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City of London Insurance Company Offices, LondonUK by Align Design and Architecture

Monday, April 1st, 2024

Article Source: Nigel Tresise

Align Design and Architecture has completed a high-spec 11,000 sq ft scheme for a leading global insurance company, high up in a glass-and-steel tower in the heart of the City of London. The scheme includes evocative cues inspired by the company’s Bermuda HQ location, as well as incorporating many wisdoms from the 3,000-year-old practice of Feng Shui. The latter finds form in the site plan and the placing of key activities within that, as well as through intriguing curved wall and ‘dragon’s tail’ corridor shapes. Many bespoke fixtures and features, meanwhile, from sand and sea blue colouring to ripple-effect glass and wall treatments, scallop-edged bespoke joinery and bespoke, stalactite-inspired lights, refer to the colours, shapes and textures of Bermuda’s natural environment.

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‘The client came to us with the task of creating an office of 11,000 sq ft of net internal space from a site that had been delivered in standard Cat A condition. We were delighted to form part of the team on this exciting and highly-creative project, together with lead fit-out contractor Overbury and project managers Savills’ Nigel Tresise, Director of Align Design and Architecture commented.

Brief:
The new space needed to have two functionally-separate office areas, incorporating 50 desk spaces each, plus an additional 10 executive desks in the south-facing section. The scheme also needed to include a suite of shared meeting facilities and support areas, ranging from tearooms and print rooms to washrooms and a yoga studio. Align Design and Architecture were given a very open brief when it came to the look and feel of the new scheme – and took part in a highly creative conceptualising process with the client on this. There were also a number of simple and subtle references to the interior of the floor below, to ensure a holistic feel, though the majority of the scheme is unique to this space.

 

A second requirement of the brief was to ensure a high-quality working environment by specifying only materials and finishes with either ultra-low or zero VOC emissions, including paint finishes, adhesives, sealants, flooring, acoustic insulations, furniture and furnishings. Align Design and Architecture sought to achieve this by working in conjunction with guidelines laid out by the Green Building Council, International Well Building Institute and the International Standards Organisation.

A third major element of the brief was to incorporate the principles of Feng Shui into the design. Align Design and Architecture welcomed the chance of working with this fascinating and ancient art once again, having had previous experience of its principles when designing the London offices for Cathay Pacific in 2017.


‘The fundamental axes of Feng Shui inspired the space plan from the outset’ Nigel Tresise explained. ‘Whilst the South in Feng Shui philosophy represents the capacity for vision and creativity and the South-East wealth and prosperity, the North governs career and business success and is one of the prime directions for achieving career goals. The East governs health, growth and family and therefore was a natural choice for the reception and guest welcome area, whilst the Western aspect is traditionally less linked to business and therefore needed to be well-connected to the rest of the space.’
The practice looked in detail at the eight points on the Feng Shui compass, ensuring it determined not only the location of certain functions, but also the softening of the overall geometry with as many as possible curved elements, limiting sharp corners.


Space Plan Elements:
The brief asked for the following to be incorporated into the scheme:
• One open-plan office with 50-55 open plan desks and an executive office with 10 desks.
• A second office with 50-55 open plan desks.
• A reception with visitor waiting and drinks area.
• A boardroom housing 15-20 people.
• Two 6-person and two 4-person meeting rooms.
• Quiet focus areas and collaboration areas within both office neighbourhoods.
• Water points, as well as a print and resource area.
• A comms room and storage spaces
• A gym or fitness studio
• A breakout space


Design Approach:
‘As well as applying Feng Shui principles to the space plan, this was a hugely enjoyable project for the design team when it came to working in subtle references to Bermuda’ Haroulla Georgiou, Associate at Align Design and Architecture commented. ‘This informed both the colour scheme with its blues and sandy shades, but also the natural references throughout, referenced via timber and planting. In addition, shapes and textures were designed with a Bermudian influence, from the ripples of sand and water, which find form in the bespoke corridor wall treatment and meeting suite acoustic panels, as well as in the use of ridged tiling, rippled glass and scalloped edges to the bespoke joinery. Two of the scheme’s most stand-out features resulted directly from this line of exploration – the tropical terrarium in the reception and the bespoke feature lighting that hangs from the corridor ceilings, which references the stalactites of Bermuda’s famous Crystal Caves.’

