Week two’s brief was for an office space. There were three office briefs: a sustainable beauty brand, tech brand and a media brand. Each office was split into three parts, the workspace, breakout area and meeting room.
I cant say office design has ever been on my radar as something I’m interested in so this one was quite tough for me.
I was given the workspace of the sustainable beauty brand. Charlotte had the meeting room and Pete the breakout area. And so we started work on the design.
The Brief
A sustainable beauty brand is looking for new premises to attract its socially conscious and forward-thinking employees.
Each zone must feel distinct, with solutions in place to partition each area. As well as working to each company brief, the owners/clientele of the office building also require that the newly designed offices fit in with the style of the building. They must be:
• creative
• forward-thinking and bold
• purposeful
• individual
• Sophisticated and considered
My Approach
As the offices were one large room split into three it was really important to work as a team in order for the space to work. I put together my initial mood board thinking about a wellness beauty brand using lots of natural materials a muted palette. Charlotte and Pete had some great ideas so we all chatted over zoom to bring the design together.
Pete had the idea to use skin tones as our colour palette and I loved that we all agreed instantly to show a fuller range fo skin colours in the scheme. Breaking away from the typical monochrome beauty brands felt much more exciting to us. Charlotte wanted the space to have lots of greenery to tie in with the botanical element from a beauty brand. I felt very strongly that beauty should not be gendered and should be very inclusive.
The brief was for a sustainable brand, this really excited me as sustainable design is really important to me. Ours was actually the only brief that had a brand ethos mentioned and so we felt compelled to consider the sustainability element strongly.
We decided to use as many vintage pieces of furniture as possible to show that commercial spaces could be full of personality and still functional whilst being more environmentally friendly.
To continue to sustainable element of the design I sourced reclaimed scaffolding for my window bench and standing desks. The fabrics I chose for my reupholstery and upholstered wall panel were made from 100% post-consumer recycled polyester.
Part of the brief was to design dividers to separate the space. We decided that a modern office needed to be flexible and so fixed dividers didn’t make sense. We wanted the dividers to give the illusion of separation but be moveable for events and company expansion. As Charlottes design for the meeting room centred around a botanical mural we decided to use this design to ‘brand’ our dividers and bring some pattern into the space.
I really wanted to workspace to have different options for people (standing workspaces, lounge area, window seat and desk space) as I don’t believe a desk is essential, especially if working from a laptop. But I wanted the whole space to feel open and in formal so I opted out of adding any large heavy structures and instead painted a semi-circle above the door to zone it.
I believed a forward-thinking beauty brand would also require a social media and content creation area so designed a mirrored space, complete with ring light, to make video content and test products.
Lastly I wanted to soften the ceiling with waves of linen. To give the idea of fluidity and movement as workspaces are too often very angular and lack textiles. This gave the sapce a sophisticated feel.
I finished the space with practical additions such as a coat rack, magazine rack, product bottles, beakers and a pestle and mortar for cooking up new products.
The overall look achieved was considered, sustainable and creative with bags of vintage pieces and purposeful space.
Fabrics
I used Camira fabrics made from 100% recycled polyester and fabrics from a remnants supplier to fulfil the sustainable element of the brief.
Xtreme by Camira (for the four lounge chairs)
Chateau by Camira (for the wall panel)
Boucle from Remnants Rita (for the chair in the beauty area)
Botanical print in green and caramel with Charlottes design for the screens, scatter cushions and seat ads on the window bench.
Makes
My main makes for the office space were four lounge chairs. Bought for £20 on Facebook Marketplace these chairs had seen better days. The were covered in a very worn brown and green vinyll and the screws were quite rusty as they’d been stored in a garage for a few years. I decided to add a contrast piping and keep the sewn panels in the back for added detail.
My allocated carpenter built my window bench and standing desk from reclaimed scaffolding. I decided not to stain these as I wanted to keep the natural patina which I felt was more informal.
I also reupholstered a vintage swivel chair bought from eBay. It was originally beige vinyll and i chose to reupholster it in a cream boucle fabric to add some texture.
To showcase different uses for fabric within the space I upholstered a panel on the wall and added waves of linen to the ceiling. Both with the aim of softening the space and adding texture. I wanted to show that offices spaces can still be tactile.
This was the second week in a row that my artwork kind of failed! I wanted this retro almost optical illusion. But with so many colours and barely any time to paint by the time it came together I wasn’t entirely convinced by it. But as we’re not able to use art in the schemes due to copyright, that was my best option.
I also helped Charlotte and Pete with their upholstery which brought me great joy! And made us all matching cushions and seat pads using Charlottes fabric design.
Click here to see other chairs that I have reupholstered
Shopping List
Reclaimed scaffolding from Rugged London
Vintage cabinet, vintage nest of tables and circular mirror from Bright Sparks Charity shop
Swivel chair and ring light, Ebay
Lounge chair, Facebook Marketplace
White linen curtains for ceiling, Dunelm
Cork work mats, laptop tables, magazine rack and coat rack, Ikea
Plants and baskets, Covent Garden Flower Market
Vintage tea cups and accessories, car boot fair
Team
We had to work as a team a lot this week and lucky Pete, Charlotte and I all brought something different to the table. Pete suggested a brilliant colour scheme based on skin tones and sourced some dividers that were right for our flexible approach to the space. Charlotte designed a botanical print that we used for the screens and wallpaper in my area. And I sewed the dividers together and made scatter cushions to tie the areas together.
I had loads of fun working with and learning from Pete & Charlotte. And overall I was really happy with our space as I think it was very clearly designed with a beauty brand in mind. The office had a great feel to it overall and definitely felt versatile and flexible for a modern company.
And shout out to Geraldine/Gertrud of course, Petes massive plant!
For more behind the scenes info click here