Mix Interiors 162

Mix Interiors 162

March 2016

Sit. Stand. Move. Repeat.

At Herman Miller we have always believed in the importance of changing your posture throughout the day. The Ratio height-adjustable desk enables a smooth transition between sitting and standing. www.hermanmiller.co.uk/ratio

Mix Interiors 162

Inside 66

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neunzig design

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Upfront

Spotlight

The Round Table

Review

14 Seven...

34 The Big Question

Case Studies

18 This month in...

36 The Manufacturing Report

29 Material Matters

60 Profile 60 neunzig design

30 Desert Island Desks

66 Ipsos MORI, London 72 Royal Pharmaceutical Society, London

780 Regional Review – Yorkshire 84 Surface Design Show 86 The Water Studio

88 Just an idea

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Mix Interiors 162

The cover The logo

An inspired design based on the cover image and this month’s regional feature on Yorkshire. Developed on the day the famous Yorkshire Steam Engine ‘The Flying Scotsman’ made its first journey since being restored – an ideal opportunity to celebrate this wonderful occasion. www.structuralinteriors.co.uk

The cover image The Axor WaterDream, created by Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken and Anna Lindgren, allows us to experience the path water takes in its most original form. With a simplicity that is characteristic of Scandinavian design, Front presents the WaterDream as an homage to artisanry and to the aesthetics inherent in technology and installation. www.hansgrohe.com

Back issues Contact us to buy back issues: rebecca@mixinteriors.com

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word

from Mick I’m sat on a train as I write this. I should be heading towards Manchester at a rate of knots, but instead I’m simultaneously looking across the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent and listening in to a conversation four guys are having alongside me. We haven’t moved for the best part of an hour.

The conversation – which has inspired me to write this leader – is, incredibly given our current status, damning the government’s plans for HS2, HS3 – and don’t even get these guys started on Crossrail and Crossrail 2 in that London!

I desperately want to interrupt. I want to tell these gents that, as someone who not only travels in and out of London regularly, as someone who circumnavigates the capital at least a couple of times a week, and also as someone who heads up and down the country every month, these delays are not rare (as one guy suggests). In fact, they are becoming

more and more common. Our beautiful British forefathers created an incredible, worldleading infrastructure for Victorian Britain.

Now we need a second revolution. It's not only London that is now creaking when it comes to road and rail links – it is prevalent in all of our conurbations. I don’t care if these guys feel that these masterplans are ‘a complete waste of money’. What I do care about is our creaking system eventually and irretrievably breaking.

One of the guys is now showing a photo of his sons. I wonder if he’s even spared a thought for how they and future generations will cope (or not) without these advancements.

Changing tack somewhat, it suddenly struck us that the date of the Euro referendum coincides with our own Mixology event in London. So, while you're contemplating whether we should stay or go, please do have a think about entering the Mixology awards.

You've got to be in it to win it!

Get in touch Editor Mick Jordan mick@mixinteriors.com Editorial support Rebecca Bignell rebecca@mixinteriors.com

Address Mix Media Limited 2 Abito 85 Greengate Manchester M3 7NA Telephone 0161 946 6262

Director David Smalley david@mixinteriors.com

e-mail editorial@mixinteriors.com

Designer Rob Jozefowski rob@mixinteriors.com

Website www.mixinteriors.com

Managing director Marcie Incarico marcie@mixinteriors.com Founding publisher Henry Pugh

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Twitter @mixinteriors Contributors Mark Eltringham Steve Gale

Subscriptions To ensure that a regular copy of Mix Interiors reaches your desk, please call 0161 946 6262 or e-mail: sales@mixinteriors.com Annual subscription charges UK single £45.50, UK corporate (up to 5 individuals) £140, Europe £135 (airmail), Outside Europe £165 (airmail).

Printed by S&G Print ISSN 1757-2371

We challenge you to feel something new—like the remarkable softness that only comes from Ultrafabrics . ®

www.ultrafabricsllc.com Keep your eyes open for our Ultratech™ launch. Coming April 2016.

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Mix Interiors 160

London Showroom

32 Clerkenwell Road London EC1M 5PS +44 (0) 203 397 4878 uksales@thinking.info thinking.info

London Showroom 32 Clerkenwell Road London EC1M 5PS +44 (0) 203 397 4878 uksales@thinking.info thinking.info 4

Touch

Evolution of the Work Chair

Touch is inspired by lightness, fluidity and hidden complexity.

Designed for use in short bursts of activity, it is an evolution of the original work chair concept.

Mix Interiors 160

in Concrete

+44 (0)20 7388 8599

info@isomi.com

www.isomi.com 6

Mix Interiors 160

Lintel Innovative modular desk system in concrete designed by Paul Crofts Visit our new Clerkenwell showroom 1 Sans Walk, London EC1

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Mix Interiors 160

Just like our friend Michael Pawlyn, we take inspiration from nature.

We manufacture innovative and sustainable carpet tiles and Michael creates incredibly radical and restorative building designs – for a more sustainable world.

#BeautifulThinking is taking inspiration from nature to create resource-efficient buildings and sustainable carpet tiles.

www.interface.com/beautifulthinking 8

Mix Interiors 160

Image courtesy of the Sahara Forest Project Foundation

Michael Pawlyn Exploration Architecture Leading Biomimicry Expert

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Near & Far NF400 & NF401 – Hemp

Mix Interiors 160

The ideal working environment is different for every individual. This is why a better understanding of the relationship between personality types and office landscapes can help enhance productivity & wellbeing.

Find out more: www.kieurope.com/loveyourworkspace

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#loveyourworkspace Mix Interiors 160

KI’s portfolio of workplace furniture helps some of the world’s leading organisations create happy, healthy, high performing working environments for their people.

KI Europe New Fetter Place 8-10 New Fetter Lane London EC4A 1AZ E: workplace@kieurope.com W: www.kieurope.com 11

Mix Interiors 160

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Mix Interiors 160

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Upfront

Reasons to be a proud Yorkshireman (or lass) We should all be proud of where we came from, where we grew up and where we live. This month, in line with our regional focus on Yorkshire, the team at CMD tell us why they’re proud of their Yorkshire heritage.

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1 MUSIC You’d be forgiven for automatically thinking of Liverpool and Manchester when talking about UK music capitals but Sheffield has a long history of producing world class musical acts.

The last four decades have seen the rise of many Yorkshire superstars such as Joe Cocker, Human League, Pulp and the Arctic Monkeys – and we now even have our own nationally renowned Tramlines music festival, which take place all over Sheffield on 22-24 July.

1 4 ARCHITECTURE Yorkshire is blessed with some truly magnificent buildings; from the 12th century Rievaulx Abbey, situated near Helmsley in the beautiful North Yorkshire Moors National Park and York Minster, the 14th Century gothic masterpiece in the Centre of York, to the brutalist Hyde Park flats that signified the beginning of the ‘Streets in the Sky’ revolution in Sheffield in the late 1960s.

2 ART The South Yorkshire Sculpture Park, is located in West Bretton in Wakefield and is an open air gallery space designed to celebrate the works of British and international artists such as Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. Situated in the grounds of Bretton Hall, the park was awarded the Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year in 2014.

3 INDUSTRY Britain is a ‘Great’ place – literally. Past industries were fuelled by coal pulled from the South Yorkshire coalfield and built using world famous Sheffield steel. But as the coal and steel industries sadly fall into decline, industrial hopes are reignited with the development of the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC), located in Rotherham and occupied by organisations such as Nuclear AMRC, Castings Technology International (Cti) and Rolls Royce.

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Upfront 5 YORKSHIRE MAN OF STEEL The South Yorkshire skyline is soon to have a new attraction – a 32 metre high Man of Steel, designed by local sculptor Steve Mehdi. This iconic stainless steel landmark will be located close to junction 34 of the M1 and work is due to be completed by 2017.

7 ROBIN HOOD We all know the stories of Robin Hood and his merry men; steeling from the rich and giving to the poor and living amongst the flora and forna of Sherwood Forest, Nottingham. But tradition going back to the 16th century names Robin Hood’s birthplace as Loxley, Sheffield, with early ballads from a century earlier mentioning events in medieval forests of Barnsdale, to the north of Doncaster.

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6 WENTWORTH WOODHOUSE This beautiful Grade I listed building is located in Wentworth and at 180m has the longest country house façade in Europe.

Originally a Jacobean house, it was rebuilt by Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Rockingham. The grounds and surrounding area contain a number of follies, which include Hoober Stand, Keppel’s Column and Needle’s Eye.

9.00 am

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Upfront

Sophisticated simplicity

Launching at Clerkenwell Design Week 2016 www.humanscale.com 16

Upfront

ALIGNED WITH BRAND OPUS Featured in Mix Interiors last year, align’s office project for BrandOpus (pictured right) is a spectacular three-storey scheme within the former Freemantle TV Studios; part of the 1-2 Stephen Street development by Derwent London. The scheme, and has gone on to win major awards in London and Shenzhen, picking up Gold at the London Design Awards for Best Corporate Interior and, on the other side of the world, the Annual Office Design Award at the Modern Decoration International Media Awards in China. Well done to align, who also won ‘Best Small Practice 2015’ at the London Design Awards towards the end of last year.

ETHICALLY CREATED Milliken has been recognised as a 2016 World’s Most Ethical Company by the Ethisphere Institute.

Milliken is one of just 14 companies to receive this honour every year since Ethisphere’s inception in 2007 and one of 21 privately held companies to be recognised this year.

'The landscape of corporate ethics is changing, driven by an increasing desire for transparent relationships with companies in the industries and local communities in which they operate,' shared Joe Salley, Milliken & Company president and CEO. 'Milliken’s 150 years demonstrate what few companies can: a sustainable business advantage supported by their values and commitment to ethics and innovation,' explained Ethisphere CEO Timothy Erblich.

There were four UK companies named in the list and these included National Grid (see page 22) and everyone’s favourite, M&S. Scores are generated in five key categories: ethics and compliance program (35%), corporate citizenship and responsibility (20%), culture of ethics (20%), governance (15%) and leadership, innovation and reputation (10%) and provided to all companies who participate in the process.

LOOSE FURNISHING DEMOUNTABLE PARTITIONS BESPOKE JOINERY

PROGRESS WORK PLACE SOLUTIONS

info@progressfurnishing.co.uk London 020 7836 3636 HQ 01634 290 988 www.progressfurnishing.co.uk

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Upfront

This month in...

Here we take a look back through the Mix Interiors archives 1, 5 and 10 years ago

2006 2011 2015 WHERE

WHERE

WHERE

MACLAY MURRAY & SPENS ‘We explained that whilst in some cases we would be taking offices away – nobody here has an office – we would instead provide quite a large number of quiet rooms, together with wireless IT and telephone facilities to ensure that, as far as privacy and security is concerned, people have the necessary facilities.’ Susan Redgrave, Inter Arc Design.

REVOLVER ‘It is so rare for me to ask for something and for someone to come back with a first draft and have got it. It was a real eureka moment. We’d like to think we’re independent, edgy fast-paced…we’re full of energy and needed this space to reflect that.

Justin Marciano, CEO Revolver Entertainment.

AND NOW Revolver, went into administration in April 2013 only eight months after receiving significant investment from French financier Corniche.

PRS FOR MUSIC ‘Music enriches all our lives so we believe its creators should be rightfully rewarded, celebrated and sustained. Our office space needs to reflect this core purpose.

HLW have created workspaces for us which are modern, flexible and truly represent our organisation.’ Ben Anderson, PRS for Music Chief Marketing Officer. AND NOW Launched a new tool called MAPS (Member Anti-Piracy System to track and takedown unlicensed copies of PRS for Music repertoire made available online.

LEE PENSON ‘I really took a fly by the seat of your pants approach, where things will either work or they won’t. There’s really little you can do about it so you might as well grit your teeth and get on with it. To be honest, it’s all gone a bit crazy for us.' AND NOW The most winning Mixology award practice, PENSON has gone from strength to strength, producing groundbreaking schemes for the likes of Google, YouTube and Jay Z's RocNation.

WHO

WHO

ID:SR MANCHESTER ‘I really do enjoy what I do. What I really like is that you have quite a lot of scope to shape the environments. You often have a lot of other elements feeding into what you do. It’s really wide open.’ Anna Henshaw, ID:SR Manchester. AND NOW ID:SR goes from strength to strength with resent wins in Lancashire, Wimbledon and Manchester.

