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project report – ogilvy and mather


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•Longest commercial frontage on the Thames


•Net internal area (NIA): 21,000 m2 over 11 floors


•38 per cent of NIA contains workstations


•Holds 2,300 people and 1,700 workstations


•No ‘traditional’ cellular offices


© Gareth Gardner Two newly created top floors contain exciting shared spaces


including the Cucumber Terrace bistro, the Sunset Bar, staff canteen, 200-seat amphitheatre and rooftop terrace accommodating 140 people – all with superb views over the river and the capital. Although seamlessly linked together, these areas nevertheless retain a distinctive identity and character. Artwork installations are located around the building and


in certain areas the original concrete interior has been exposed as an attractive finished surface in its own right. Ultimately, the overall impression the client and design


teams have been striving for is to create something that feels more like a large, involving cultural space than an office envi- ronment for 2,700 people.


Initial brief


BDG Matheson Whiteley’s involvement in the project began in 2013 after winning the design competition held by Ogilvy and Mather. The partnership had capitalised on BDG’s office design expertise and proven talent of Matheson Whiteley’s architects for creating public exhibition space, including work on the Tate Modern. The client’s fundamental brief was to relocate to a creatively


stimulating office space suitable for flexible working. One that would bring its 10 branded companies together in a single building, creating a critical mass while enabling each company to retain a sense of independence, brand and cultures.


‘On paper it didn’t meet the demands of a modern office, but we argued the building’s quirks could be exploited to achieve defined locations for the different brands’


Initially it was purely conceptual with no specified size or


location but during the competition it was revealed that the new office would be at Sea Containers House, on a 21-year lease. “All our concepts and thoughts now had to be applied to


that building,” explains BDG creative director Colin Macgadie. “It’s a fascinating structure compared to the more modern buildings on the market at the time but presented a complex challenge, having been designed as a hotel around a dense structural grid and containing a variety of different environments. Macgadie adds: “Our evidence-based design showed how a


diversity of environment with the right mix of scale and type of space would work, retaining brand identities while enabling greater intermixing between them. At the same time this approach offers flexibility should the organisation contract or expand. “Using scientifically-based analysis and modelling, we proposed creating many different work and social spaces.


BUILDING PROJECTS


www.architectsdatafile.co.uk


•30 per cent head count growth possible without modifying the building


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