Design Walk Through:
Reception and Welcome Area
Visitors arrive into a reception area that immediately sets the tone, featuring smooth curved shapes to the ceiling, floor and joinery, inspired by the form of seashells. The reception desk straight ahead has a Corian top that swoops down into a lower, wheelchair-accessible level at one end. The desk can accommodate two colleagues with space for storage and equipment, enabling this to be a functional administrative position as well as a meet and greet service. The desk features a bronze mirrored base plinth with the front clad in vertical ridged oak veneer panels, a treatment repeated for the wall directly behind, with inset LED lighting strips at intervals and an inset screen for corporate announcements. The reception area flooring is in a ceramic tile with an organic pattern, including a touch of bronze colouring, whilst the waiting area furniture includes large swivel chairs by Brunner.

To the right is a floor-to-ceiling semi-circular terrarium, featuring plants native to Bermuda and created for the scheme by Grow Tropicals. This was a very technically-challenging installation with, for example, an inbuilt misting system, reverse osmosis filtration and a deep base to hold all the necessary technology. Sliding doors allow for monthly maintenance access. The terrarium is in a bronze finish to the top and bottom, with vertical ridged timber panels directly below the glazed frontage. The scheme throughout features planting that is all real and either naturally-preserved or freeze-dried, with its integration developed with planting consultants Exubia.
Two hidden areas sit behind the reception desk and the terrarium. First, directly behind reception, a teapoint / drinks facility for visitors, featuring ridged wall tiling in a deep metallic blue, a recycled glass worktop by Stoneville, rippled glass cupboard fronts with timber frames and scalloped-edge bespoke joinery. Secondly, directly behind the terrarium, a seating area for semi-private meetings. This stylish small space features a purple, semi-circular banquette and a white, Chinese-lantern style pendant by Zero Lighting enclosed in an orange metal finish for a shot of bold colour and a striking contemporary feel. The space has a small table at its centre and features back walls with thin inset metal rods set against white paintwork. The rods match the bronze-coloured frames to the building’s glazing throughout and this material use is picked up on wherever possible to harmonise with the core fit-out, used for joinery handles and mirrors in the washrooms, as well as the bronze treatment to the corridor and studio ceilings.

Corridors
‘It’s unusual for corridors to be the kind of design feature area they are in this scheme’ Nigel Tresise commented, ‘with drama coming from their curved, Feng Shui dragon’s-tail shape, as well as from the Clayworks ridged walls and a dramatic curved ceiling with bronze ridges that houses bespoke stalactite-inspired lights in three different sizes, creating a wave-inspired formation.’
The corridor lights were specially-made for the project by Atrium, after the design team couldn’t find the sizes and lux levels they wanted within existing product ranges. Atrium proved to be a very flexible manufacturer/supplier, able to create the lights at the exact size the design team wanted, with a routed detail at the base of each light to increase diffusion. Inset can lights to the edges of the bronze ceiling panels wash light down over the ridged stoney-cream walls. The corridors are in a forest green and white dappled pattern carpet from Quadrant.

Meeting Suite
Meeting rooms are located the full length of the corridors and are named after locations in Bermuda, from Whale Bay and Turtle Bay to Astwood Cove and Jobson’s Cove. The rooms feature good acoustic separation, with ridged acoustic panels inset into ceilings that echo the ridged finish of the Clayworks corridor walls, made specially for the project by Kvadrat and featuring edge-lighting along the perimeter. All rooms include microphones and speakers mounted within the ceilings, with an AV cupboard adjacent to the meeting suite serving all AV needs. The meeting room external walls feature curved metal edges and glazed sections, with the centre section rippled for privacy.

The suite of rooms includes two 6-person and two 4-person meeting rooms, one of which, bordering the terrarium, features a relaxed, lounge styling, whilst the other is a more traditional meeting room. The suite also includes a boardroom, arranged as two rooms with a folding wall that can be opened up for town-hall-type events, seating 15-20 people and with enough space for perimeter seating when needed. The boardroom’s demountable table is by Brunner, whilst all other meeting tables were bespoke-made for the project by Specialist Group, who made all the bespoke meeting suite tables, as well as the small table in the ‘hidden’ meeting area behind reception. The bespoke ceiling panel in the boardroom, which references the sandy ripples on a beach, was designed by Align Design and Architecture and manufactured by Acufelt.

