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OFFICE SPACE DESIGN featuring Prakash N & Co Office
- Rohini Gomez Braganza
- August 14, 2020
- 11:30 am
- No Comments
ARTICLE CONTENTS
PROJECT SPECIFICATIONS
Project : Prakash N & Co – Chartered Accountant Office
Location : Bangalore, India
Project Area : 2800 SQ.FT
Architecture Firm : BARE.PINEAPPLE
Architects : GuruPrakash Govindasamy & Shivaranjani Kumbar
Project Type : Office Space
Completed in : 2018
A bulk of today’s workforce spend more than half of their working lives in an office setting. Although this may be an eminent fact of millennial work cultures, all office settings do not manifest nurturing environments that are important for their employees’ growth.
There are two scenarios of workplace design that are in existence. Both of them stand at completely different ends of a spectrum based on workability and acceptance.
The negative range
The most common of the two scenarios is this, a place that expects exemplary outcomes of its employees, but very often neglects their well-being. Shoved into tightly knit spaces with a lack of aesthetic sense, these types of offices seem to be more of a place to deteriorate than to thrive. Their configurations manifest large gridiron concepts of workstation-cubicle arrangements that have quite an industrial appeal, similar to a mass production line in a factory. Lost in the repetitiveness of such a setting is ‘you’, your individuality, your inspiration and your motivation.
How must you grow in your career with a lack of motivation?
Would you want to return to such a setting the following day?
These are a few questions we must all ask ourselves.
The positive range
On the other end of the spectrum, there are a handful of workplace design schemes that function differently. Their design keeps the end users as the focal element to their interventions. They are sensitive to basic human physical and psychological needs to enable them to function at their best abilities. Such office spaces also define the company’s culture and ideals, reassuring ‘you’ the employee, that you are indeed an important entity to an organization. Self worth and identity is key to great work productivity, which is what effective design strategies aim to achieve.
There are definitely no questions needed to raise here!
Let us delve into one such interior design office setup, that stands, in my view, on the better half of the spectrum. Courtesy of the talented design team of BARE. Pineapple.
THE DESIGN
The need
The office design intervention was created for a Chartered Accountancy setup in the midst of a bustling metropolitan city of Bangalore. The design was required to accommodate 16 workstations, a discussion area for 6, a CEO office space and ample file storage. Most importantly it had to be a design that was exceptional and impressed.
The execution
The designers aimed to develop a scheme that was more than just impressive.
Their design scheme gets fabricated together through different spatial experiences. Instilling a variety of emotions that would leave the spectator enthralled, inspired and refreshed. This experiential provoking approach makes an occupant stay tuned with the work environment, creating a boost in the person’s consciousness and ultimately achieving perfectly productive outcomes.
Let’s immerse ourselves into all the experiences the Prakash N & Co office has to offer!
The eureka moment
The entrance to an office space is often the signature impression and most dramatic showcase of a company. To stage a theatrical entrance with this in mind, the designers chose to achieve an experience of suspicion. The simplicity and opaqueness of the large entrance doorway, finished with vertical wooden fins and cement, instils the element of suspicion. Cutting all visual connection from what lies beyond, this strategic move indeed sets the stage for a great reveal.
As it slides open, a spectacular view surprises. A reception space comprising a tasteful palette of fresh natural tones and textures, suddenly drifting one’s experience from being suspicious to being amazed, in a very uplifting fashion.
It manifests a dark base canvas of black walls and ceilings, grey flooring, which are then accessorized with birch brown accents. These accents pep up the space, seen in the wood finishes and furnishings, along with refreshing views of potted greens. Strategically placed linear lighting and concealed light features from different parts of the space, bring the different shapes and textures to life in unison.
The most eye-catching element of the space is the intricate design of the reception desk and it’s backdrop. The backdrop comprises a series of ceiling to floor birch ply fins placed tightly close to one another forming a veritable wall partition. They sport a light colored rustic appeal, of exposed and polished birch ply. What gives this sole arrangement some definition is the way in which it is sensually carved into, to produce beautifully organic wave-like crests and troughs along the extents of its height and width. Giving it a very thrilling and biotic appeal.
The desk maintains a similar aesthetic language as the reception backdrop, unifying them into a singular monolithic composition. The crowning glory to this composition is a concentric arrangement of ceiling-hung linear lighting fixtures and opaque yellow metal pipe members. They intertwine into each other tastefully midst levitation, like a scribble of neon lines on black paper.
Deviating our attention from the dramatic reception welcome, we see an elegantly designed waiting area to our right.
The waiting area is a tasteful showcase of contemporary neutral-toned furniture and shade lighting placed against an open grid rack backdrop. The floor to ceiling ply rack accommodates a fresh display of potted greens perched alternatively into its niches, accentuating the freshness of the space. The waiting space appears to shun away a bit of the limelight juxtaposed next to the elaborate reception desk setting.
Walking past the reception, we arrive at the workspace.
The grind
This is essentially the engine that drives a company’s vehicle. A space that needs to be treated with heightened sensitivity and care.
The designers arrived at a neat and neutral look for the employee’s workspace area, making its overall appeal seem much brighter than the adjoining spaces.
