As an office for an interior design company, the aim is to create an office space that is nothing like the traditional cubicle layout office environment with a relaxed, playful and fun atmosphere for both employees and clients. For employees, it can a relaxed, yet lively space to ease their mindset, to give them a comfortable, yet stress relief environment to enhance creativity. Also motivate employees to want to be in the office. For clients, we hope to provide a playful environment to facilitate their imagination and to be more open on receiving possible design ideas. A 4000-square-feet space filled shall be filled with leisure areas, workspaces, open & private meeting area, office room and most importantly a showroom to display different materials supply.

To achieve the design, the floorplan is carefully mapped to reflect a professional image in a fun and relaxed atmosphere. The main creative idea emerges by placing a Pool table in the center of the open office to achieve a recreational working playground. For working area at the far end of open office, the designer have adapted colors of the rainbow to create a feature wall. These colors are reflected by the sunshine after the rain creating an inviting and refreshed environment to enhance creativity. The rainbow feature wall helps to induce a fun and relaxed environment for more creative ideas to facilitate their work process.

It is essential an office is designed to fit its daily operation, further this office is purposely structured to incorporate different design mechanisms, such as using different materials and texture (including marbles, tile, wall paper & floorings), lightings, kitchen cabin, furniture and smart home control system to showcase the design work to facilitate design discussions with both staffs and client. Clients and guests appreciate such environment compared to traditional office to demonstrate the sprite of quality design throughout the office in a playful manner.

Now a days it is not compulsory for an office to remain in the traditional format, it can be fun, playful and entertaining to reflect a lifestyle to achieve a professional image. The fun and playful elements can be a natural source of endorphin to relax the mind and soul to make a workplace become an active playground. This would potentially be the best ergonomic for future workplace.

This project involved 5 full-time employees, including Eric (Chief Designer) to master the overall design with relevant parties and material selection. A project manager whom will be constantly on site to follow up on progress to ensure all construction is done according to technical drawings and timeline with construction vendor and coordinate onsite logistics, including delivery of materials. A construction manager to oversee and direct construction projects from conception to completion. An administrative supervisor to procure and follows up on all required materials. An interior decorator to purchases furnishings, coordinate items and decorate the space to result in a complete. The finance department also provided their assistance to ensure all payments for the project were processed in time, including the client to avoid any delays. External experts whom have also assisted including material vendors, whom constantly provided latest details on materials to enable us to select the latest and most trendy materials for this project.

For this project, the flow of design begins with a corner at the entrance area displaying awards and trophy achieved throughout the yearrs, follow by a large meeting room and mini theatre along a tunnel of material display segmented with 2 flipping doors leading to a main open space (including an open kitchen) with meeting rooms/ leisure zones / offices on both sides of the floor plan. The placement of a pool table became the center of attention at open area to amplify the concept of an office playground. The pool table is a physical form entertainment in many occasions, the lightings above is purposely positioned to project “ET” on each pool when placed in center of table as a form of lighting design. This aims to reflect company branding as well as a way to communicate our profession as designers in a playful manner. The usage of tungsten filament LED lamps are not lightings you will find in a traditional office.

The duration of this project took half year from initiation to final delivery. The total investment for this project including design, all materials, construction and smart home was around HK$3,700,000.

Users have expressed a genuine liking towards the design, as staffs enjoy the spacious relaxed environment to maintain energy level. Visitors tends to stay much longer. Many corporate clients appreciates the smoking/cigar room facility to ease the business negotiation process. Other enjoys the non-traditional environment to show a good design and material displays, which creates a one-stop shop for material purchase and design service.