Open Plan Offices
The open-plan offices are located at opposite ends of the overall space, with a shared breakout area. The room naming system reverts to functional names only for the breakout space and again for the studio fitness and wellbeing space. Small printer and resource areas feature within both office neighbourhoods, whilst staff lockers feature a mix of colours to the front, from white and pale blue to petrol blue in an eye-catching random pattern.

Breakout
The breakout space includes worktops with high stools and a banquette seating area upholstered in two tones of sea blue, backed by feature Trailing Orchid wallpaper by Osborne & Little. Ceiling panels are by Devorm, whilst lighting is a mix between can lights, spotlights and LED and lights for increased visual interest. Pendant lighting features over the bar area, with all the furniture in this area by Brunner, including shell blue chairs. The blue cupboard fronts are in a Formica laminate.

Studio
The Studio area is a zen space, featuring a full-height joinery wall with inset bench with storage drawers, lockers and plenty of timber for a warm, relaxing feel. The full-height glazed wall here, as elsewhere throughout the scheme, offers jaw-dropping views over the landmark buildings of the City and surrounding area, from the ‘Gherkin’ and St Paul’s to Tower Bridge. A large corner tree features for an added biophilic feel, as well as preserved planting. The flooring, by Quadrant, is in cork and the ceiling is sprayed in bronze with bespoke inset oval looped lighting by Formation.

Washrooms
The scheme also features high-spec washrooms to complete the scheme’s luxurious feel, with three unisex toilets provided, one of which is accessible. Two have a pink ripple-texture Solus tile and a shower unit, whilst the third washroom is in green, though using the same tile range. Ceramic floor tiles in all washrooms have a timber look and the cupboards and mirror feature a bronze metal trim, whilst vanity units also include storage drawers.

Nest at Glasshouse, Manchester, GB by SpaceInvader Design

Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

Article Source: Caroline Collett

Developers Bruntwood SciTech invited SpaceInvader to consider best usage for a lower ground space within its newly re-developed ‘Glasshouse’ building at world-leading life science and innovation campus, Alderley Park. Glasshouse represents the redevelopment of a former toxicology lab, comprising 16 separate buildings, arranged around a central courtyard garden, into a single, new 150,000 sq ft commercial office building, specifically designed for digital and tech businesses.

Status: Built
Location: Macclesfield, GB
Firm Role: Interior Designer
Additional Credits:

Photographer: Andrew Smith at SG Photography
Consultants:
Cubic Works – Shan Khambata – Director / Gareth Robinson – Senior Project Manager / Thomas O’Brien – Site Manager
Suppliers:
Feature carpet insets – EGE Mark of Time range
Suites & meeting room focus workspace carpets – Tarkett Linon range
Rubber flooring throughout – Nora Interface Norament range
Teapoint feature terrazzo flooring – Amtico Spacia Range
Brushed stainless steel for joinery – Formica
Timber Laminate for joinery – Natural Mandal Maple
Green solid surface kitchen counter tops – Hi-Macs Maui
The Corian back-lit wall from CDUK – Mario Ramano Walls Honey

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Super High-rise commercial tower in Chengdu CBD by Aedas

Wednesday, August 30th, 2023

Article source: Aedas

  • Project: Chengdu Tianfu New Area HQ Base 4# Site Project
  • Location: Chengdu, China
  • Client: Chengdu Tianfu Merchants Rail City Development Co., Ltd.
  • Design Architect: Aedas
  • Gross Floor Area: 117,527 sq m
  • Design Director: Ken Wai, Global Design Principal
  • Completion Year: 2026

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GIB Asset Management Office Transformation in London by Anthony Falzon

Wednesday, August 23rd, 2023

Article source: Anthony Falzon

GIB Asset Management Office Transformation: Where Values Meet Design
Partnering with Gulf International Bank (GIB), we embarked on a remarkable journey, revitalizing their Mayfair office spanning 12,150 sq ft. With $8 billion in assets under their care, GIB aimed to harmonize their workspace with their values: environmental responsibility, employee wellbeing, and brand excellence.

