Operative Base

Blue and yellow

There are three locations where the client, HANSAINVEST, is active, and these major cities – Frankfurt, Hamburg and Luxembourg – were to be given the sponsorship by name of those three floors on which the company designed its new Hamburg domicile – combined with affirmative and inspiring statements by personalities who were important to the internal project team and the planners at sbp. After all, it was about a holistically captured location in which people, brand and corporate culture were to be reflected.

The 6,000 square meters of space to be designed are now characterized by the corporate colors of HANSAINVEST with the dominant shades of blue and yellow, discursive quotes at selected places, specific special furniture, and a formally harmonized flow of space that connects all activities.

Oval Office

The project name “Oval Office”, derived from the unusual floor plan, contains an advantage that is immediately evident: Each floor has a central axis from which four differently shaped wings spread out laterally, their narrow dimensions providing optimal lighting and views for the offices and conference rooms arranged on the outside. In the center, there is just enough space for communal areas – referred to as “social space” and equipped with a kitchen, bar, dining tables and lounge furniture.

The central wing, on the other hand, offers a communicatively connecting access road and an individually shaped lounge area, the “marketplace”. The catchy motif was the inspiration for a 400-square-meter, multifunctionally designed and media-equipped communication area that completes the new company headquarters. It is intended to provide the familiar and, of course, also entrepreneurially understood place, which one would like to use for team meetings and evening relaxation rounds up to company parties, for speeches but also for customer events or lecture series. The explicit goal was to develop the working environment into a central operational basis and a cultural anchor point of the company with the help of a specific and high-quality interior design.

As a designer, how would you define the term “New Work” briefly and succinctly?

HANSAINVEST: New Work means agreeing on all the requirements for a modern working environment. On the part of the company and equally on the part of the employees. New Work touches on numerous facets of everyday working life: room layout, workplace design and equipment, common rooms and sanitary facilities and their equipment, technical equipment and its mobility (for example, for home office activities), flexible working, quiet zones, the visual design of the areas and offices …

There is currently a lot of talk about sustainability: Do you have a basic approach to this?

HANSAINVEST has a fundamental sustainability approach anchored in its business strategy across the entire value chain of the company.

Can you respond to the home office trend in office design, or should you clearly separate private and office interiors?

In the design of the areas (retreats for undisturbed work, flexible workplaces, space for exchanges among employees, rooms for leisure activities, etc.), not only can but, in our view, should definitely pay attention to modern and contemporary implementation. With regard to the interior, we advocate an office design that represents the brand, the vision, the colors and the branding of the company and anchors it with employees and guests of the company.