BARRY FOLEY, MAX FURNITURE. ‘I know it sounds obvious, but I was looking for products that are easy to sell. So many manufacturers make it hard work to sell their furniture – it’s either too expensive, inappropriate or their systems are ‘challenging or obstructive.’ Surely we don’t need to make it so difficult? AND NOW Will share is 61st birthday in July this year with famous saxophonist Chris White.

WHAT

WHAT

OFITEC ‘The show has, in previous years, generated a good throughput of interested parties, with the vast majority of stands appearing to be doing business – there was a mature feel to the whole process.’ The now defunct and sorely missed Ofitec show in Madrid. AND NOW Sadly no more. We miss our trips to Madrid!

PLATFORM ‘The aesthetic is futuristic and hitech but made to feel friendly through the use of colour in wall graphics and lighting. Indeed, sophisticated lighting and AV systems have been designed to enhance the experience and provide a totally bespoke VIP environment.

Platform creates new Customer Experience Centre for Vodafone.

WHO

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WHAT KEN GIANNINI during his time with Morgan Lovell, chose the Barcelona Chair, a mini Cooper and... a Kenny Giannini G6 Putter for his Desert Island Desks feature. AND NOW After a spell with the Interiors Group, Ken’s Linkedin message says 'I have resigned as a Director of The Interiors Group. My exciting new job will be announced soon'.

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UpfrontUpfront Upfront

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Upfront

WSP GROUP GOES BACK TO NATURE An inspiring flooring solution from Interface has been installed at the WSP Group offices at the recently-completed 110 Queen Street development in Glasgow.

WSP Group, one of the world's leading engineering professional services consulting firms, wanted to devise an open plan working environment to promote an even more creative culture among its team members and encourage collaboration.

'Going open plan was a major step-change for our Glasgow team, so it was crucial that, when designing the office, we did everything we could to create an environment that supported the well-being of our team members,' commented Richard Bennett, Corporate Estate Project Manager at WSP Group.

Interface supported project leader Aileen Rooney, Design Executive at Innovative Design Associates Company (IDAco), to create a scheme that would help facilitate WSP Group’s transition to an open-plan culture. Products from Interface’s nature-inspired Human Nature collection were selected. The flooring was inspired by the concept of biophilia – the school of thought that nature-inspired elements in an interior play a major role in upholding the physical and emotional wellbeing of occupants.

PARAGON EXCELLENCE A tremendous result as Paragon Interiors Group Plc, the Nottingham based commercial interiors specialist, continues its winning ways after being crowned the Best Small Company To Work For at the Sunday Times 'Best Small Companies to Work For 2016'.

The 'Best Companies to Work For' awards measure and acknowledge excellence in workplace engagement. The responses are collated and combined to produce an overall engagement score for each organisation.

Paragon CEO Alan Hardy said: 'This has been an incredible seven days but, in reality, this is 30 years in the making and down to a lot of hard work, passion and dedication from everyone. 2016 is a massive year for us as we will be celebrating our 30th anniversary in the summer. Many things have changed in that time at Paragon and within the industry but there is one thing that we have pushed and pushed and that is investing in our team. The results, as evidenced by both of these awards are plain to see. Invest in your people and they will power your business to peak potential.'

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Upfront

SPECIALIST JOB In the issue that we focus on manufacturing and craft it is quite appropriate we give some air time to our friends from Maghera, Northern Ireland.

National Grid’s new corporate headquarters in London is a great example of the scale and complexity of bespoke joinery packages delivered by Specialist Joinery Group.

The inspiring architecture of this magnificent building is perfected by a contemporary joinery fit-out reflecting National Grid’s market position and brand. Finishes of walnut veneer and corian create elegant space for corporate events. Social spaces combine vivid colours which complement company branding and create a stimulating team performance space.

SIT, STAND AND SIT Introducing the newest release from Techo UK, the Flight chair was created by the same designer who conceptualised the Sidiz T50 chair – a long running, high seller for the company.

Designed by Jaeyoung Kim and built to stand alongside the T50, Flight is a multi-functional task chair that was primarily designed to be versatile and meet the growing demand for hot desking, sit-stand desks, and other increasingly fluid work spaces.

It has a unique and initiative feature, a ‘Weight Activated Tilt’ mechanism, which means it responds flexibly to the user’s body in a variety of comfortable ways, regardless of weight, height or general build. Just released in the UK, this is already looking to be another high flyer for Techo.

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Upfront

I N D U ST R I A L L A N DSCA P E N o 5 - B LU R

Inspired by the streets of London and the gritty backdrops of railways,

The new Industrial Landscape collection is a series of seven carpet

tunnels of factories, workshops and warehouses. The surfaces – cracked

designs created by Tom Dixon in collaboration with ege carpets.

paving stones and brick blocks make up the crumbling industrial

Available in tiles and broadloom transforming into different expressions

landscape while the massive tidal River Thames splits the city in two,

that reinterpret the rough, raw everyday surfaces that define the London

and the new reflective glass towers start to dominate the skyline.

landscape.

London – The Industrial Landscape. New carpet collection by Tom Dixon. UK launch: Clerkenwell Design Week 24-26 May 2016

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Upfront

TWO PARTS INSPIRATION Bof, the furniture specialist, continues to innovate. Working in collaboration with its manufacturing partners it has created a terrific new website for end users and staff and also a valuable specification tool for the architectural and design community.

Features include: Product customisation – choose a product, then pick the extras and decide on a finish. Images update in real-time, allowing you to download information and help create the perfect combination.

Project inspiration – the projects section features highresolution photography, capturing a wide range of projects completed in partnership with key names within the design industry. From educational projects to private sector installations, this feature is designed to give that extra inspiration. Bof asked us to include the website so you could give them some feedback. We're happy to oblige. www.bof.co.uk

GOOD START FOR CLAREMONT After an excellent 2015, 2016 has started in very much the same vein for Warrington based Claremont. By any standard, 161,000 sq ft (£9m) of new office space in the last two months is good going!

Recent happy clients include McDonalds, Avecto and a major international gaming company and a global firm of HR consultants.

McDonalds benefited from a new fit-out in Shoreditch and IT security company Avecto an 18,000sq ft fit-out.

Joint Managing Director Ann Clarke (pictured) said: 'We’ve been fortunate enough to keep the momentum we’ve built over the last couple of years thanks to our business development efforts and the continued creativity and workhard ethos of the team.

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'While several of these projects are with long-standing multi-site customers and are testament to the relationships we’ve nurtured, we’ve also been privileged to deliver projects for new clients, some of which have resulted in the most creative and challenging work in Claremont’s history.

'Most of these projects reinforce the importance of being able to offer a full suite of services spanning design, fit-out, technology and furniture.'

Great financial results from Claremont – we hope to see some of the firm's exciting projects feature in the judging for this year's Mixologies.

Upfront

The Izzey Lite from Gresham’s Izzey Collection

www.gof.co.uk/izzeylite 25

Upfront

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Upfront

Forward Thinking

Our new columnist, M Moser's Steve Gale, tells us that people are brittle, and they also have a lot of inertia.

What to do? Well, you probably can’t change the internal wiring of every architect, nor am I suggesting that you hire people managers. But we can repackage the problem and make it really simple. Then the good news is that we are already doing most of what’s needed anyway, but didn’t realise it.

Let me explain how simple it is. When you move office, the change in your surroundings and routine is not gradual, it’s a step change, perceived in an instant. You go home on Friday night with a new address in your pocket, then on Monday your new world starts at nine o’clock – bang!

Change

I have an admission to get off my chest.

I work in a design office (that’s not my admission) that focuses exclusively on workplaces, and there is one area of business that I have, in the past, screwed up badly.

I think it’s better now, as I hope you will see, but it was frequently tears before bedtime.

People, they are the problem. Buildings, being inert, do exactly what we ask of them, but people don’t. We found that challenges to our projects were rarely technical, they were philosophical, and came from unexpected directions, and from people we hardly ever saw.

We didn’t really know them, but they were very important, the real consumers of our product.

We refer to them as 'users' or sometimes 'occupiers'. They are the men and women who work in the buildings we design.

Why did this happen? It is obvious that these people would be at the sharp end of what we do, which makes them the best qualified to judge our work. I have a theory about this.

Designers and their professional colleagues are, like most specialists, well trained and well meaning, and do their job with a combination of passion, interest, training, natural ability, and the pleasure of seeing the end product of their labour. It’s certainly not for the money. But with this cocktail comes a downside. Only very rarely does this set of skills come with a sideorder of management expertise, and it shows.

Our projects get 100% focus, which can crowd out the ability to see the big picture. Speaking as one of these handicapped people, I can say that architects and designers often have no training, little inclination and even less time to get involved in these key areas.

Slow people

Fast buildings

Time People, however, do not change this fast –as we all know. They change slowly, and incrementally. So to explain this I have drawn a devilishly clever chart. It shows the light speed of buildings versus the glacial speed of people, and the problem is as obvious as a dig in the ribs with a pencil. If you impose the new environment before the new occupiers are ready to accept it you risk a lot of unhappiness while they get up to speed.

Steve Gale is Head of Business Intelligence at M Moser Associates. SteveG@mmoser.com

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Managers often say 'nobody likes change' but that’s not really fair or accurate While we wait, the users might decide they don’t like their new home and rebel, and people might leave the business in a huff. I know an insurance firm that relocated its IT analysts and lost more than half of them in short order.

They felt put upon and left out, even though the business logic was robust. 'it’s always the good people that leave,' their manager complained, two weeks before leaving himself.

Less dramatically, it can mean they find excuses to plod on grumpily and inefficiently for months while they find out how things work. It can also mean that people start to reverse the changes, which leaves egg on faces and wastes a lot of money. This is bad for one’s career.

Managers often say 'nobody likes change' but that’s not really fair or accurate. People will accept huge transformative projects, but they eat them up at a certain rate, and it is worth considering what that rate might be, and then work with it. It depends on how much they are brought into the whole process, as well as the distance they are asked to travel.

People are brittle, and they have a lot of inertia, when they move they take a while to get going, when they bend it is creakingly slow.

Upfront

Carpet creativity at your fingertips • • • •

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THE ULTIMATE FLOORING EXPERIENCE A Tarkett Company 28

Upfront

Material Matters

As part of their monthly column, the team at Material Lab compile their favourite new surface designs and share the latest in material trends. www.material-lab.co.uk

Staying on trend with aesthetic concrete from MASS As the UK’s leading manufacturer of aesthetic concrete, MASS work with luxury brands, architects and designers — developing finishes and special effects for striking wall panels, external façades, floor tiles, signage panels and other unique architectural features. Within whites, creams, blacks, blues and other neutral palette tones, they work with a wide variety of aggregates — pigmented recycled glass, granites and marbles, even mother of pearl and stone. Great solutions for commercial projects. www.mass-concrete.com

Distressed leather creates a deeply textured tactile surface by Pintark The creative team at Pintark, in India, have produced an exciting new tactile surface inspired by touch and texture. ‘Foilage’ uses individual petal shapes, formed using supple leather, to create a heavily layered surface. This organic look is achieved using a free form technique, with each petal pinned by hand. www.pintark.in

Introducing the vibrant patterns and bold prints of Bobenna Designs At this year’s Surface Design Show we got to know Jenna Coulthard, the exciting new designer behind Bobenna Designs.

Her most recent surface collection focuses on contemporary craftsmanship and playful surface patterns, seeking to reinvent the traditional process of marquetry by incorporating contrasting elements to construct a complete image. For this collection, the look was achieved by using birch plywood alongside vibrant veneers and screen-printed textures, creating a playful experiment in design. www.bobennadesign.com

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EQUITONE by Marley Eternit offers fibre texture alternatives for exterior surfaces A mineral composite material with outstanding physical and aesthetic properties, EQUITONE

by Marley Eternit provides architects with alternative opportunities to bring their designs to life. New for 2016, EQUITONE Materia encompasses the characteristics of cement, yet has fibre properties that produce a velvety textured finish, accentuating the beauty of this exterior surface design.

The ever-changing atmosphere gives the material subtle variations of natural shades. www.equitone.co.uk

Upfront

Desert Island Desks

This month’s desert island castaway is

Dan Callegari, Design Director London at Area Sq.

3 1957 PORSCHE SPEEDSTER Why wouldn’t you if you can? It’s beautiful.

And, depending on the size of the island, ‘pretty useless’, although it’s a design classic that is a work of art from every angle and I’m pretty sure that whether I’m sitting in it or beside it, it would make me smile. Of course, you could also say that should the need arise, the soft top could be fashioned into a sail and the tyres into some sort of floating device and/ or ballast.

