Room for synergy

More personal encounters

The site manager of the IT service provider adesso named “more personal encounters and teamwork” as defining aspects of the planning for the company’s new location. In addition, we can accommodate in-house project teams for a number of our customers in the new premises”.

In a Munich business park, the new move meant that two branches now came together. The synergy possibilities created by this were to be promoted by the interior design appearance, especially of the collectively used areas in the central axis of the floor plan. The building envelope of the property with its lateral atriums is a clearly cut and deliberately unobtrusive industrial building in exposed concrete, whose generous loft areas offered enough space for the designers.

Bright colours

The most striking element is the orange-coloured house within the house on the gallery level on the upper floor. It is complemented by walk-in meeting boxes in curry yellow and other colour-differentiated zones. The playfully applied surface graphics quote – inspiringly and programmatically – the behavioural scientist Jane Goodall, among others: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.

The intention is to encourage staff and guests, directly or subconsciously, to “think wildly”, to be creatively restless. This supports the concept of constantly reorganising the 450 employees on five floors into changing teams and configurations, to which the composition of the different open spaces contributes significantly.

Diverse workspaces

Introverted work areas such as closed offices get their counterpart above all in the “Interaction Room”. Its orange-coloured house juts into the eight-metre-high hall and serves as a creative multimedia room with flexibly configurable whiteboard walls. Below it are the forum, staff café and gaming zone for spontaneous communication.

Again and again, the interior with its clear geometry in surfaces and volumes and strong colour accents leads and facilitates the variability of togetherness. It correlates with the multitude of aesthetic elements and effects: pink armchairs and black ceiling, dark smoked oak floor and dancing lights.

What do you see as the supporting qualities of a good workplace?

We see our task as introducing new aspects into the discourse on future life designs. This includes stimulating places that people feel connected to, that invite collaboration, that incorporate typical moments of privacy and that can be used very freely and fluidly. For us, offices are hubs of future life in a city district, alongside other third places such as cultural centres and libraries etc., where work is possible in very flexible formats, where people eat healthily, where people spend leisure time together on green roof gardens and practise community. We call our conceptual contribution to this “my place*”.

Do you see any comparability in spatial design for living and for working?

When different worlds of life (work + private, learning + leisure …) interconnect and overlap, this means that the office must also offer identification potential in terms of design. As “home-away-from-home”, new working environments may therefore be charged with personality. Colour may play a role and especially: attention to detail is necessary. Structurally, such a building is characterised by a variety of offerings – at home, too, we sit at the kitchen table with our laptops just as much as on the sofa or on the balcony. Continuous design threads are important, but variance – conceptually and atmospherically – is indispensable.

Which material-related aspects are the most important for you in the future development of the Workspaces?

In our private lives, we pay attention to a healthy environment for ourselves and our children – so the idea of a sustainable approach to our world must also be a matter of course in office projects. Of course, this applies to the selection of appropriate materials and products. For us, however, another aspect is increasingly coming into focus: the aspect of a durable design conceived and produced with care. We care about the nuances that make up a well-tuned atmosphere. We love the complexity of the interaction of different materials with their surfaces and structures. In addition, we like to explore new materials, experiment and invent our own products.