Mix Interiors 217 - November 2021

Mix Interiors 217

November 2021

Contents INSIGHT 6

UPFRONT

16

MIXOLOGY NORTH21 JUDGES

18

DOING THE RIGHT THING

20

MATERIAL MATTERS

22

DESERT ISLAND DESKS

24

NEIL USHER

26

PROPERTY

66

The latest highlights from the world of commercial interior design An introduction to our illustrious awards’ judging panel M Moser’s Steve Gale sees sustainability in hybrid working The MOMENTUM Collection from David Thulstrup for Søuld explores the innovation of eelgrass through product designs Josh Stokes, Associate, Sheppard Robson

Paradoxically Speaking: Booking

74

2022 Mood Swings: the year of mixed opportunities

ROUNDTABLE

ROUNDTABLE

32

60

IT MIGHT BE RIGHT NOW, BUT IS IT RIGHT FOREVER? IN PARTNERSHIP WITH CMD

We’ve all had to adapt to change over the past 18 months, but the reality is that change in the commercial interiors sector is nothing new – it’s just been a little more urgent and often unplanned, post-pandemic

MIXOLOGY21 38

54

MIXOLOGY NORTH21 FINALISTS We announce the eagerly anticipated Mixology North awards finalists

CASE STUDY: CLIENTEARTH BY PELDON ROSE

When one of the world’s most ambitious environmental charities looked to transform its headquarters and how it worked, collaboration and sustainability were front and centre in its thinking

COLLECTIVE DISPLACEMENT; WORKSPACE ON THE BRINK? IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AMTICO

The last two years have been one long mighty displacement – from the workplace to home, from normal life to the abnormal and uncertain. Is this displacement something we will now have to live with?

54 80

THE FINAL WORD

Mike Walley, Senior Director of Global Real Estate & Workplace Strategy at Criteo

66 CASE STUDY: PLADIS BY GENSLER

With an assortment of settings for all work styles, pladis’ new London HQ celebrates the joy of making, baking and sharing through a carefully crafted space

74

CASE STUDY: IONA CRUISE SHIP

BY JESTICO + WHILES P&O Cruises has launched the latest addition to its fleet, with interiors designed by hospitality experts Jestico + Whiles

Mix 217 November 2021 | 1

WELCOME

A word from Mick

Get in touch

So, somewhat unbelievably, we’ve already come to the final issue of 2021. But how will we remember what has been another difficult, truncated and – let’s face it – strange 12 months?

Is this the year when we were able to say goodbye to lockdown and hello to embracing the ‘new normal’? Is there going to be anything new about the normal we move into – or are we heading (back) to a normal of packed commuter trains, crowded bars and ever-busier high streets as we approach you know what (I’m not mentioning it before December)?

And what about the workplace? Are we on the precipice of a revolution when it comes to how workplaces will look, feel and operate? Or will people simply return to what they know (and miss) but with a smattering of masks? Will the only real change be cultural as businesses start to embrace hybrid/flex working? Does anyone still like Zoom/Teams calls? We’ll see.

What I do know is that, despite the news being dominated by negativity (back to normality then!), there are genuine reasons to be optimistic.

We’re still here and we’re just weeks away from Mixology North – which this year feels like a bigger adventure than ever – and then we have that other major celebration at the end of December. And this year it looks as though we can even celebrate it with family and friends! But, like I said, I’m not mentioning that yet!

Have a good one anyway.

EDITOR Mick Jordan mick@mixinteriors.com MANAGING DIRECTOR Marcie Incarico marcie@mixinteriors.com

The cover THE LOGO This month’s cover logo is designed by Woods Bagot Principal and Regional Design Leader, Julian Cross. Inspired by the industrial feel of the blackened steel balustrade against the dark texture of the carpet, the vivid colour of the MIX logo is generated by the perspective of the staircase and the sharp balustrade edge.

The neon pink graphics draw inspiration from the edgy graphics of the ‘1980s London club, Flyer’.