1 YELLOW TRACE If you speak to my team it’s the one thing that is attached to my hip permanently. And it's said that opportunity starts with a blank sheet of paper, so why not make it yellow! Not least I find it provides a versatile canvas with limitless options as a roll or by using a series of layers. And if nothing else, that little bit of theatre you get when you make your tear at the end of your journey, only to start upon the next.

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2 PEACEFUL WARRIOR BOOK BY DAN MILLMAN To help me to maintain a different perspective to the more obvious ones applied to the craft of interior design. To appreciate every moment; to view the journey toward a goal as more meaningful and significant than the attainment; to pay attention to that which we are doing. To ask, 'Where am I?' 'Here.' 'What time is it?' 'Now.' "What am I?' 'This Moment.'

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Tel 01925 850500 Email info@sixteen3.co.uk Web www.sixteen3.co.uk

4 BARBARA HEPWORTH ( A BOOK OF CARVINGS ) Her work exemplifies Modernism and in particular modern sculpture of a time. She tended to measure all gesture, movement, proportion and rhythm either as properties of sculpture or as significances of human behaviour. I like the contrast of simplicity and yet complexity, and find the compositions she created enchanting.

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5 RAY-BAN SUNGLASSES ( JUSTIN CLASSICS ) For protecting the two gifts that are my eyes. With over 75 years at the top, holding an iconic place in the world of eyewear, they are bold, fun, and also have a timeless, aesthetic foundation and appeal. Their versatile styles of frame and material use help them maintain their rightful place. Mark Twain once said that ‘You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus’. I’d like to be able to continue to use both my eyes and my imagination and these help me with 50% of that ambition.

Not least, they will set off that Castaway look beautifully.

5 London Showroom The Gallery, 21-22 Great Sutton St. EC1V 0DY / Manufacture/Showroom Chesford Grange, Woolston, Warrington, Cheshire, WA1 4RQ

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Spotlight

Manufacturing 34 The Big Question

36 The Manufacturer Report 33

42 The Manufacturer Map

Spotlight

The Big ? uestion When it comes to product specification, how much does 'Made in Britain' mean to you?

We are passionate in our support of British products. Our support is based on experience with great companies – they provide authenticity, quality solutions, agile manufacturing, innovation and excellent customer service. So what’s not to like. In our view ‘Made in Britain’ is becoming increasingly important from our clients perspective, which I believe has been down to the incredible hard work put in by our designers and manufacturers. Long may it continue!

Kristen Liedl BDP

Made in Britain, to me, means tradition, integrity and heritage. There are a number of British brands who have been manufacturing their product for centuries and support local craftsmanship. They retain their quality, design and ethical values, while delivering a superior product. It allows me to specify items that will last, tell a story, support our local industry and still to this day have an unmatched quality compared to what a massproduced product could deliver.

Leanne Wookey NoChintz

Anna Breheny Scott Brownrigg

Enrico Caruso Gensler

Toby Neilson BDG architecture + design

Steve Dickson FaulknerBrowns

Everything! The phrase ‘Made in Britain’ has gravitas. It means something. It commands respect. When it comes to product specification, ‘Made in Britain’ does all of the above. It suggests loyalty, quality and innovation. It enables a more sustainable manufacturing process, which helps clients’ to further minimise their carbon footprint.

We really care about sustainability. Many of our international clients approach us with a brief of: ‘We want a British design’. This includes the process, the concept and the final result. Therefore, if it’s ‘Made in Britain’ it’s got our attention!

Our clients demand quality and good value when specifying products, with sustainability concerns at the core of that specification.

Should those criteria be met by British-made products, so much the better, but the reality is that British-made products don’t always satisfy those measures. Never before has the architecture and design communities been more global, connected, and mobile than now. Placing restrictions on a product’s place of origin simply diminishes Britain’s role as a global marketplace for quality products.

We have always tried to source furniture from within the British Isles and have seen a great rise in recent years. We actively began sourcing British designed and manufactured furniture and fabrics back in 2012, and we have continued this in every area of our company – be it a space that you live, work, stay or play! British design has gone from strength to strength with more and more being manufactured here now too. It is definitely an exciting time for British design and I can only seeing this continuing.

Great Britain is renowned for designing specialised, innovative products that are of a high quality.

Specifying British designed products also means that we are not shipping goods half way around the world, basing our specification only on cost and not on the environmental impact, whilst also having the benefit of supporting the British economy.

There are many prestigious brands that have a unique heritage that are timeless in their design from furniture, flooring, fabrics through to technology.

Loose Furniture Specialists E: matt@umbrellafurniture.com www.umbrellafurniture.com

THE FURNITURE SPECIALISTS

Umbrella Banner Mix Interiors July 2015.indd 1

17/06/2015 17:31:57

34

Spotlight

Combining style and elegance with comfort, Sebastian comprises large foam & feather seat cushions and feather back cushions to provide a truly inviting and relaxing sit.

THE HOSPITALITY EDIT Head Office T: +44 (0) 1242 584 897 London Showroom T: +44 (0) 20 7253 0364 E: sales@lyndon.co.uk www.lyndon.co.uk 35

Part of the Boss Design Group

Spotlight

The

Manufacturing Report

Specialist Joinery Group

If you take any notice of the great chef, farmer and all round foodie, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, you

should

always

know

the

provenance of the meat you buy!

It was with this theme in mind our 'The Big Question' asked six

Hands

Forbo

designers if it was important to know the manufacturing origins of the products they specify, and more specifically the badge Made in the UK. Commercial interior design is an amazing sector and we wanted to give the 'makers' their moment in the SPOTLIGHT. This report puts the focus on the UK, although we also take a look on page 53 at some of the key overseas manufacturers. We don’t profess to have created the most scientific or indeed 100% comprehensive report but we do hope it will give you some food for thought.

The headline figure for the UK furniture manufacturing industry just passed the £8 billion mark in 2015, up 4.6% on 2014. The bad news for the bosses at UKTI is that imports grew by 8%, with China being responsible for a significant chunk of the pie, and rising.

Our interview with Steve Dixon, the supremo at Johnson Tiles, shows that changes to China’s market economy status could have significant effects on the UK sector, potentially putting UK manufacturing companies in a weaker position compared to the government-supported Chinese equivalents.

Canal Engineering

36

Spotlight

Deadgood

Camira

Skills A reoccuring theme throughout our research has been skills. Something that has been at the heart of German economic psyche since the Second World War are apprenticeships. The current UK government has come alive to the value of young people training and is saying all the right things about boosting numbers and driving up the quality of UK apprenticeships. The need to move away from 'invisibles' (banking, shipping, finance) and towards making things has even got David Cameron talking about the 'Germanic approach'.

Whilst on the face of it the government push for apprentices is working, rising significantly since the coalition came to power in 2010, once the surface is scratched it is clear that the aim of boys and girls making things and learning their trade has been hijacked somewhat. It was widely reported that one in ten new English apprenticeships were created at the supermarket, Morrisons.Hardly the beacon of craft the government had in mind.

Whilst great British firms like Jaguar Land Rover follow a similar model to the typical German model of a three year tenure and at least

Egger

one day a week of classroom teaching, it appears the majority don’t.

You will see from page 47 that the vast majority of the manufacturers we featured do invest in apprentices and most have indicated they are growing those numbers. The Specialist Joinery Group in Craigavon, Northern Ireland, whose recent work has included Estée Lauder (coming soon) and National Grid (page 22) have just opened a dedicated Apprentice Training Academy to nurture fresh talent. Of their workforce, the group employs 18 apprentices. Speaking to Mix, Group Managing Director Ciaran O’Hagan explains: 'We view our Academy as an investment in our ability to deliver client satisfaction. Whilst providing apprenticeships is a fundamental step in retaining our craft skills base, it also delivers wider benefits in terms of employee engagement, retention and commitment. Many former Specialist Joinery Group apprentices can now be found in strategic management roles. The motto is 'look after your staff and they will look after your customers'.'

Training and developing staff is a key theme in many of our Spotlight features and no doubt will also feature in our Mixology 2016 awards as companies show that they are doing their bit for both their teams and the community Jonathan Hindle, MD at KI, gives his view and provides some context from

a manufacturer's perspective. 'Hopefully it is clear to everybody that we need to invest in UK manufacturing as a whole to better balance our economy. The statistics for the wider economy still make bleak reading – a widening trade deficit of around £85bn in 2015, declining exports and near-record imports. China alone accounted for around £18bn of this deficit, despite exports increasing by over 13% compared to 2014.

Encouragingly, exports to the USA increased by 16% and by 30% to Saudi Arabia over the same period.'

The current head of Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BIS) is Sajid Javid MP. The Secretary of State is responsible for strategy and policy across BIS. Some of the department’s main policy areas include business law, enterprise and business support, trade policy, science and innovation.

Steve Dixon from Johnson Tiles gives Mix Interiors a wide ranging interview on the potential dangers of the current path taken by the government on page 38. The following page sees industry luminaries also add their very experienced opinion to what the Government should be focusing upon.

UK MANUFACTURING IN NUMBERS

£8 billion

4.6%

£85 billion

8%

Industry worth in 2015

Total worth growth on 2014

Trade deficit

Growth in imports

37

Spotlight

Advice to Government With the EU referendum just a few months away (we’re still waiting for Number 10 to apologise for the clash with Mixology!), political debate is everywhere. It’s in pub conversations, on daytime TV and in even permeating our workplaces.

So with the heart of this issue dedicated to manufacturing, it’s therefore the perfect time for us to discuss the issues currently – and deeply – affecting the UK’s manufacturing sector.

We travelled to the Potteries to meet with Stephen Dixon, Managing Director of one of the UK’s leading manufacturers, Johnson Tiles, and President of the British Ceramics Confederation, who is keen to explain what these issues currently mean to our businesses – and how they could continue to negatively impact on British manufacturing.

get your allowances. In fact, you’ll get more than was being offered by the European Union, so us heavy users will effectively be helping to pay for or subsidising very intense users such as steel. This is the politics around the jobs losses that the steel industry has suffered. This is not just about tile companies – it’s about the brick manufacturers and sanitary ware manufacturers as well.

I don’t think the government really appreciates what it’s doing here – and that’s why we’re down in Westminster doing the lobbying we are. The local MP’s are very supportive.

AMAZING INVESTMENT 'We employ around 400 people and have been making tiles here for a long time – since 1901,’ Stephen tells us. ‘We make about 3 million tiles every week. That should put us in a really good light in terms of the government. We’ve invested around £50 million over the past 15 years on the manufacturing plant alone – so really driving what is a world-class, state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

‘In that 15 years we’ve doubled the amount of tiles we produce per tonne of carbon we consume. We’ve essentially doubled our energy efficiency. All our lighting here has are either LED’s or extremely high-energy fluorescents. We’ve changed all our lighting over the past four years and that has halved our electricity bill.

We also have heat recovery on our kilns.

Any surplus heat that does come off them is channeled back into the system.

‘We’re doing this because we should be doing it. Making tiles – making anything for that matter – in the UK isn’t easy. It’s a challenge. We are one of the most expensive labour rate areas in the world. We are significantly more expensive than the majority of Europe – we are 25% more expensive than Spain and 50% more expensive than Portugal. Therefore, we have to be efficient and we run the plant very, very efficiently.

FURTHER CHANGE ‘What we’re doing is, through the BCC, trying to get all the MP’s to work as a cross-party group to lobby government – to make them aware of what they’re actually doing here.

‘We’re not being greedy. We’re looking to simply maintain what we’ve got today.

‘Then there is something called Renewables Compensation – which applies to electricity – and that is even more bizarre! This is again the government’s interpretation of European legislation.

'As things stand, because of the fact that we make more profit than the other leading tile manufacturer in the UK, they’ll get compensation and we won’t. In other words, the more successful you are, the more you get penalised!

If you manufacture tiles in Italy or Germany, you already get Renewables Compensation under European legislation.

The governments there already give to manufacturers – so even though, in theory, we are all working under the same legislation, it is the British government’s interpretation that we believe is at fault here. They are simply not supporting manufacturing in this country in a consistent way.'

WE’VE INVESTED AROUND £50 MILLION OVER THE PAST 15 YEARS ON THE MANUFACTURING PLANT ALONE – SO REALLY DRIVING WHAT IS A WORLD-CLASS, STATE-OF-THE-ART MANUFACTURING FACILITY.

EFFICIENT & SUSTAINABLE Energy is our second biggest cost behind people. It’s a big deal – just short of 25% of our manufacturing costs – and we do everything we can to minimie that cost. I can’t categorically prove this, but I’d guess we are probably the most energy efficient tile factory in the world. You’d have thought then, that this is something that would have been supported by our government. At present, we don't feel it is.