  • Location: London, England
  • Date completed: 2021
  • Size: 12,150 square feet
  • Design: Anthony Falzon

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Norodom Business Tower in Phnom Penh, Cambodia by Aedas

Wednesday, August 16th, 2023

Article source: Aedas

A Sleek Landmark in Phnom Penh’s Skyline

The Norodom Business Tower is a mixed-use tower located in Phnom Penh City, Cambodia. The project is designed to be a Grade-A office with a 5-star hotel, offering more than 10,000 sq m of office space and 226 keys for the hotel, with amenities like function areas, restaurants, a rooftop bar, a rooftop pool, a gym, and a spa.

  • Project: Norodom Business Tower Location: Phnom Penh, Cambodia
  • Client: TP Moral Construction & Development Co., Ltd.
  • Design Architect: Aedas
  • GFA: 34,984 sq m
  • Completion Year: 2025

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Collaborative film production live-work environment in Wuhan

Tuesday, August 8th, 2023

Project: Wuhan Film Production Studio Plot D and Plot E
(Residential and Commercial)

Design Scheme Location: Wuhan, China

Client: Wuhan Urban Construction Group Design and Project Architect: Aedas and gad

Gross Floor Area: Super high-rise tower and retail street – 228,948 sq m and Residential – 387,050 sq m Completion Year: On-going

Design Directors: Dr. Andy Wen, Global Design Principal; Yijun Qian, Executive Director

Wuhan is an ancient yet diverse city with a rich history and traditional culture. Aedas Global Design Principal Dr. Andy Wen and Executive Director Yijun Qian led the team to win the competition of Wuhan Film Production Studio Plot D and Plot E (Residential and Commercial) Design Scheme in the heart of city. Integrating the Wuhan landscape with cultural characteristics, the design is set to be a cultural-commercial hub filled with historical and functional features.

A future cultural-leisure destination in Wuhan

Located in the centre of Hanjiang district, the project is closely situated to the major roads and metro system, enjoying a convenient accessibility to link with other districts. Connected to the landscape view axis, the Cloud City has a spectecular view overlooking the surrounding landscape and Zhongshan Park to the East.

Site location

The overall Cloud City development is a mix of office, residential and commercial. The design promotes the integration of ‘sharing, connectivity and greenery’, to maximise the use of the L-shaped plot and to meet the urban planning requirements. To deliver an efficient commercial experience, the super high-rise tower that consists of office and hotel is placed near the metro entrance. Residences are allocated in the mid-levels, and the porous podium on the lower levels connects with other functions and irrigates the city with vibrancy. With the connectivity to the landscape axis, the skyline merges with the nature and landscape nearby.

Planning requirement of landscape view axis Planning concept Integrated design

Dr. Andy Wen shares, ‘Architecture needs to be multi-dimensional and integrated with features from different eras. Using our professional experience and creativity, we have adopted a micro-urbanism approach to create a timeless and people-centric development.’

The 250m super high-rise tower marks the highest point and urban icon within the district. The tower drew inspiration from the poetic Wuhan and authentic cultural symbol – having cranes flying in the clouds around towers. The slightly curved linear architectural form features a Chinese cornice-like crown on top, and a horizontal metal void in the middle of the façade. Glittering in the night, the crown mimics the energetic crane flying above the golden cloud. The building is cut asymmetrically and creates an interior collaborative space in the middle facing the park. Designed with simplicity and aesthetics, the tower also adopts efficient interior ventilation to ensure a comfortable environment.

Design concept of ‘Yellow Crane’ tower

250m super high-rise building The crown is designed in a form of Chinese traditonal cornices

The clubhouse at the crown enjoys an unobstructed cityscape view

The office, headquarters and 5-star hotel are respectively placed in the convenient low, middle and high zones, enjoying the city and landscape view; the headquarters is designed at the serene high zone. The vertical program arranges the communal collaborative space in between the functions, creating interspersed

interactive spaces including rooftop garden, sky lobby and wellness amenities. The openness, complemented with various circulations and entrances, creates a new spatial experience to connect live-work and socialising areas.

Design concept (shown in GIF) Vertical program arrangement

The podium adopts a L-shape layout, stacked by various blocks and linked by golden fins echoing the motion of Wuhan lake city. The podium includes a multi-dimensional garden, metro sunken plaza, individual flagship blocks and themed plaza. A vibrant shopping experience is created through diverse retail nodes and a multi- dimensional wandering pavement.

