The Brief:
The Client were taking an additional floor to expand the current teams and reorganise their departments - they wanted to address the ‘new ways of working’ which they wanted to embrace but were unsure of how this could work for them and what this all entailed. They enlisted the help of TheJones London to look at the way they currently were working and suggest solutions which would improve productivity and enhance the office culture.
The Challenges:
Everyone is desk based - a height adjustable desking solution was requested as staff wellbeing was of vital importance. With this in mind - there is a relaxation Library complete with bean bags, massage chairs and outside terrace for the staff.
Due to the nature of the business they wanted solutions for various types of internal meetings - be in a 5 minute chat or a 2 hour brain storm. Creating areas which allowed staff to populate areas of the office other than their desk was key to this. Acoustics were also a factor in the designing of the space - ensuring that the densely packed open plan areas were offset by quiet focus areas with the use of acoustic materials in between the two.
The Solutions:
Various seating areas were created - a central ‘Comfy Drop in’ area with Acoustic panels to enhance the privacy of the area without the need for walls - and also supplement the reduction in the open plan noise. Quiet 2 person BuzziHives and BuzziTemp furniture solutions allowed for quiet focused working pockets, and open sided Booths such as the Railway Carriages were located between the T point / Lunch Room and the office area to allow for lunch time collaboration and these can be used at other times for 6 person meetings.
The High Pit stops dotted around the office were to enable quick get-togethers - something that was indicated was missing entirely from the other floors - and corridor chats were increasingly common - so this gave them somewhere to congregate. Video conference rooms and phone booths allowed staff to lock away any noisy phone conversations and there were 2 Quiet carriages for larger informal group meetings - these were sited on the opposite side to the railway carriages to discourage lunch time occupation.
In addition to all of these ‘break away’ areas - there were collaborative spaces which allowed brainstorming sessions for entire teams with write on walls and these were located nearest to the teams likely to use them - such as IT. There was also a Collaborative table which converted into a Pool table to enable the staff culture to breed…