‘There are things called Climate Change Agreements currently in place and very intense energy users get these – and we also get 100% allowance.

These are run by Europe – and I’m not going to Euro-bash here. The issue here is not with Europe – it’s more with our own government.

‘Europe has put a proposal on the table that basically means that we would keep those allowances beyond 2020, when everything else is going to change. Our own government has turned around and said ‘No, we don’t want to do it like Europe has proposed, we want to do it another way’. That essentially means that we would lose 75% of those allowances – and that would cost us £2.5 million a year.

‘The government is basically shifting the allowances from heavy users to very heavy users – such as steel. If you are a very intense user then you’ll still

WHAT THE FUTURE MIGHT HOLD ‘If proposals stay the way they are it won’t put us out of business – but we would have to consider outsourcing more of our production. It's a huge deal and was raised by our local MP recently.

‘Then there is the issue of giving China market economy status. It currently doesn’t have that status. The organisation that measures these things recently found that China categorically failed four out of the five measures. However, this is really a political decision to try to get investment out of China into Europe. If that status is granted, China will essentially have carte blanche to export products into Europe at whatever prices they want. The government is saying that this means goods will get cheaper in the UK. 'What they’re not saying is that the anti-competitive situation that arises in China – which is effectively government funded – could well put both UK and European manufacturers way out of business. If you look around the UK, this will mean the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs. We’ve got some very big issues going on right now and the UK government needs to understand just what this could mean to not just businesses like ours, but to British families and entire communities.’

38

Spotlight

I would like to see a cross industry apprenticeship programme

Developing ambitious and creative talent for the future.

EWAN TOZER, ORANGEBOX

supported by skills academies, which capture the skills and experience of those choosing to leave our sector and pass them on to the next generations, therefore ensuring the sustainable future of textile manufacturing in the UK. ALAN WILLIAMS, CAMIRA

If the government is serious about building a manufacturing base again, it needs to do much more to address the looming skills crisis. Incentivising

To stay in Europe and don’t leave.

BRIAN MURRAY, BOSS

Manufacturing has lost its trade skills over the years – give the youth the chance to be educated and trained in these skills. IT/ Technology has a place, but is not the be all and end all.

NEIL HARRISON, CARLICK

Reduce the imposition of costs and standards on British manufacturers that are not

students to choose a career in

imposed on imported goods. This

our industry would help combat

process of discriminating against

the critical shortages in skilled

Financial support needs to

UK manufacturers and employers

professions such as machine

be provided to traditional

just generates unemployment in

operators, upholstery, CAD/CAM

manufacturers, who often work

the UK, reduces innovation and

and furniture designers.

with a large workforce and strong

education and develops a poorer

local supply chains.

and less diverse society at many

JONATHAN HINDLE, KI

RICHARD BLACKWELL, BISLEY

levels.

RODNEY MCMAHON, MORGAN

I’d get the big multinational corporations to pay their fair share of corporation tax and help small, innovative businesses by reducing their tax bills.

There are many areas where BIS could have a positive impact in our sector. In particular, the skills gap around school leavers and the lack of qualif ied engineers certainly needs addressing.

PAUL CHAMBERLAIN, SIXTEEN 3

HERMAN MILLER

RICHARD SCOTT,

39

Canvas for an environment of political and economic stability and encourage more diversity and young talent. The potential is huge.

PHIL JONES, JAMES TOBIAS

Spotlight

Best Advice It is fair to say that with the advent of the internet, advice and great quotes can be easily found. However, the following gems are a little closer to home, kindly given us by some of the leaders of the UK manufacturing industry. We wonder which of the following would be appropriate for your place of work.

To make more effective use of my life using rigorous time management. Specif ically, to arrive at appointments early and do a little work in a calm frame of mind rather than to arrive late and flustered. To have a clear desk and focus on one task at a time – very Feng Shui and effective.

RODNEY MCMAHON, MORGAN

Many years ago, a demanding customer told me: 'If a manufacturer wants to do something they always can'. NO is never an option.

JOHN IRWIN, TANGENT

To really know your markets, understand their unique requirements and expectations – by having satellite off ices and local sales people strategically placed in key markets.

Listen. Listen to the staff and the customers. They have all the answers.

something will beat you then it probably will.

NEIL HARRISON, CARLICK

PHIL JONES, JAMES TOBIAS

I think it was the Dalai Lama that said: 'When you talk, you are only

I’ve heard many pieces of

repeating what you already know.

advice over the years, and

But if you listen, you may learn

have managed to ignore

something new.'

most of them! But, one that

PAUL CHAMBERLAIN, SISXTEEN 3

has always stuck with me is 'Whatever you do, enjoy it; be positive and try to win.' It’s

Change before you have to.

EWAN TOZER, ORANGEBOX

not always easy to achieve all three but I always try to apply this to whatever I do.

Don’t use Donald Trump’s hairdresser.

To give exceptional customer service so customers come back for more of your products and recommend you to other people.

BRIAN MURRAY, BOSS

ADRIAN COOKE, MAINE

ELAINE PATTERSON, ULSTER CARPETS

If you go in with the belief that

40

RICHARD SCOTT , HERMAN MILLER

My Dad told me ‘You can achieve anything you want to if you put your mind to it’ – a mantra which I have lived by and still believe to be true today!

ALAN WILLIAMS, CAMIRA

Spotlight

APEX POSTURE FROM

01254 673400

sales@psiseating.co.uk 41

www.psiseating.co.uk

Manufacturer Map

use when you next do a manufacturing road trip.

last month for the major dealers. We hope you find this of

spread of this map looks quite different to the one we did

plants within the UK. Not surprisingly, the geographical

manufacturing we have highlighted some of those who have

you tell us that you like them too. As part of our focus on

If you are a regular to Mix you know we like our maps – and

The

Spotlight

Other manufacturing locations: KI York, Mildenhall, Wolverhampton, Tamworth Forbo Bamber Bridge, Cortonwood, Kirkaldy, Telford

maine storage & filing

Spotlight

Biggest Regret Regrets are like hard foot skin, most of the people who suffer from it tend not to bring it up in conversation. Mick Jagger’s view on regrets is 'The past is a great place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to be its prisoner either'. We asked some of the leading manufacturing heads about their regrets – we're grateful that they were kind enough to share with us.

Carlick

Not starting the business 10 years earlier.

BRIAN MURRAY, BOSS

Like everyone, I have collected lots of little regrets along the way, but there is no one big regret.

If there was, we probably wouldn’t have made it to were we are.

PAUL CHAMBERLAIN, SIXTEEN 3

I’m fortunate that with a great family, enjoyable career and some wonderful life experiences, I don’t have any big regrets.

Though, as a child, I always wanted to be a pilot – sometimes I do wonder how life would be different if I wasn’t making off ice furniture!

Boss

RICHARD SCOTT, HERMAN MILLER

Ulster Carpets

Perhaps not entering the export market sooner. However by taking our time we were able to ensure that we had a good understanding of which markets had long term growth potential and made sure we were logistically and strategically ready

That we didn’t move to comprehensive UK manufacturing earlier.

to service those markets effectively.

JONATHAN HINDLE, KI ELAINE PATTERSON, ULSTER CARPETS Herman Miller

44

Company Spotlight

.

CARLICK The company was originally established in 1973 as a family business, manufacturing contract furniture for the hospitality and leisure sector. In 2007, the business was acquired by its current executive management team in a multi million pound buy-out backed by private equity funding from North West entrepreneur, Martin Ainscough (whose family sold its share of their share of the ubiquitous yellow cranes for £255m – in business terms minutes before the financial crisis).

Today, headed up by MD Neil Harrison, the business is operated by a management team with over 30 years combined experience in the contract furniture sector and it has become a supplier of choice for many of the leading PLCs, operating multiple branded chains within the bar, restaurant and hotel markets.

The £8m+ turnover* company now employs a workforce in excess of 100 employees and operates from a modern 85,000 sq ft facility based near Manchester city centre and, according to our research, is doing very well.

85,000 sq ft Manufacturing facility

£8m + Turnover

PLEDGE Pledge is keen, and rightly so, to state its manufacturing credentials.

The company has the capability to produce in-house both metal and wooden components as well as upholstery and assembly. As we hear regularly from readers, clients are keen to make specific requests with both fit-out and product design and therefore the nature of Pledge's manufacturing approach is clearly set to take advantage of this trend.

Director of the £12m** business, Stephen Russell enthuses about the future. 'From our 160,000 sq ft factory, based on a nine acre site in Bedfordshire, the company designs, produces and deliveries in excess of 3,000 chairs per week.'

160,000 sq ft Manufacturing facility

£12m Turnover

*Accounts dated 31 Dec 2014. **Accounts dated 31 May 2015.

Spotlight

46

Spotlight

UK Manufacturing Statistics

THE GAFFER GENDER SPLIT

MANUFACTURING PLANTS Largest

3,049,000 sq ft

100%

We did a straw poll of some of the leading UK manufacturers in order to create a snapshot of this amazing sector. Clearly by our sample it can be seen that this sector is both a big employee and landlord. What is also clear and encouraging for anyone from the government reading this report is the rude health of apprenticeship in the sector.

Furniture manufacturers employ external designers in significant numbers, but we focused here on internal designers (watch out for the June issue where you will get to know some of them even better). You will also see that we took a closer look at those in charge. Whilst the information is available, we felt it better to use a broad approach to the age of the boss, rather than being too personal. You may recall the slightly tongue in cheek look at the design sector (Sept issue, pages 48 onwards) in particular the Furniture Manufacturer MD. It may therefore come as a surprise that the average of the boss in our sample is 53; we think pushed down significant by the Young Brigade, led by the likes of Phil Jones of James Tobias. However, nearly 60% of those in charge were around when food rationing was still part of our daily lives. Oh, and all are men.

Smallest

Male

25,000 sq ft

THE BOSS'S AGE

35 yrs old 77 yrs old 53 yrs old Youngest

Oldest

59%

Born when rationing was still in effect

Average

Company

Location

Size (sq ft)

Employees

Apprentices

Internal Designers

The Boss

Boss Bisley Camira Canal Engineering CMD Egger Forbo Hands Herman Miller

Dudley Newport Holmfirth Nottingham Rotherham Hexham Ripley High Wycombe Chippenham

200,000 564,000 500,000+ 51,000 3,049,000 700,000 35,000 170,000

217 700 674 120 217 750+ 564 53 200

10 10 10 8 1 32 8 1 2

7 8 12 5 7 n/a ?

3 1

Brian Murray Richard Blackwell Grant Russell Martin Price Steve Cole Bob Livesey Angus Fotheringhame Peter Head Brian Walker

Johnson Tiles

Tunstall

416,025

400+

6

-

Stephen Dixon

James Tobias KI Maine Morgan Ocee Design Orangebox Pledge PSI Senator Silverline Sixteen 3 Tangent Triumph Ulster Carpets

Bridgewater Tiptree Bletchley Southbourne Northampton Cardiff Leighton Buzzard Blackburn Accrington Mildenhall Warrington Chalgrove Merthyr Tydfil Craigavon

30,000 250,000 1,000,000 48,438 55,000 190,000 160,000 100,000 1,270,000 125,000 25,000 75,000 300,000 1,089,000

52 100+ 200 85 82 402 160 50 1,300 120 27 75 320 457

3 4 4 2 0 6 4 30 0 11 4

5 3 4 6 1 15 1 3 1 2 6 25

Phil Jones Jonathan Hindle Adrian Cook Rodney McMahon Alistair Gough Mino Vernaschi David Carter Hassan Patel Robert Mustoe Richard Ward Paul Chamberlain John Irwin Andrew Jackson Nick Coburn

47

Spotlight

CMD

Herman Miller

Hitch Mylius

Morgan

Newmor

Silverline

Newmor

PSI

Morgan

Tangent

Maine

Sixteen3

Ulster Carpets

Hands

Camira

48

Ocee Design

SPECIALIST JOINERY GROUP

Canal Engineering

Specialist Joinery Group

You imagine, we create.

Quality is deeply engrained in all our work. It is present in the fine materials we use, the craftsmanship of our people and the perfection of our finish.

Prestige

Healthcare

Education

Laboratory

Hotel

Luxury

We are specialist. www.sjg.co.uk Hands

tel +44 (0) 28 7964 3021

Bespoke joinery and fitted furniture for major construction projects.

Spotlight

Open Sesame We’re in east London’s Lime Wharf with Opendesk Creative Director and Co-founder Joni Steiner, who’s been telling us about the company’s brilliant approach and business model. This is manufacturing, but not as we know it!