Spatial arrangement along the retail circulation Stacking fins through the podium façade

The corridor on the podium connects the functions and merges with the urban fabric and the retail street. The underground retail street links the metro and the surrounding developments to the north. The multi-layered circulation ensures a convenient metro and interconnected pedestrian system.

High line landscape corridor Underground metro system

Corridor seamlessly linking to the surrounding plots

‘Architecture is a powerful medium that resonates with the urban context. The design aims to break the conventional layout of tower and podium, creating a porous and interconnected development which merges with locality.’ Yijun Qian said.

*This is a competition scheme and does not represent the final design.

About Aedas

Aedas is the world’s only local and global architecture and design practice driven by global sharing of research, local knowledge and international practice. Our 1,100 creative minds with design studios across the globe create world-class design solutions with deep social and cultural understanding of the communities we design for. We create world-class design solutions that are tailored to the needs of cities and communities around the world.

www.aedas.com

Wentz Headquartes Designed by Marina Miot

Wednesday, July 19th, 2023

Designed by Marina Miot, a Brazilian architect from Rio Grande do Sul, the restoration project of an original industrial pavilion from the 1940s in the city of Caxias do Sul was conceived to house Wentz’s new headquarters.

The pre-existing architecture was preserved and the building’s original walls and frontages maintained. In the internal space, large white volumes and glass walls were created for better division, fluidity and full use of natural light, crossing the limits between external and internal, reducing excesses and connecting the space to the contemporary essence of the brand – silent, natural, simple and casual.








KOSÉ Corporation Renovation project for cosmetics maker

Friday, July 14th, 2023

Photo Credits: Nikken Sekkei Ltd

This renovation project for cosmetics maker KOSÉ Corporation entailed a remodeling of the firm’s 1,000m² office space on the 7th floor of a high-rise building in the bustling Nihonbashi neighborhood of Tokyo. Its completion also coincided with KOSÉ’s 75th founding anniversary.

Facility name: KOSÉ Nihonbashi Office
Location: 3-6-2 Nihonbashi, Chuo-Ku, Tokyo
Principal use: Office
Client: KOSÉ Corporation
Job Scope: Interior Renovation Project
Total area: 1000m2
Renovated Area: 7th floor
Construction period: From November 2019 to May 2020
Construction: TOKYU LAND CORPORATON + OKAMURA Co.Ltd.
Furniture Maker:TANK
Photo Credits: Nikken Sekkei Ltd
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Brainium Studios by Hacker Architects

Tuesday, July 11th, 2023

Brainium asked Hacker to design a modestly branded workplace that created a welcoming and visually pleasing experience while leaving room for the unexpected. The desired qualities were not entirely different from the studio’s own work: their game apps are unique, intuitive, and engaging, with incredible attention to detail, all for the goal of an amazing experience for the player.

Image Courtesy: Hacker Architects

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Zenyaku Kogyo R&D Center in Tokyo, Japan by Nikken Sekkei Ltd

Monday, April 24th, 2023

Article source: Nikken Sekkei Ltd

This project was for the relocation and construction of a new research & development center for Japanese pharmaceutical company Zenyaku Kogyo Co., Ltd., which celebrated its 70th anniversary in 2020.

In recent years, the research environment has become an increasingly diverse landscape, showing growth in collaborations with outside companies such as open labs, cooperative efforts with venture companies, and the outsourcing of research work. More than ever, higher performance and quality environments are required of labs, making it extremely important for research institutes to make connections beyond previous boundaries and with other researchers.

Mindful of this, an attempt here was made to convert the existing “closed/isolated” building type to a “closed lab open institute” type of structure. Although the term “open” is used rather loosely in the architecture industry, the conception held that it would carry great meaning pertinent to the building type of a laboratory.

Image Courtesy © Harunori Noda [Gankohsha]

  • Architects: Nikken Sekkei Ltd
  • Project: Zenyaku Kogyo R&D Center
  • Location: Tokyo, Japan
  • Photography: Harunori Noda [Gankohsha]
  • Lead Architects: Nikken Sekkei Ltd
  • Client: Zenyaku Kogyo Co., Ltd.
  • Construction: OBAYASHI CORPORATION
  • Site area: 16,733.31m2
  • Total floor area: 13,895.02m2
  • Maximum height: 26.060 m
  • Completion Year: 2021

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