vitra and Artek, and lighting from Zero and Fagerhult.
The Bergen International Festival was established in 1953 and features performances in music, theatre, dance and visual arts.
Meeting room illustration
Photography is by Rasmus Norlander. Illustrations by Eriksen Skajaa Architects.
Here’s more from the architects.
The workshop behind the scenes
Interiors for the Bergen International Festival in Vaskerelvsmauet 6, Bergen, Norway.
Background
Bergen International Festival is a music and cultural festival to be held in Bergen in late May and early June each year. The festival is the largest of its kind and contains a wide range of events in music, theatre, dance and visual arts at the national and international level. Concerts are held in the Grieg Hall and Haakon’s Hall, in the four composer homes on Siljustøl, Trolhaugen, Lysøen and Valestrandsfossen as well as in a number of city churches, streets and squares. The first festival was held in 1953.
The festival’s former premises were in an older bank building with large individual offices and for their new offices wanted open plan offices for increasingly project based work.
We have therefore prepared a project with a high degree of flexibility. The use of the premises changes during the year with a shift from planning period to the festival period in which both the activity and number of employees increases. It requires flexibility both in the workforce and in the use of the premises. We also proposed to facilitate the ability to organise small concerts and exhibitions in the new premises and that way linking the festival as an organisation closer to the events they hold.
We established early some basic ideas for the premises: the festival offices imagined as workshops where the festival is made, but also the activity behind the scenes of what’s happening in front of the curtain. We have focused on a production logic where it must be clear that this is a place where you make something. Hence the element of wooden framework which can give the feeling that the project is not fully completed, and glass walls with frames and profiles hidden from the outside so that the boxes rather look like open spaces. We have otherwise had a clear Scandinavian focus on the materiality and furniture selection, while the festival wanted to stand clear in context with the Grieg Hall, Bergen Art Museums and theatre.
Layout
We have drawn the plans so that the rooms have some organising elements such as meeting rooms and the shelf-box around the stairwell. We have had a focus on keeping the lines and let the walls align with each other to create a neat and orderly plan.
On the 5th floor are two flexible rooms for different uses: offices for project jobs and dining room. On the same floor there are also two meeting rooms, rest rooms, toilets, storage, wardrobe for guests and a printer room. The dining room can both be divided with loose walls and used as a concert hall with a stage toward the stair core, or as used today with a grand piano placed at one end wall.
On the 6th floor open plan offices are reorganised around another shelf-box around the stairwell. We also made two closed offices. On the floor there is also a copy rooms and a meeting room that can also serve as a place for temporary employees.
Material palette is kept very simple and consists of a polished concrete floor, black and white walls with recessed plinth and either fixed plaster ceiling or acoustic hiling with concealed edges and large formats. Many of the rooms in the premises has walls of vertical wooden frameworks of birch with glass system wall behind mounted with concealed fixing. Rooms with wooden frame work have ceiling of birch and birch flooring.
The boxes around the previous round stairwell is in birch veneer with shelves, cabinets and benches and is used as a place to make a phone call or to small meetings. The bronze bust of the festival’s founder, singer Fanny Elster, also got a niche with lighting behind.
The furniture is from: Design Office, Vitra, Artek, Hay and Nikari, while illumination is from Zero and Fagerhult.
Architects: Eriksen Skajaa Architects Project team: Arild Eriksen, Joakim Skajaa, Julia With Size: 450m2 Year: 2013 Client: Bergen International Festival / Gjølanger Bruk
A curving timber-clad wall divides the work space from a multipurpose meeting room at the offices of domohomo architects in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Domohomo architects renovated an abandoned shop and transformed it into a compact office with a separate area that can function as a meeting room, classroom or events venue.
The addition of a bulging masonry wall clad in pale timber creates two distinct spaces; a light-filled office containing a large desk, and a smaller room that can be rearranged depending on requirements.
Openings including a hatch in the curving wall facing the office and a door in the other side allow the sequence of spaces to be visually connected and supplement the natural light reaching the back room from a large window next to the entrance.
“Everything seems continuous and uniform, but it is nothing more than a subtle game of steps and gates that, according to its opening, allows us to discover new stays or, simply change the spatial configuration,” explained the architects.
The original asymmetric floorplan has been turned into a regular oblong by adding fitted cabinetry along the entire length of one wall, which also provides the office’s main storage.
The architects employed a palette of simple and affordable materials, including fabric fixed loosely to the ceiling to create a series of inverted vaults.
Vertical wooden boards extend along one wall of the office, continuing over the partition and surrounding the meeting room.
“We consider wood as an optimum material to meet all our demands, both for the inner envelope and for the preparation of all the necessary furniture,” said the architects.
Wood is also used for the floors throughout the offices, and offers a warm contrast to the slick surface of the cabinetry and the white-painted brickwork which is visible on the rear of the curving surface and some of the other walls.
Our Architectural Studio, domohomo architects, is located in a former shop that had been in disuse in recent years, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It was the place we had chosen to develop our incipient profession, but we knew that the reform had to be governed by two very clear premises; on the one hand, the budget that we started was necessarily reduced and, on the other hand, we didn’t want to give up enjoying a warm and cosy stay to develop our daily task.
Delving into this second premise, we consider the wood as an optimum material to meet all our demands, both for the inner envelope and for the preparation of all the necessary furniture. Specifically, the front of cabinet that runs through the entire space takes special relevance, since he returned to the low a more orthogonal form and functions as a large container. In the end, thanks to the opening of booklet, we get that part of its interior to incorporate a general volume, depending on the needs of the moment.
Axonometric diagram showing new masonry
In contrast with this smooth and straight forehead, the rest is defined by curves and contra-curves of white timber. Apparently, everything seems continuous and uniform, but is nothing more than a subtle game of steps and gates that, according to its opening, allows us to discover new stays or, simply change the spatial configuration.
Axonometric diagram showing wooden surfaces
This fact is by no means capricious, but it is due to a very clear desire. From the beginning, we wanted that this reform is not limited to our professional office but that could also serve physical support to other creators to publicise their work. Therefore, generated two distinct areas, where the most exposed part is unveiled for our jobs, while the rear is deliberately more indefinite, well can function as meeting room, small classroom or venue.
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