This is a truly original approach to furniture production. Designed so that it can be downloaded and made locally, Opendesk furniture is fast, affordable, sustainable and made on demand.

In other words, the company designs a range of furniture centrally, and then partners with hundreds of small local manufacturers around the world – who make the items whenever someone places an order. The designs are emailed to the local manufacturer, who feeds them into a digital cutting device – and hey presto!

With sustainability and social impact very much at the forefront of specifiers’ minds, could the Opendesk philosophy be about to revolutionise furniture production?

‘Things are really hotting up for us right now,’ Joni tells us. ‘We want to rethink how things are made and distribution channels and how you can take care of everybody in the ecosystem of making stuff – the designers, the makers and the customers can all have a great experience.

Everyone can feel that everything is really working in their best interests.

‘Our idea is that the designers set their own design fee for a piece of furniture and then get paid when it gets made – unlike the companies who dictate that. As far as the makers are concerned, the market will give you a price in your particular area.

'So, if you’re in Brazil, the price will be Brazilian-based, whereas in Europe it will be a

different price, and different again in Asia. We’ll let the makers decide.

‘We have a two-week lead time express service – called Fixed Desk – where we’re given a prearranged instant quote, a ‘buy it now’ price for this item in this area. We’re really want to test how this convenience model works for consumers.

We’re hoping consumers will say ‘I really want a desk and I really like the idea that it’s made on demand locally – that means that some local workshop gets paid for it and the designer gets fairly paid and I get the thing quickly’.

‘It doesn’t matter whether the customer wants it to be 2m or 2.1m or in the future wants it in birch, ply, pink – knock yourself out! The computer doesn’t mind what length it’s being cut.

The pricing is based on the length of time it takes the machine to cut out the components. So there is a relationship between the complexity of design and the cost. As a designer, you get almost instant feedback on the price of things. We’re really excited by the fact that you can start to customise and make on demand.

‘We spend a lot of time figuring every aspect of the design out – we do everything. We prototype everything – we know everything works. We hone the design so that we can send our makers what is essentially a CAD file – but it’s done in a way that is the most universal way of working.

‘We’re trying to do something that we think is interesting. Everyone here is really into that idea

50

– whether they are a designer or working on some kind of diametric 3D model or coding. There is a great energy here.

‘We built our first desk in my mate’s studio in Hackney Wick – we did everything, right down to delivering it! Nick (Ierodiaconou) – who is the other co-founder – and I studied architecture originally. We both went to Bath University, then went off and did our own thing for a while, got some experience, and then started up an architecture firm called Architecture 00 – which was a slightly experimental studio which did architecture, but also some other stuff. This is part of that ‘other stuff ’.’

Joni tells us about the amazing network of makers the business has already discovered – from Milan to Scottsdale, Arizona – before revealing how, after been invited to talk about the concept in New York, he tested the Opendesk model for himself. ‘I found this workshop in Brooklyn, and basically sent through the files and headed to New York ‘empty handed’. We then had the product made in Brooklyn, just four miles away from where the talk was,’ Joni smiles.

The Opendesk client portfolio continues to expand – and already boasts the likes of Nike, Greenpeace and Accenture. ‘ We think this is more than just about a desk,’ Joni grins, ‘and if anyone thinks that the products might be a bit rough around the edges, our clients aren’t the kind of companies who would put up with that!’

Spotlight

51

Spotlight

COMMITTED TO THE HEALTH OF GRAHAM Improved indoor air quality Enhanced acoustic performance

Combining comfort, performance and appealing aesthetics, Tessera and Westbond carpet tiles are the ideal choice for today’s workspaces. Designed and manufactured in the UK, these ranges exceed indoor air quality standards whilst offering enhanced acoustic performance via the addition of SOFTbacŽ. Available in a choice of attractive colourways, Tessera and Westbond carpet tiles can help create a safe, productive and less stressful working environment.

To find out how Forbo is committed to improving the health of one and all visit: www.forbo-flooring.co.uk/CHO

Spotlight

Overseas Manufacturing Plants* Company

Location

Company

Location

Company

Location

Alea Office

Italy

Desso

Holland

Marelli

Italy

Alias

Italy

Dynamobel

Spain

Martex

Italy

Allsteel

USA

EFG (Euro furn gp)

Sweden

Minotti

Italy

Alma

Italy

EGE

Denmark

Modulyss

Belgium

Antron

USA

Furniko

Poland

Mosa

Holland

Armstrong

USA

Fuse (Abstracta)

Sweden

Ophelis

Germany

Arper

Italy

GUBI

Denmark

Poltrona Frau

Italy

Assmann

Germany

Hansgrohe

Germany

Shaw Contract Group

USA

Balma

Italy

Howe

Denmark

Steelcase

USA

Bene

Austria

Humanscale

USA

Techo

Czech

Bolon

Sweden

ICF

Italy

Teknion

Canada

Brunner

Germany

Icons of Denmark

Denmark

Thinking Works

Australia

Bulo

Belgium

IdeaPaint

USA

Thonet

Germany

Bulthaup

Germany

Ikon

Italy

Ultra Fabrics

Germany

Buzzispace

Belgium

Interstuhl

Germany

USM

Switzerland

Cappellini

Italy

Kinnarps

Sweden

Vescom

Holland

Carl Hansen

Denmark

Knoll

USA

Viasit

Germany

Casala

Holland

Kusch

Germany

Vitra

Switzerland

Cassina

Italy

Leyform

Italy

Wiesner Hager

Austria

Dauphin

Germany

Linder Interiors

Germany

Wilkhahn

Germany

PLANT LOCATIONS Australia

1

Austria

2 3

Belgium Canada

1

Czech Republic

1

Denmark

5 13

Germany Holland

4 14

Italy Poland

1

Spain

1 4

Sweden Switzerland

2 8

USA 0 *Aimed as a general, not comprehensive guide to commercial interior manufacturers who supply the UK.

5

10

53 53

15

Spotlight

The next 12 months is vital for us all!

Newmor

We asked a number of the UK manufacturing bosses about the next 12 months.

Investment is the lifeblood in manufacturing as companies aim to stay ahead of trends and developments. Brian Murray stating that Boss Design Group's priority is to 'To invest even deeper in design and R&D', at Mix we have seen some very high level appointments in the last six months, so investing in people is also a clear priority for th company, we suspect.

Ulster Carpets, meanwhile, is spending £35m on its manufacturing infrastructure.

Elain Paterson tells us that they are investing in state-of–the-art dyeing technology as well as 'Improving capacity and efficiency, whilst also reducing the environmental impact of the process'.

Jonathan Hindle from KI, a big supporter of UK manufacturing at all levels, agrees that key is 'Investing in our people’s expertise and growing our local manufacturing capacity'.

Cost efficiency is vital for all but particularly for the fabric giant that is Camira. Alan Williams, Operations Director at Camira, suggests that his top priority of the next 12 months is 'With input from all of our great team, to continue to search for and unlock efficiency savings throughout our operations, whilst developing people and our lean manufacturing systems'.

Silverline tells us that its most recent investment, in its 125,000 sq ft Mildenhall factory, was in a £350k laser cutting machine

Sixteen3

Canal Engineering

Sources: Mix Research, Economist, BFM, BCFA, Gov.net.

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which was purchased specifically to stay ahead of market expectations.

Overseas trade is clearly a boardroom topic for many. Ewan Tozer makes it clear that a key priority is to establish the Orangebox brand in North America – no doubt we’ll hear more in our NeoCon review in the July issue. Another great brand that has invested heavily in 2016 is Herman Miller. Richard Scott, VP International Operations, tells us: 'From a business perspective, I really want to continue to build on Herman Miller’s investments and growth, both in the UK and beyond. We have been through significant change in the last couple of years, and have a strong foundation to build on our world class operations.'

Understanding the customer and developing the product accordingly is a theme reiterated by many. John Irwin, the new boss at Tangent, suggested that in the market where a competitor can match almost any product, his priory is to collaborate with customers to understand the challenges they face and that 'The next priority is to then convert this insight into exceptional, quality service, with the aim of raising the profile of Tangent'. Rodney McMahon from Morgan continues the vital theme of spending time with customers and will continue to 'Understand their wants and desires in this fast changing market and challenging political, socio/economic circumstances'.

Leading UK furniture manufacturer

Spotlight

t 01685 352260 / sales@triumphfurniture.com / www.triumphfurniture.com 55

Dan Moodey Parcour

The

Clive Pereira HLW

d tabl

u o n R Is the technology agenda

taking over office design?

e

Carl Gearing PwC

David Clements FUTURE Designs

Elly Kemp Scott Brownrigg

Chris Gibbs BDP

Andy Swann BDG architecture + design

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Shane Kelly tp bennett

The Round Table

As many of you will know, Marty McFly headed 'back to the future' in the second of the movies three instalments. We’ve already moved past that time – October 2015 – and so we’ve compiled a panel of industry experts to discuss the amazing technological breakthroughs of the past 25 years – and to ask if technology has moved in the directions predicted. We will discuss how technology has transformed our lives, how it has affected our work, our culture and our environment.

As kids we might have dreamed of owning a ‘Hoverboard’ one day, but who would have thought we’d end up coveting the latest phones and that tablets would not just be something we took for a headache? Indeed, it is the ‘invisible’ technology that so often really wows us – as our sponsors’ FUTURE Designs and Parcour show through their innovative products.

We begin by asking our what our panel feels has made the biggest impact in terms of technological breakthroughs.

Carl: I think the biggest impact has been Wi-Fi. You can now just pick up your laptop and walk around. It has changed the way you plan a space and also it is fast now – it is automatic.

It has changed perceptions of how you work – people aren’t stuck at desks. And this is fairly old tech now!

Chris: Smartphones and tablets mean that we can now work 24/7. You can pick up emails at any time. Rather than leave things until the morning you can deal with a few emails while you’re sat on the sofa watching TV. I’m surprised we didn’t set up a WhatsApp group for this rather than actually sitting around a table!

Having that information on and about you all the time is probably the biggest change.

Clive: That’s interesting what Chris says about the WhatsApp group – I think Cloud

We still check email all the time, we still plug into the server, but there’s no reason why that needs to be the case.

Clive Pereira

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computing comes into the same mix. It’s interesting that we have all these things and yet culturally we still define the workplace in the same way. We’re still tethered to emails, we still think about plugging into the server in a specific place. You can now do stuff from home – you can be anywhere as opposed to a single location for your work. I think we’re at the start of that evolution. We still check emails all the time, we still plug into the server, but there’s no reason why that needs to be the case. Technology does take a long time, but very soon we’ll be working in a completely different way.

Chris: We now have company specific Apps – I know PwC are at the forefront of this. You can order your coffee at your desk, for example.

Clive: Technology is fab. We all like to say how our phone now has more memory than the Apollo 11. However, Neil Armstrong did still land on the moon. They did that because they used their brains and they sat down and worked things out! Interestingly, they say that if we were going to land on the moon now, Neil Armstrong would not be the person chosen for that mission because he was not that charismatic person who would appeal to a mass audience – a generation that is connected by the internet. While we all embrace this technology, I think what we’ve got to ask ourselves is what exactly does that technology do to make our lives easier? Do we work harder than we use to? Is it really necessary to work harder than we used to because of this technology?

Chris: Nowadays you have programmes doing a lot of the skills that you would previously expect people to do – so it’s

The Round Table

actually diluting the skill base. For example, you used to have people cutting and sticking together little bits of tape to create a new drum loop.

Now you can press a few buttons and any old Tom, Dick or Harry can make a dance track.

Anyone can be a DJ. Shane: Looking at what we do though, it’s difficult to create design without having a human touch. Creating a pleasing environment to be in or a common sense approach to planning can’t necessarily be replicated by a computer.

This is a really creative profession – and I think creative professions are somewhat protected from technology. There is a real emotive, emotional, human requirement to what we do.

Chris: Thankfully, people still require and like that human touch. Hand drawn sketches still show that touch, for example.

Clive: Technology does allow us to replace some of those procedural functions though – as opposed to those that require any creativity.

This allows us to spend more time focusing on the human connections and the creative process. There’s also no replacement for talking to someone. You can send 50 emails that aren’t read – you phone up someone as a human being because it’s a human connection. I think this is also the reason, to a certain degree, why the process is so slow for people to catch up with technology. If you look at aircraft now – they can fly from A to B on their own. They don’t need a pilot!

David: We need a pilot!

