15 Oct 11 Best Office Ever
Today’s modern offices are at the forefront in ultra-trendy, innovative workplace design, to be able to inspire employees and clients, make the best use of space and lower their ecological footprint. There’s been a transfer of focus amongst many companies around what it way to possess a productive office, and several firms now favour open-plan offices, bright colours, glass walls, and furniture which can be easily moved around by each employee to suit their particular needs. Yet countless companies are taking office design that one step further, and find out their workplace as paramount to building and reflecting the brand’s image.
From Google’s colourful HQ offices in Zurich, using its massage chairs, huge slides, and meeting rooms designed to perfectly replicate giant cable cars, to Red Bull’s head office in Alexandria, Sydney, using its indoor minigolf green, and upstairs bar area with pool tables – gone are the days when a simple office had a receptionist out the front along with a couple of cubicles arranged around an otherwise lacklustre room. Companies are now employing a few of the world’s top architects and designers to help them create office spaces that have completely inspired awe around the world.
Far from distracting the workers, the novelties found in a number of today’s most awe-inspiring commercial office spaces are intended to promote a contented, relaxed and productive workplace environment, by which employees and clients are motivated and encouraged to uphold and take part in a company’s unique brand approach. Many also have pointed out that these often bizarrely quirky offices (think Pixar’s offices in California, which resemble a real-life cartoon world) are not designed simply to see how much attention a workplace or company can attract, but instead, emphasis is placed on building an image along with a concept for the brand, while truly embracing all that modern architecture and true innovation has to offer.
Numerous companies with offices based in Australia are also now seeking to express the brand through their commercial work place and industrial office space. Industrial work place in Sydney recently drew the attention of some of the world’s top architecture industry personnel when Macquarie Investment Bank’s offices made it into the online architects’ community Archetizer’s ‘World’s Coolest Offices’ list for being one of the most trendy, green offices on the planet.
Macquarie’s offices, designed by West Hollywood’s Clive Wilkinson Architects, are a remarkable, visually stunning and environmentally sustainable workspace by which ‘meeting pods’ and employee lounges are made to enhance creativity and celebrate collaboration.
