The
office is a double floor space, with access on the ground floor and an internal
staircase for movement. The client asked that the ground floor be a space for
meeting with clients, holding meetings and generally a nice place to work (As
that was where she would be working). As the a lot of the grunt work would be
done upstairs and would often messy, so keeping that part out of the way was
best. In terms of meeting with clients on the ground floor, I suggested that by
making the coffee/storage are jut out of the wall an intimate space could be
created. If this is filled with a sofa, arm chair and a low table, it could be
turned into a waiting/reception area. The client loved this and
almost immediately called up some colleagues, telling them to
source an interesting sofa. A lot of the rest of the layout of the ground floor
was based around the sizes of tables and location of storage, so I couldn't
really inject any ideas into that aspect.
The 1st floor, being
larger than the ground allowed me a bit more space to get creative with the
layout of the internal elements. The office manager was to be situated
upstairs. In order to keep an eye on the rest of the staff a
conventional separated office wasn't wanted. Instead I suggest that
another intimate space could be created similar to the waiting room, which
would create a sense of hierarchy within the office
without completely separating the manager. The final aspect I had an
influence in was the location of a glass wall. A large amount of stock and
products have to kept on site as the offices main role is the quality control
testing and sourcing of stock to be sold back in the UK. The client stated that
this is often badly stored and looks a mess. I suggested locating it behind a
glass wall, as although it will still be messy it will be isolated and can be
hidden away slightly.
That's pretty much all I had to do
really, it wasn't much of a project but it was something that I designed and
actually got to see come to life, which was a first for me. So pretty happy about
it. Below are some pictures of the office just as all the furniture was placed
in. ENJOY..