Carl: I think you have to look at these things as tools – you use them to the maximum you need to use them to make things quicker and easier. You know that there are things that need to be done by talking to someone or seeing them face-to-face. You have to know the people

you’re dealing with and then work with them in a way that you know you’ll get the best out of them – and I’m really conscious of that when I’m delivering a project. The phone and the laptop are tools to do your job. Other people don’t see them in that way and make things really hard for themselves.

Shane: That really reflects in the way a lot of clients approach the design of their workplace today. The tools are there now – your phone, your laptop, they’re everywhere! You can pretty much do your job anywhere. The office, as a result, becomes much more about a place where you can collaborate, you can socialize, you can bounce ideas off people. It might be easier to send an email than to move somewhere in a building to have a face to face conversation and what clients are looking for now is to make those face-to-face conversations happen naturally and reduce that email traffic.

Elly: Do you think then that, because we can work wherever, companies now feel that they need to sort their workplace out because they need people to come back into the office?

Everyone’s at home or working wherever they are in the world – but no-one is actually in the office working and collaborating. They suddenly find they have this dead office.

Andy: You do need to create that feeling of belonging – it’s about that destination, it’s about that experience.

Chris: This is why wellness is one of the real buzzwords at the moment – trying to create a reason for people to go back into the office, providing people services they simply don’t have at home, for example.

Carl: At PwC we look to have that collaborative space virtually everywhere. You don’t want people to feel isolated. People like

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The Round Table

somewhere to come and it’s important that we provide that.

Elly: I think the whole co-working idea is really interesting – the idea that you’re surrounded by other professionals and although you’re working individually, you’re going to benefit from that environment. It will be interesting to see how far that goes – WeWork has got about one million square foot now!

There are certainly advantages for small creative companies.

Andy: I think it is far better to be in an environment with other people where you feel you can collaborate and create – and actually feel like you’re going to work rather than sitting in your pants at the kitchen table!

Elly: It will be interesting to see whether companies who start to grow actually want their own space or want to stay in that kind of environment.

Clive: It’s fantastic to really invigorate a start-up market. You need that alternative perspective to all these things – especially if you’re going to grow. Ultimately you get to this place where you’re dealing with mass – with big organisations and you need that mass to do what it does. Global businesses have a lot of responsibility. It takes a lot of people to do a lot of processes. This is about how that technology helps them circumnavigate all of this. At this moment in time the most used tool is email and linking in and things like that – and its now about whether there’s going to be a jump to allow these to be reduced and to speed things up.

David: We banned internal emails in our business last June. We have people sitting there not talking to one another! We want people to get up and go and talk to each other. When things are positive, emails are ok, but there are

This is why wellness is one of the real buzzwords at the moment – trying to create a reason for people to go back into the office...

Chris Gibbs

times when you have to talk to someone – either pick up the phone or meet with someone faceto-face.

Dan: People use email to hide. So often, the first time you hear something negative is when you’re copied into an email! That’s not good use of technology in the workplace. Unless you step in and take action, things can go downhill very quickly – and so many organisations operate it this way. Actually encouraging people to communicate – to talk – must be one of the more difficult things for designers to achieve when designing workplaces. We’re at a tipping point now where you’ve got the older generation used to the ‘old’ way of working and are struggling with the introduction of technology, and then you have the younger generation who naturally use technology as their first point of communication. There has to be a balance between the two.

Conclusion

Dans hit the nail on the head.

There has to be a balance when it comes to the use of technology in the office.

It has certainly helped speed up so many processes and tasks, but we still deal with people and that human touch and collaborative, interactive working cannot be replaced (yet!). Oh, and none of our panel owns a hoverboard yet!

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Profile

2016 is, of course, an even year. For us that means two things. It’s a major international football tournament year and, more relevantly, it is an Orgatec year.

In Short 1966 Rainer Weckenmann born 1969 Barbara Funck born 1994 folio, a basin for BOFFI, recognised and rewarded several times 2012 macao easy chairs, tables and barstool for Wiesner Hager released 2015 aircooLED for Steng launched

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Profile

Once again, come October, the good and the great of the furniture industry will descend upon Cologne to get a first view of the latest workplace products, trends and design superstars.

Back in 2014 we first met with Barbara Funck and Rainer Weckenmann – collectively known as neunzig° design – whose nooi multipurpose chairs for Wiesner Hager were receiving critical acclaim from all-comers.

The pair first met at the university of Schwäbisch Gmünd in Germany, where they graduated in Industrial Design. In 1994 Rainer won the Bavarian State prize with his degree dissertation and gained further recognition at the Braun prize. In the same year the duo opened the neunzig° design studio in Ulm. They began designing for kitchenware manufacturers Auerhahn and WMF in their native

Germany, and leading European lighting manufacturers Belux, Osram and Zumtobel Staff.

A major breakthrough for the studio came through their work for Boffi, for whom they designed ceramic accessories for the Deep White bathroom and the Folio washbasin – which received a prestigious IF-Award.

It is the studio’s work with Wiesner Hager that has turned our own heads – nooi, however, is not the first collaboration between the leading Austrian furniture manufacturer and neunzig° design. ‘We have worked together for some six years now,’ Rainer confirms.

‘Our first project was Macao, and then we went on to design POI,’ Barbara recalls. ‘More recently we have redesigned PARO and of course we designed nooi – which was a lot of work. It took a great deal of thought to get the chair right and to get the chairs to work

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Profile

We always search for innovation – for a special kick

together in a row. We really wanted to do this with out the use of an extra tool. Normally you have an extra tool that is not part of the chair but this is not really clever or interesting. We wanted it to be the chairs themselves that join together – without them looking overdesigned.

‘This is the thing about simplicity – it is often very difficult to achieve, it is difficult to design simplicity into a product. When you do achieve it, though, it is great!’ nooi is, on the face of it, a simple stacking chair, but with an ingenious interlocking frame that links the chairs together. Simple and intelligent, setting up chairs in different scenarios is child’s play with neunzig° design’s brilliant concept. nooi is the perfect solution for auditoriums, cafés, canteens and waiting areas, as well as seminar and training rooms.

‘This takes a lot of work,’ Rainer admits, ‘but this is the way we like to work. We are always interested with things and behaviours of daily life. Our aim is to create individual products for individual people.

‘We always search for innovation – for a special kick, something that makes the product stand out from others, something that touches us deep in our heart, with all the emotional qualities we love in our friends.

Qualities such as humour, intelligence, individuality. We trust in qualities like love, respect and responsibility and the power of beauty.

‘We are convinced that small pleasures are often what makes us happy. We are inspired by the vision that design helps people to feel and to act better.

We try to concentrate an idea to the essential and to form a personality by accentuating certain qualities. We search for

aesthetics without compromises – the pure and perfect shape based on natural geometry.

‘Minimalism and simplicity in form, combined with perfect function, are key.

In a way, the design process is comparable to cooking. Besides the creativity of the cook, the careful choice and harmonization of ingredients are of vital importance. The more perfect and sophisticated the interaction between single features, the more culture is created.

‘Sometimes calculated disharmony or a surprising contrast is the special spice.’

With this in mind, we ask how the pair choose their clients. ‘We like to work with things that have a connection to daily life – from cooking and normal furniture and

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InTerAcTIOn

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Smarter together. USM helps you create collaborative work spaces: leveraging synergies and tapping the full creative potential – one spirit, one team, one table.

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office furniture through to lighting and bathrooms,’ Barbara tells us.

‘Every three years we try to find another area to work in,’ Rainer adds. ‘At the moment we are looking at designing a bicycle, for example. We are lucky that we have the freedom to be able to do this.’

‘It is important for us to be able to work in these different areas, different sectors,’ Barbara agrees. ‘Every time we work on a new project in a new sector we learn a lot. We get to see new ways of designing, new tools to help with the design and different ways of working. Each project we work on helps inform what we do next.’

‘You have to treat this a little bit like a hobby though,’ Rainer grins. ‘If you just work in

one sector you can work faster and faster and faster and you can earn more money! We’re not here to just make money. This is about fun and passion. We’re happy to spend a little more time on what we do.’

We move on to ask about the successful, continued collaboration with Wiesner Hager.

‘It has been something of a discovery for us,’ Barbara says. ‘We found a little company who are not too corporate and who really cares about quality. When we met them we felt we had found an ideal partner.’

‘We wanted to make our own chair,’ Rainer recalls. ‘When we had made this chair – which again was a bit like a hobby for us at the time – we decided we needed to find a partner to take this forward. We found this in Wiesner Hager.’

‘If you look at a map, you see Italy and Germany – and between the two is Austria,’ Barbara explains. ‘The Germans are very straight and very functional. The Italians are very emotional and passionate. Wiesner Hager is a little bit between the two – it has a little bit of both. We really liked that.’

‘We really liked the people also,’ Rainer adds. ‘What was also very nice for us what that, with our first chair, Wiesner Hager produced something that was very close to our original concept. Often with big corporate companies you design something and it loses a lot as it goes through the production process.

With Wiesner Hager we know we can talk directly with the owner. We are not talking with a lot of people on a lot of levels before a decision is made.’

‘There are a lot of companies out there who want to take your design and change it,’ Barbara agrees. ‘They often end up destroying the design. This is a question of respect and Wiesner Hager shows its designers a lot of respect.’

So what is currently in the pipeline for the pair? Well, currently Barbara and Rainer are working on a new office furniture programme for Wiesner Hager – which will be introduced at Orgatec this year. We can't wait

Case Study

Research Engine It’s been a while since we were last

in this part of east London. We don’t remember it looking and feeling like this though. Maybe it’s the fact that the winter sun is shining or maybe it’s the brand new Pret a Manger

that has added something? Actually,

there’s one thing that surpasses both of these – the vibe.

Resonate Interiors was appointed by Ipsos MORI, the market research company, to design its new central London office in Thomas More Square, just a stone’s throw from St Katherine’s Dock. And, like we said, unlike the last time we were here, there is a real vibe to the square on this fine morning. We’d hazard a guess that this is almost entirely down to the square’s new tenants, who have injected that much-welcomed buzz and fervor – the newest of whom is Ipsos MORI. Part of the Ipsos Group, Ipsos MORI is a leading full service UK research company with global reach. The group specialises in brand communication, advertising and media research, consumer, retail and shopper and healthcare research, customer and employee

relationship management research and social and political and reputation research.

Resonate’s Pernille Stafford meets us at the 4th floor reception space, and begins by telling us that her client relocated from its previous offices in Borough Road and Minerva House into this one central location, so there was a workplace strategy to move the teams from both buildings to sit cohesively together.

The teams are now situated together across four floors in this newly refurbished building.

‘They had already found the site and had just about done the deal when we pitched for this,’ Pernille gives us a little background to the project. ‘We were one of 10 and we were against some of the ‘big guys’. The project involved both this site and Harrow,

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Case Study

Essentials Client Ipsos MORI Offices London, Harrow, Manchester, Edinburgh, Belfast Merger Ipsos UK and MORI merged in 2005 Interior Design Resonate Interiors Project Manager Jones Lang Lasalle Furniture Supply Rainbow Interiors Furniture Carl Hansen, Hitch Mylius, Dynamobel, Fritz Hansen, Vitra, Arper, Hay, Verco, Zeltraum, Morgan Flooring & Finishes Interface, Ege Carpets, Quadrant Carpets, Broadleaf Timber, OWA Made a Mano, Kriskadecor

67

Case Study so you’ve got approximately 65,000 sq ft and another 20,000 sq ft in Harrow, running in parallel. It was quite a challenge because we only had six weeks on site.

‘We inherited a lot of base build and the challenge was to make the space as interesting and bespoke as we could, whilst keeping much of that base build. News International was in here before Ipsos MORI. Ipsos MORI briefed Resonate for a creative and relaxed interior, but executed costeffectively, Pernille tells us. As she has already explained, the client wanted to maximise on the existing CAT B fit-out and enhance these features to provide a new and collaborative environment.

‘We had inherited a test-fit plan and that had all the people here next to the atrium – but that meant that we couldn’t use that circulation space. This is a real ‘doughnut’ building. What we did was change that by moving people out to the perimeter and then added ‘chain’ partitions and a bespoke walkway carpet, which gives continuous circulation and places for people to sit. It’s really nice because this means they now interact a lot – it has completely changed the way they work. Some teams were coming from a dated Victorian building on Borough Road, so this move to an open plan space where everyone can see one

We’ve added light fittings from Scandinavia, timber floors from Wales and in reception we’ve got a two-tone floor... another has massively changed the levels of communication.

