Monday, August 15, 2011

Total Office Design

Total Office Design: 50 Contemporary Workplaces is a new book by Helen Parton and Kerstin Zumstein published by Thames & Hudson (who will be publishing the Bookshelf book early 2012). It's a marvellous, well-illustrated look at interesting workplaces, none of which are boring, expensive or harmful to the environment (you'll recognise a few which have been featured on Shedworking over the years but the majority will be fresh delights).

The book - which is out now and available in all the normal places - is organized into separate sections featuring small, medium and large projects, each one fully illustrated with photographs, drawings and plans. It's as thorough a job as you'd expect from Zumstein and Parton who are specialist design and architect journalists, familiar to many of you from their work at onoffice magazine which is one of our daily reads.

We asked Helen to pick our four of the most shedlike entries exclusively for Shedworking and here they are:

Bearstech, Paris
This is an office of an IT firm Bearstech in Paris. The architect, Paul Coudamy, sourced scrap wood from skips around Paris to create a cave-like (or could that be shedlike) interior within an interior and a seriously cosy atmosphere.


YCN, London
This is the office of a creative agency that promotes design in Shoreditch. The designer, Tomas Klassnik, used inexpensive materials such as plywood, as often found in the shed, and plenty of surfaces on which to brainstorm. There was a real DIY ethos to this project, something any shedworker would be proud of!


Van Der Architects Studio, Tokyo
In order to think outside the box, Van Der Architects brought the box, or make the walls from an old Japanese house inside. The result is distinctly shedlike. The idea with the design of this office is to make the employees feel like it's a home from home, hence the domestic influences.


KK Outlet, London
Is it an advertising agency, is it a shop, is it a gallery space? Well this Hoxton Square space, designed by architects FAT, is all three. It's an intimate space, not much bigger than your average shed, and uses quite basic materials such as rubber flooring and ceramic tiling but nonetheless manages to be an inspiring working environment where great ideas are born.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday posts are sponsored by garden2office, the Swedish garden office specialists. Click here for more details.

No comments:

Post a Comment