WWW.WOODSBAGOT.COM

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER Kate Borastero kate@mixinteriors.com EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE Chloe Petersen Snell chloe@mixinteriors.com HEAD OF OPERATIONS Lisa Jackson lisa@mixinteriors.com DESIGNER Tammi Bell tamzin@tamzinrosedesigns.com FOUNDING PUBLISHER Henry Pugh CONTRIBUTORS Steve Gale, David Thame Mike Walley, Neil Usher ADDRESS Unit 2 Abito, 85 Greengate, Manchester M3 7NA

THE COVER IMAGE Discovering beauty in the flaws of the transient, Imperfection is the new premium carpet tile collection from IVC Commercial.

Inspired by the ancient Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi, Imperfection is made in Belgium with ECONYL® and 94% recycled EcoFlex™ Echo for an inspiring carpet plank that supports wellbeing.

COURTESY OF IVC COMMERCIAL

TELEPHONE 0161 519 4850 EMAIL editorial@mixinteriors.com WEBSITE www.mixinteriors.com TWITTER @mixinteriors INSTAGRAM @mix.interiors LINKEDIN Mix Interiors

Printed by S&G Print ISSN 1757-2371

Get your own To ensure that a regular copy of Mix Interiors reaches you or to request back issues, call 0161 519 4850 or email lisa@mixinteriors.com ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES UK single £45.50, Europe £135 (airmail), Outside Europe £165 (airmail)

2 | Mix 217 November 2021

For floors that support productivity “We felt that Studio Moods modular vinyl would be a really great way to elevate the space. We just loved the aesthetics of the flooring.

Ciara McClelland, STOiCA

A Cat A office in London’s Covent Garden district, 16&20 Short’s Garden blends urban warehouse with contemporary office design. Directly opposite the iconic Neal’s Yard, the Grade II Listed Victorian warehouse provides three floors of office accommodation.

On the first floor is a plug and play ready workspace that’s used as a showcase of Assemble by Seven Dials, a turnkey fit-out programme. Our award-winning Studio Moods modular vinyl flooring was specified by fit-out specialist STOiCA to create a designated zone for the kitchenette, breakout and congregation areas.

Selecting Studio Moods Diamonds and Wicker patterns, STOiCA have used a range of natural wood and stone

effects to create a relaxing look that upholds the premium feel of the entire space.

In breakout and congregation areas, the design team selected Sierra Oak in a stylish Wicker pattern for a modern solution to wood effect flooring. For the kitchenette, Diamond in a combination of Verdon Oak and two shades of Jura Stone delivers a striking tri-tone geometric pattern.

Made in Belgium with renewable energy and using 50% recycled content from our own recycling facility, Studio Moods makes it easy to create inspiring office interiors that focus on improving productivity and supporting wellbeing.

think...

ivc-commercial.com

UPFRONT

Sea Change

R

econfiguring its highly successful office concept at Sea Containers on London’s South Bank, BDG has sought to define the future of work with a thoughtful response to the key challenges that face the workspace sector.

When BDG completed the Sea Containers project in 2017, it became a blueprint for the transformation and repurposing of old buildings, clearly demonstrating how the built environment can have a positive impact on the integration of people, place and purpose. The project went on to win several awards, notably the British Council for Office (BCO) Award for Innovation.

As business leaders are tackling the return to the office, BDG is once again establishing a new workplace paradigm, conceived through a ‘People-First, Future-Focused’ approach. To this end, spaces are defined using data gathered from 150 online interactive workshops, completed over the last 18 months with over 3,000 participants.

Cutting-edge technology played a key role in the scheme. Open plan audio visual solutions, sensor technology and voice activation all play their part in helping improve the user experience and understanding of ‘space as a tool’ for people to deliver their best work. And, going forward, the sensor technology plus QR feedback loops across the space allow for continual development and re-calibration over an extended period of time as the space learns and adapts to user insight.