It comprises an island-like arrangement within an open floor layout. Each island accommodates a 4-seater or 6-seater workstation demarcated with a light grey flooring pattern against the surrounding dark grey flooring. The design of this layout comes together uniquely in the vertical dimension, as the ceiling-hung linear lighting and flooring patterns try to imitate the layout of these work islands. Giving an impression of a resonating pattern effect from the floor and then terminating into a ripple of concentric lines at the ceiling hung feature.
The white washed walls and lightly toned exposed birch brown cabinet storage seen all along the periphery of this space contributes greatly to the fresh finish.
From the workspace, employees also get visual access to a bit of calm, for a relaxing touch.
The office calm
Every office needs a bit of calm space for its employees to unwind and relax from the rigour of work.
To achieve this, the designers treated the MS spiral staircase that connects the level to the upper floor, as a visually appealing sculpture. It is juxtaposed with a sunlit Ficus tree court to bring in a bit of nature’s calm into the workspace.
The elegant helix of the staircase is painted white and is finished with birch brown rubber wood on its treads and risers keeping in tune with the surrounding scheme. The walls here are painted in vibrant yellow unlike the neutral tones of the other office spaces surrounding it. As sunlight comes streaming in from the court’s double height skylight, the court gets radiantly illuminated, like a shining torch. Delicate hues of sunshine get reflected off the yellow walls and seep into the neighbouring spaces, making its presence known and felt. These subtle hints of light draws every attention to the sun kissed helical staircase and tree features.
The spiral staircase connects to the level above. The upper floor maintains a relatively open floor layout except for the screened CEO’s cabin. At the landing of this level a discussion space appears before us.
Where ideas converge and debates conclude
A discussion space in an office needs to be a motivating setup to kindle ideas and debates, from all of its participants involved.
The design scheme of the project adheres to this idea by creating an open layout configuration as opposed to commonly seen closed meeting rooms. A 6-seater discussion table is perched into an island concept design scheme, similar to the workstation spaces seen in the lower floor. It vertically imitates the same concept of lighter tile pattern on the floor to demarcate the island itself, terminating into concentric ripple pattern of linear light fixtures at the ceiling. The space is subtly partitioned off from the neighbouring spaces with a custom designed bookshelf, manifesting an exposed birch ply grid-like rack.
The head of the family
The principal of the company usually gets set in more elaborate aesthetics vis-a-vis the rest of the office.
In this design the CEO’s cabin manifests a gallery-like ambience, protected by glass partitions from the rest of the floor plan. It showcases the artistry of a carefully sculptured work table placed central to the layout, which is the CEO’s desk. It is highlighted in a similar fashion as the reception and workstation islands. Concentric linear lighting crowns overhead against glossy lacquer painted black ceilings, and light grey tiles form an island pattern on the floor. The backdrop features the entire length of the cabin, sporting a striated exposed birch ply feature from mid wall height to ceiling and sideboard storage cabinets of the same tone. With a view of the skylit court beyond, the space gets to experience its radiance through the protection of the glass partition. The cabin spills out into a serene balcony setting midst potted greens, as a place for the CEO to unwind.
The 9’x4’6’’ table was custom designed as a centrepiece by layering strips of exposed birch ply into a unique organic formation. The designers put an artistic twist to the conventional four legged rectangular table. By eradicating the four posters and creating an accentuated wavelength like profile at diagonally opposite corners of the rectangular tablelayout. The troughs of the wavelength come in contact with the floor, balancing the table top from just 2 corners. This gives it a floating appeal, supporting a white Corian table top as the final finish.
The fuel tank
An office cafeteria is ideally a space to unwind and refuel. A place that is visually calming and less restricted in terms of pedestrian movement.
Employees of the Prakash N & Co office can access the cafeteria from the main entrance of the office setup. The space has a refreshingly spacious and minimalist appeal to it, with a simple color palette of white and grey, and brown accents. Its spacious layout and colors, together manifest a free airy space to breathe and relax.
In elevation the dining space is segregated into sub-spaces with the use of differential canopy heights. The taller canopy painted in white and supported by black MS members, forms the protective coverage for the entire space. Whilst the shorter canopy creates a more intimate setting because of its closeness to human anthropometry. It is finished with a checkered pattern of natural bamboo supported on MS box section posters. This space is further demarcated with dark grey floor tiling from the rest of the white checkered tile surrounding space, creating a bit of definition and variety. The open floor layout accommodates custom designed and contemporary furniture. They comprise 6-seater tables made of white painted MS members and grey tile surface tops for the tables. Each table has differential seating designs of chairs and benches, creating quite a casual atmosphere.
A UNIQUE DESIGN INTERVENTION
The Prakash N & Co office setup is a vibrant presentation catering to an array of experiences through its careful collaboration of spaces. The uniqueness of each space in its palette of shapes, tones and textures gives a spectator a great sense of place and consciousness. All these spaces come together harmoniously to instil a sense of community and identity. This element of unity through individuality is indeed paramount for an employee’s sense of self esteem in the workplace.
Taking this office as a great example of office space design, it is important to comprehend that through the entire design scheme, there was only one entity that was the driving force to achieve a successful intervention.
An entity without which a company can indeed not function to achieve the growth rate forecast it sets out to establish.
That one entity is…..the employee!
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Project drawings, specifications & Photography provided by the Architecture Firm, BARE.Pineapple
Analysis & Article written by
Architect Rohini Gomez Braganza