PROJECT INFO
Interior design SpaceInvader
spaceinvaderdesign.co.uk Client
Stockport Council
Size 6,735 sq m
Completion January 2023
KEY SUPPLIERS Lighting Tyson Lighting
tysonlighting.com Chiara Lighting
chiaralighting.com
Flooring Shaw Contract
shawcontract.com Egger
egger.com Tarkett
tarkett.co.uk
Furniture Senator
thesentatorgroup.com Mobili
mobili.co.uk NaughtOne
naughtone.com Orangebox
orangebox.com Ocee Design
oceedesign.com Workstories
workstories.com Frovi
frovi.co.uk Boss Design
bossdesign.com Gresham
gof.co.uk Modus
modusfurniture.co.uk Bisley
bisley.com
The new workplace strategy then informed the design and fit-out of the space, whilst firmly embracing sustainable principles. The building was stripped back to reveal key architectural features, like original concrete and brick and exposing services and the ceiling to uncover the building’s architectural features, whilst improvements were made operationally to make the building more sustainable. To future-proof the space, SpaceInvader saw the potential for areas of the building to be sub-let.
The new range of work settings provided to council workers encourages movement through the day rather than sticking to a fixed desk, with a series of room zones to suit different work needs. Work clusters alternate from collaborative to focused with ‘spill over’ areas between and an existing Faith Room has also been refurbished to support colleagues practising their faith during the working day. A cycle store and showers have been added to encourage colleagues to save fuel and maintain a healthy lifestyle. The interior colour palette draws inspiration from the Stockport landscape, as well as art and textiles. The design team looked for inspiration from LS Lowry’s paintings of Stockport during the height of its textile industry and similarities were drawn from the muted grey backdrops of the paintings, similar to the concrete base build of Stopford House, with pops of terracotta, teal and yellow finishes adding another layer to the Stockport-inspired red brick palette. The resulting scheme is a workplace full of texture, pattern and textile that creates a connected experience for its users.
Left, clockwise The Brutalist structure not only boasts sectionable meeting and social spaces for employees, but it also benefits from copious amounts of natural light due to its large windows
Above right The interior colour palette draws from the city of Stockport itself
Right Collaborative and confidential work environments are only a short walk away for most staff
Williams comments: ‘The interiors concept was driven by the building and surrounding site and took inspiration from Stockport’s textile history, in particular the contrasts between soft, woven textiles and the built up, hard environment of the factories that produced it. The relationship between Stopford House’s Brutalist building and the unique patterns and repetition this has to offer was also explored, feeding into the “Textile Towns” concept with a unified relationship created between patterns found in this type of architecture and the patterns found in woven textiles.’ One of the building’s great qualities is its abundance of daylight due to its narrow floorplate, with existing windows in their recognisably Brutalist style. Refurbishment included a greater number of openable windows to allow users to control their environment with ease. SpaceInvader also replicated the design of the windows as a design language in other areas of the scheme, including in a pattern based on
the shapes of the frames and the building’s facade, which has been used for manifestations in the meeting rooms.
Two meeting or training rooms are on each floor, with flexible furniture to accommodate multi-use facility and different employee needs day to day. Each floor also has a social lunch area to encourage further interaction and collaboration and to offer a place for coffee or lunch with colleagues. Pockets of communal space are dispersed throughout to support the council’s goals for increasing employees working together.
As well as reusing selected furniture from Senator, informed choices led to the prioritisation of more sustainable products such as Shaw Contract carpets which was specified for its carbon neutral manufacturing, Tarkett for its product recycling initiatives, and acoustic screens made from post-consumer PET bottles. Signage and wayfinding were carefully developed within the design team, using key elements from the interior design concept, as well as applying the council’s branding guidelines where appropriate. From a building longevity point of view, these were deliberately not too heavily branded to allow scope for potential future letting of one or more floors. Graphic patterns were developed for the meeting room and external glazing manifestations, whilst directional signage, alongside an icon suite was developed for wayfinding. Accessibility-awareness also included reviewing fonts for easy legibility and consideration of differences between text and background to ensure suficient contrast for vision-impaired users.
‘The Stopford House project was the result of an extensive process, from providing a business case for refurbishment, to a full workplace strategy engaging with all colleagues in the space, to the design and fit out of the building
and consideration of the future,’ concludes Williams. ‘The timing of the briefing period during the unprecedented times of Covid-19 helped create a unique proposition and pushed the client further than might otherwise have been possible, with a forward-thinking approach that has definitely paid off. We are confident that the thorough amount of research undertaken at the outset makes the resulting space the ideal solution for Stockport Council, and are extremely pleased that we were able to justify the argument for refurbishing the existing building rather than building anew from both a sustainable and historical point of view.’
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