‘They wanted something quite cool and relaxed. To be honest, the space is heavily populated – which did present something of a challenge. We have tried to make it a little quirky – we’ve added light fittings from Scandinavia, timber floors from Wales and in reception we’ve got a two-tone floor, which has been designed to resemble the bar graphs they do as part of their surveys. There is a slight Scandinavian feel to the space, I suppose. Nothing really matches in terms of the furniture – and it’s not supposed to. This means they can move things around and allows the space to be really, really flexible.’

The team clearly rose to the challenges thrown at them, delivering a bright and fresh office interior with a 90% open plan environment for the 750 staff.

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Case Study

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Case Study

The tea points and cafĂŠ were also an important part of the scheme, providing staff with a place to dine within an alternative space.

The design features, highlights and landmarks allow the staff a sense of place and ensures there is not too much repetition as you walk through.

To this end, the atrium light and connectivity is now maximised by allowing seating and walkways all the way round. This acts as a separator from the workplace by hanging decorative chains, which provides a great backdrop to the eclectic seating areas.

The new space provides the opportunity for employees to get away from desks for impromptu meetings and quiet working.

80% of the existing carpets and ceiling tiles were reused. Supplementary and clever use of bespoke design carpet in-fills has been used to

provide distinctive walkways around the floor.

The lighting in these areas is enhanced over and above the base build to lower the levels of light and provides more intimate settings for the atrium seating areas.

The existing meeting rooms on the open plan floors were given a ‘face-lift’. Resonate selected large graphics for all rooms, making bold and strong statements, as well as adding character to each of these rooms, which also feature clever acoustic light fittings that absorb some of the noise from a busy office environment.

Speaking of meetings, it here on the 4th floor that Ipsos MORI has its public and client facing space. The theme here is essentially

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contemporary, eclectic and comfortable design that would appeal to a wide range of visitors and not be ostentatious in anyway.

‘This is where they have the meeting room suite for all their seminars, briefings and client meetings,’ Pernille continues. ‘The people who come through this space are major heads of business and government departments. It’s a fascinating business. We spent a lot of time with Ben Page, who is the CEO here. He’s very energetic and has very definitive ideas about everything – so that was really good fun.

I should also say that we had a great client team here. Jones Lang Lasalle were the project managers, and they were excellent. They were very strict with us all – but had to be because we had tight, budgets, tight timelines and the client was also extremely busy.’

Furniture also played an integral part of the project. Working in collaboration with Rainbow Office Design, Resonate selected Dynamobel bench workstations. When supplemented with a huge range of unique and eclectic pieces, all in contrasting fabrics and finishes, they add character to the scheme as well as allowing the user to connect with the arrangement on a personal level.

The tea points and café were also an important part of the scheme, providing staff with a place to dine within an alternative space. The impressive café houses 100 seats in various settings, from bar and banquette, through to bench and café. This again allows for interaction, collaboration and for staff to enjoy time away from the desk. It is no great surprise that the space has been a huge success with staff.

As mentioned a little earlier, Ipsos MORI was so pleased with the designs for its new central London offices that they briefed Resonate for the completion of the new Harrow office as well. The same theme and design ideas were used in Harrow, which became a transformational project as the office had always been of a very basic standard. By shifting space around, Resonate was able to create a business lounge, which occupies the corner of the 6th floor, therefore benefiting from the amazing view of the Harrow Hills! Again, breakout space was provided in the central part of the working floor to allow the teams to collaborate and get together both over a sandwich but also for impromptu meetings. The teams were previously located in two separate buildings and are now consolidated into one building.

And from what we hear, both workspaces are polling pretty high among Ipsos MORI’s staff. We can see why.

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Case Study

Essentials Client Royal Pharmaceutical Society Founded 1841 Interior Design & Architecture BDP Furniture Supply Dovetail Task Seating Humanscale Loose Furniture Connection, Vitra, Hitch Mylius, MARK Lighting Flos Carpets Shaw Contract Group Display Cases ClickNetherfield Graphics Acrylicize

Pharma Chameleon We’re more than used to talking about multi-sector developments, flexible workspaces

and the blurring of lines in office design. Until today, however, we certainly haven’t seen too many projects that combine all of the above and completely epitomise the concept of change.

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Case Study

BDP’s architects and interior designers were tasked to complete the conversion of a new headquarters for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. The design transforms a tired 1980s office building, adjacent to St Katherine’s Dock in London, into a vibrant office space that promotes the work of the society, engages with the public and welcomes staff, members and visitors.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is the professional membership body for pharmacists and pharmacies in Great Britain. The society advances the profession of pharmacy for public and patient benefit to secure the future of the profession and its members, leading and promoting the advancement of science, practice and education in pharmacy to shape and influence the future delivery of pharmacy-driven services. The society supports and empowers its members to improve health outcomes for

society through professional guidance, networks and resources.

BDP Interior Design Associate Kristen Liedl joins us, and is happy to guide us through this amazing space. Of course this project doesn’t start with an interior and Kristen begins by telling us about the amazing new façade and the building’s dramatic transformation. If we had the space and time we’d certainly focus more on these aspects; however, as we are an interiors title, it’s only right that we concentrate on what’s inside this impressively redressed building.

‘It was important to showcase what The Royal Pharmaceutical Society stands for. This is where the new graphics and branding was a key element,’ Kristen tells us as we settle into the welcoming, light and open ground floor reception space. 'We worked with Acrylicize on the art and graphics, which reads really

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well alongside all the exhibitions and branding.

Internally the main drivers of the client brief were for the new building to reflect a healthy working environment, sense of belonging, professionalism, status, heritage and a humble stature fitting of the Royal College through the architecture and design. BDP made sure to maintain this core vision along whole process.

The main reception is designed to be welcoming and engaging for everyone who enters this space. It is open to the public and also aimed as a business lounge for members where they can come in, work, research and hold meetings.

There are also meeting rooms further into the space, which members can hire, as well as large conference spaces that can hold up to 120 people, used for lectures and education seminars.’

We should explain that the exhibits Kristen mentions are in fact an

Case Study

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astonishing collection of medical artefacts, ranging from 18th century seahorses to current painkillers, from equipment used to make pills in the 1800's to Delftware jars used to hold 16th century medicinal ingredients. It’s telling the important story of how pharmacy has changed over time, the impact of medicine on the human body and how this has developed through the years. All of this is beautifully curated and is accompanied by a series of portraits of the leading figures in the society’s history.

‘We worked closely with the curator, Dawn Kemp – she was a big part in how the story is told, the sequence of how everything is displayed, and what would draw the public into the space. In their previous building in Lambeth this was split up amongst various floors and it wasn’t easily accessible to the public. This is great – it really helps to tell the story behind the society,’ says Kristen.

Reluctantly leaving this fascinating display behind, we head back towards reception and are immediately drawn to a clever ‘cut’ in the wall, which offers a mere glimpse of the library beyond.

‘One of the major features that was very important to this project was creating a heart within the space. What used to be an external light well, is now an open atrium and library which showcases historic books, museum artefacts, is a tool for members and staff to use for research and collaboration.

The dramatic staircase promotes movement, wellbeing, while animating and connecting the open office areas,’ Kristen reveals as we move through to the incredible library space, which now opens up above us, bringing light into each of the office floors above. ‘They have so many beautiful books and an amazing archive with

We created glass boxes which can showcase art collections and can be changed regularly. fascinating reference material. We designed specific spaces along the staircase and within the library to feature the portraits, creating a journey. The whole atrium looks really dramatic at night.’

The feature staircase climbs from the library at ground floor level through the atrium, encouraging staff integration and improving circulation around this new space.

We ascend to the first of the society’s main working floors, admiring the vista overhead as we do, and ask Kristen about the working relationship with the BDP architectural team.

‘It was an amazing opportunity to get clients and a project like this, where we were able to work together and we all had the same vision for the space. It was a collaborative process.

We also had a very close relationship with the client, who we were privileged to work with.’

Reaching the first floor we immediately find a cool breakout space – which is replicated on the floors above. ‘We looked to provide more of a neighbourhood, community feel and more interaction throughout the floors with different style meeting room spaces and soft breakout areas. We created glass boxes that wrap

75

around the external corners of the building and are also lit at night. These span two stories to showcase regularly changing art collections or branding, while allowing more light into the space.’

The new working environment is designed to be adaptable and to encourage greater collaboration among the society’s staff and also between staff and members.

An impressive restaurant and terrace at the top of the building, which overlooks Tower Bridge and offers unparalleled views across the city, provides breakout and relaxing space for staff and is also available to hire for private events.

‘This was a complex project,’ Kristen tells us, ‘because there were so many varying aspects to it all – which does make it more interesting.

The client was really appreciative because we achieved their vision and their new home reflects this.’

Simon Redman, Director of Finance and Resources at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, clearly agrees. ‘Professional, creative, caring, passionate and resolute, BDP guided us throughout our journey to design a new

Case Study

London headquarters which truly embodies the vision and values of our organisation celebrating the heritage of our past and the exciting developments in modern pharmacy.

‘BDP assisted us with space planning, a bold architectural design that ensured the intentional use of all of our space, with interior design to stimulate occupants and foster a new culture of working and with ensuring that the contractor delivered us a building which is exactly what we set out to achieve three years ago.

‘It’s been a long journey, but the feedback from the people who work here has been phenomenal,’ Amber Butcher, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Facilities Supervisor, adds. 'We’ve got new starters here, who had no idea about our old space back in Lambeth, but tell us they have never worked in such a nice place. They love the colour scheme and how open it is.

‘It’s a real godsend to have people on an open floorplate – rather than in silos as we previously were. It is a big leap culturally, but people have adapted and we have so much flexibility here.

‘We love the fact that we are able to showcase who we are here – and that was one of the main reasons for moving across to this area, along with the fact that we have a lot more around us in terms of shops and transport links. A lot of the Royal Colleges are also in and around this area, so we have been able to work more closely with them, which is great.

‘We now get more members of the public coming in and looking at the collection, and our own members pop in and use the space to work or to host meetings – which is exactly what we wanted from the space.’

Each of the brands has its own neighbourhood...

The workplace is a constantly changing, ever-evolving thing.

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Case Study

imperial Office

Executive Radial or rectangular shapes Selection of sizes Single or two-toned colour options Integrated 3 drawer pedestal Contrasting drawer fascia colour 77 Cable access flap

furniture

Imperial Office Furniture Limited Bankfield Business Park, Quebec Street, Bolton. BL3 5JN

Tel: 01204 364602 Fax: 01204 381509 www.imperialfurniture.co.uk info@imperialfurniture.co.uk

Review

REGIONAL REPORT: YORKSHIRE Yorkshire: for many the greatest county in the UK, for others, home to no premiership football teams! Like most UK industry centres, Yorkshire experienced huge changes brought about by the industry revelation and two world wars.

Following the Second World War successive UK governments aimed to balance the books and tried desperately to realise the feelgood factor that many had hoped for after the war, but managing a decline is the best most governments have been able to achieve.

Sheffield steel perhaps encapsulates the highs and lows of the Yorkshire region post 1945.

Once the powerhouse of the British Empire, ironically exporting the Bowie Knife to America,

Winter Gardens, Sheffield

it wasn’t long before much of what had been achieved was scuppered by trade tariffs and competition from Europe.

According to figures from the Iron and Steel Statistics Bureau (ISSB), in 1969 South Yorkshire produced 3.6 million tonnes of steel – that has now reduced to 1.3 million tonnes.

Poor trade union relations, nationalisation and renationalisation allowed other countries (notably Germany) to gain an advantage by

Magna Science Center, Rotherham

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investing at the critical time, which was mirrored throughout the country and the rest of the UK. Mass production of steel has been in decline for up to 40 years along with the myth that as much steel is produced today.

However, like many stories throughout the region, there is hope – you only have to look at the amazing photographs on these pages.

A little closer to our sector of commercial office, Sheffield’s office market has continued to

York

Review

Leeds

do well over the last two years. While there has been a reduction in the level of Grade A stock available, the development of 3 St Paul’s and the refurbishment of Milton House is good news for the city. Leeds' office market, once again dominated by the professional sector, remains buoyant. BSkyB’s circa 97,000 sq ft pre-let at Leeds Dock and the most recent news from Bruntwoods development for Leeds City Train

Station (see below) are great examples. Last year a take-up 600,000+ sq ft has been reported, interestingly around 60% of what was achieved in Manchester. As with Manchester, and most UK cities, prime rents will rise as the squeeze on supply from years of post-crisis development takes effect. Based on the current rate of demand some argue that Grade A will be eroded in Leeds by the end of the year.

Scarborough The development of Thorpe Park (not the fantastic park in Chertsey) by Legal & General and the very active Scarborough Group International, headed by part owner of Sheffield United Kevin McCabe, was very welcome.

Thorpe Park, on the eastern side of Leeds is the second phase, Scarborough Group International having sold the first stage will be the developer of 1.35m sq ft mix-use development; around 7,000 new homes and a million sq ft of office space.

Continuing our positive theme, Sir Michael Bear, Chairman of the UKTI Regeneration Investment Organisation, puts the Thorpe Park development into a UK perspective. 'The United Kingdom is known internationally as an attractive place in which to invest in large-scale regeneration and infrastructure projects. For too long, however, investment has been focused on London and the South East.'

City House (pictured left) Bruntwood’s investment into City House, Leeds, is underway, with an expected completion date of May 2017. The building will offer a total 119,210 sq ft, with full floors of 9,630 sq ft available.

Barnsley The public sector, in the shape of Barnsley Council, is driving development in the town centre with a recent announcement that Henry Boot will lead the construction with Turner & Townsend as the development management organisation in their £100m town centre redevelopment project.

City House

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Chinese investment Whilst Chinese investment in property in London and Manchester has been evident recently, it is Sheffield that will benefit from Chinese-backed investment in the shape of a £65m mix used scheme.

Local firm New Era Development aims to set B&K to work on the 21-storey mixed leisure, commercial and student halls scheme early next year (695 student rooms, 70,000 sq ft of retail and business incubator office space).

Whitehall Riverside Another exciting development in Leeds is No 2 Whitehall Riverside in Leeds, featuring 70,000 sq ft of office space and 38 parking spaces. The site was previously home to Whitehall Soap Works until the 1980's. The new development will form part of the very impressive Town Centre Securities’ (TCS) Whitehall Riverside scheme, which includes the neighbouring No 1 Whitehall Riverside offices – home of business services provider FDM and Swedish bank Handelsbanken, who have taken 17,159 sq and 8,160 sq ft respectively.

Something that Manchester could learn from is the Tower Square, part of the masterplan of the area, due to open this year set to be one of the biggest public spaces in Leeds.

Bridlington

Castle Howard

Tower Works

Hull

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Brownfield As we discussed as last month’s Mix Inspired seminar in London, the use of brownfield land has never been more important in the world of commercial development. It has been announced that Leeds City Council has granted Carillion planning permission for the Tower Works (pictured above centre) which is billed as the largest brownfield site on the South Banks.

The scheme consists of 90,000sq ft of commercial office space, 16,000sq ft of A1 and A3 retail restaurant and bar spaces alongside a mix of residential accommodation and town houses. The council’s agreement came with the condition that the Grade II Engine House be lovingly repurposed.

Yorkshire, like the rest of the UK, will never achieve the economic power of pre-1939, however, like the rest of the UK and any great organisation, it has to remodel itself. Whilst most believe that balanced economy of service and manufacturing is desirable, what remains key to economic success on both a regional and national level is great people making great choices. Gary Verity comes to mind – who masterminded the successful bid to start the Tour de France in 2014, a man with brave insightful vision (Editor’s note: we don’t think Boris Johnson's late withdrawal to host the start of the 2017 Tour had anything to do with his desire to leave the Eurozone!). We hope and expect Yorkshire has enough great people and heritage that not having a Premiership football team becomes an irrelevance

Review

Some of the Yorkshire design firms making things happen WAKEFIELD Matthews Mee The Harris Partnership Ltd

LEEDS

HARROGATE

AHR (Aedas)

Seven Architecture

Architecture519

YORK

Bowman Riley

Crease Strickland Parkins Architects

Box Architects

Purcell

Careyjones Chapmantolcher Chetwoods Associates

SHEFFIELD

CRL Architects

ACH Designs

Darnton B3

BDP

DLA Architecture

Bond Bryan Architects Ltd

DLG Architects

Coda Studios Ltd

Enjoy Design

Hadfield Cawkwell Davidson

Fuse Studios Ltd Fusion by Design

HLM

Norr Consultants

Jefferson Sheard Architects

Seymour Harris Architects Watson Batty

BROUGH

Race Cottam Associates Ltd

WCEC Group

An Eye for Design

Structural Interiors

HUDDERSFIELD AHR Architects

Prime office rents as of Sept 2015

DONCASTER

Ward McHugh Associates

Concorde Interiors Ltd

WMA Architects

Top regional growth for firms that export goods

Location

ÂŁ/sq ft

Region

2012

2012

2012

Growth 2012-2014

Leeds

27

Yorkshire and The Humber

11,500

12,400

13,900

21%

Sheffield

21

East Midlands

13,300

16,000

14,900

12%

York

16

North West

15,400

18,500

17,100

11%

Bradford

14

London

53,600

58,300

56,400

5%

Doncaster

14

South East

39,600

42,500

40,700

3%

Rotherham

12

South West

18,300

20,100

18,900

3%

Sources: Mix Research, LSH, Construction Enquirer, Knight Frank.

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Review

INSPIRING DESIGNERS COVERED Join the celebration in London’s creative heart. See the best in furniture, product and lighting design from across the globe.

Register free at clerkenwelldesignweek.com CDWfestival 82

Review

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Review

SURFACE DESIGN SHOW The renowned Surface Design Show, incorporating Light School, returned to London’s Business Design Centre last month for its biggest and best show to date.

The only show in the UK to focus on exterior and interior surfaces SDS occupied both the ground floor and the entire gallery level for the first time, featuring over 150 exhibitors.

Over 5,600 professional visitors attended over the 2½ days, with the majority from the architecture, interior design and lighting world. The show had a fantastic atmosphere throughout, with the 5% increase in visitor numbers creating a lively buzz.

Since its inception in 2005 the show has become the destination for industry people to see and touch and explore the latest materials for the built environment.

2016 did not disappoint with visitors describing this year’s show as ‘fantastic’, ‘inspiring’ and ‘informative’.

The emphasis of this year's show was very much on new product developments, with many exhibitors launching brand new collections.

Notable introductions included Evan James Design incorporating light into its applicate wall coverings, Float Glass Design launching a new type of glass and Pintark

by LOCO Design showcasing new ‘soft’ applications in stunning material combinations.

The standard of the exhibitors at this year’s show was hugely impressive. Solomon & Wu exhibiting on the gallery level gained attention for their floor to ceiling Snow Wall Panel, whilst Scotscape Landscaping showcased its fragrant living wall, attracting visitors with both its scale and beautiful scent. LED Linear, Finsa UK, Panel Piedra and Acoustic GRG Products also created impact with their impressive stands, each of which highlighted innovative new products.

There was also a packed programme of events – over 40 presentations covered three different seminar areas; the Main Stage, the CPD Hub and the School Room.

The Main Stage was the home of the ‘headline acts’, with topics that appealed right across the design world.

The highly anticipated Surface Design Awards also took place on the main stage, with IPT Architects taking the honour of Surface Design Awards Supreme Winner for its Howe Farm project.

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Pietra

Acoustic GRG

Pintark

Altfield Ltd

Review

Bright Green

Beyond Wood

Bespoke Glass Solutions

Decolan

Decora

Heliot and Co.

Mind the Arts

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Studiotex

Lumiscopic

Review

THE WATER STUDIO Now open in the heart of Clerkenwell, (opposite Boss Design), the Water Studio is Hansgrohe’s innovative new London hub.

The impressive facility is something completely new for Clerkenwell and definitely worth a visit.

Four working water stations and more than 200 products from the Hansgrohe and Axor brands are on show, and visitors can explore and test the technology behind the products.

Along with a press opening last month, Hansgrohe hosted a fantastic party, with the good and great of London's design community enjoying the firm's brilliant hospitality.

If you didn’t get a chance to attend, we suggest you make contact as Hansgrohe plans to roll out lots of great things for the year ahead. Also, watch out for our great Round Table, hosted by Hansgrohe, in the May issue. www.thewaterstudio.co.uk

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Mix Interiors 162

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Knauf AMF At this year’s Surface Design Show, Heradesign from Knauf AMF Ceilings made an impact on architects and designers for the visual energy and contemporary warmth it adds to their interiors. The team at Knauf AMF were helping visitors at their stand to find the perfect acoustic and aesthetic solution for your interior design and also provided advice about the entire range of high performance acoustic solutions. www.amfceilings.co.uk/heradesign

Lyndon Design Lyndon Design has helped transform a Michelin starred restaurant. Specified by the in-house design team at Rocco Forte – proud owners of The Balmoral – a collection of Lyndon Design’s classic two seater Albany sofas now adorn the elegant dining area; bringing a soft and intimate feel to this esteemed venue and helping draw diners into luxury and comfort. www.lyndon.co.uk

Moduleo Moduleo has announced that its innovative new collection, Moduleo Moods, is now available in the UK. The much-anticipated range offers customers a creative studio in which they can combine 10 brand-new flooring formats. Up to 110 unique wood and stoneeffect designs can be created using the wide range of tile shapes available, including hexagons, chevrons, triangles and diamonds, as well as traditional squares and rectangles. www.moduleo.co.uk

Style Partitions As part of a high-spec refurbishment, partitioning expert Style was specified to add flexibility to the UK offices and meeting areas of law firm, Kirkland & Ellis International LLP, based in the iconic Gherkin in London. In addition to a bespoke glass moveable wall that perfectly matches an existing partition, Style recommended the unique Skyfold vertical-rising partition to divide the larger space into two separate rooms at the simple press of a button. www.style-partitions.co.uk

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Justan

Mix Interiors 162

idea

The recent case of a Bristol company that has introduced menstrual leave as a way to help its women employees, shines a light onto some regressive views about women, work and entitlement, argues Mark Eltringham.

There's nothing that makes you yearn more for the end of humanity quite like the comments section on a website. There is such a direct correlation between your zeal for the apocalypse and the amount you expose yourself to the fetid bullshit that seeps from some people's heads on to the Internet that you could graph it pretty accurately, with an especially steep curve reserved for the cesspits that lie below the surface of YouTube videos and certain newspaper articles. It's wise to limit your exposure to this stuff because whenever you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back into you.

Occasionally though, the eye may drift below the content and catch a glimpse of how a lot of people think. One example cropped up recently when it was announced that a Bristol based company called Coexist had decided to offer its female employees menstrual leave, meaning they could work from home or take time out if they felt they needed it.

The company isn't the first to introduce this sort of thing but, for whatever reason, this particular case piqued the media's interest.

The response to this in op-ed pieces and the comments sections on websites was both enlightening and frequently depressing. There were rational arguments, including those who

There was the inevitable misogyny, expressed as it often is in that quantum superstate of prurience and disgust. argued that the last thing women need at work is to offer another stick to those who wish to beat them. Then there was a lot of predictably irrational and frequently unpleasant gibberish.

There was the inevitable misogyny, expressed as it often is in that quantum superstate of prurience and disgust. There was the general resentment that some people – often the perpetually advantaged – have for the idea that somebody might be getting something they're not, even though it doesn't matter to them.

And then there was the idea that if somebody's not at their desk at certain times of the day, then they're not working. Of course, this idea is not restricted to the imbeciles

who've got nothing better to do than join a mob of the unnecessarily bitter in a newspaper comments section. It also remains prevalent at boardroom level too.

There is progress of course. Last month a report from the Work Foundation claimed that by next year over half of UK organisations will offer their staff some form of flexible working.

But that still leaves another half who do not.

Even in those firms open to this notion, there will be some reluctance to let go of the idea of the old structures of time and place.

This seems odd when you consider how much we now understand about workplace dynamics. We know that people tend to do more work when they are free to choose how to do it. At the same time we understand that certain forms of work can only be carried out when people are physically together. We know there is a tendency for people to work longer hours than is good for them. And we also know that they are more productive when they have the ability to make decisions and take time to be human.

Whether that means helping them deal with periods, taking time out to be with the kids or just whatever, we shouldn't care so long as they are happy, healthy and doing their job in the time they allow it.

Mark Eltringham is the publisher of workplace design and management website Office Insight. mark@officeinsight.org

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Design: Daniel Figueroa

DAUPHIN X-CODE: FOR GREATER DYNAMISM IN THE OFFICE

The functions of X-Code office chairs clearly determine their overall styling. The soft, multidimensional backrest fabric ensures optimum climatic conditions and support for the entire back. The horizontal gaps in the backrest shell provide support, allow ventilation and are an unusual design feature in their own right.

Dauphin HumanDesign速 UK Limited Clerkenwell, 3rd Floor, 11 Northburgh Street, GB-EC1V 0AH London Phone +44 207 2537774, Fax +44 207 2531629 www.dauphinuk.com I info@dauphinuk.com