Mobility and adaptability were other core themes of the workplace reconfiguration to maintain users physical health, coupled with green space to provide better comfort and stimulation for mental health.

‘We’ve long been advocates for intelligent assessment of demand when working with our clients to define their workspace,’ says Chief Creative Officer, Colin Macgadie. ‘What we’re seeing is that ‘quantity’ and ‘quality’ have become equals at the early stages of definition as organisations make a tangible shift to ‘people-first’ decision making.

‘Our extensive engagement with end users and occupiers globally has provided a huge amount of insight into the expectation that surrounds the workspace of the future and the emphasis on performance and comfort.’

Green issues in terms of the debate on embodied energy were also addressed within the redesign of the interior. The reconfigured space required zero interior building works and was completed using 98% existing furniture. w

6 | Mix 217 November 2021

Bloc & Rombini

All Together Now

C

elebrating 10 years of collaboration with Rowan and Erwan Boullerec, Ensemble (‘together’ in French) is a new collection of floor and wall tiles from Mutina. The collection features new editions of Pico and Rombini, two new collections – Punto and Bloc – and a new flooring offering, Pico Bois, which applies the Pico pattern to a wooden floor tile.

New ceramic collection Punto is a three-dimensional decorative wall tile, characterised by sunken and elevated dots, presented in five colours in a matt finish and five in a glossy finish – ranging from white, rich and muted greens, to a deep red-brown.

The first wooden floor from Mutina, Pico Bois is an evolution of the classic Pico tile pattern, with red and blue dots pressed into the wooden surface to add interest and enhance the texture. ‘We thought that reproducing the small dots of Pico on a material such as wood, with its natural imperfections and grain, could be interesting. The result is a pattern halfway between extremely natural signs and a texture,’ the Boullerec brothers commented.

The second new ceramic collection, Bloc, is a terracotta brick created with an extrusion process in both a natural version and a palette of four shades. The characteristic holes of Bloc can be left empty or filled with Tube – a wooden accessory available in red and blue.w

UPFRONT

That’s Entertainment TSK has unveiled Flutter’s new office in Leeds, incorporating the right tools and settings to connect the global organisation in a new age of hybrid working.

G

lobal gaming giant Flutter Entertainment is known for its portfolio of leading international brands, including Sky Betting & Gaming, Paddy Power, PokerStars and Betfair.

The new eight-floor office space has been designed with ‘the future in mind’ by TSK. Flutter acquired Sky Betting & Gaming in early 2020 and this new space will allow the business to achieve ambitious growth plans for the future.

The office space needed to be adaptable and allow people to do their best work, supporting employees’ evolving work activities and empowering them to change their space on demand to suit a particular purpose and activity.

To make the best use of the new office space, a range of settings were shaped for both independent and collaborative work, including work benches, quiet pods, sit/stand desks, digitally-enabled meeting spaces and ‘zen zones’ for relaxation. Over 20% of the entire office is dedicated to non-working areas – for socialising, relaxing and reflection – to encourage a ‘oneteam dynamic’ and connect people on a deeper level through social activities to build a stronger team culture.

‘The new office is all about choice, not desks.

We’re moving away from the fixed work setting

8 | Mix 217 November 2021

and transitioning into a fully agile environment,’ says Julie Thomas-Brooks, Lead Designer at TSK. ‘Instead of focusing on desks, we are creating multiple, varied, accessible and innate settings to support Sky Betting & Gaming’s diverse workforce.’

Flutter moved 2,000+ people across two workspaces into this one building to establish unity between different brands. The new environment empowers employees to change their space on demand to suit purpose and activities – not only bringing people together but also liberating them from fixed positions within their environment, promoting collaboration and creativity in an accessible and spontaneous way.

The furniture and fittings are largely mobile to encourage the team’s own space management and set-up, and bi-fold doors and writable walls are available across the site for ad hoc sessions to be organised at a moment’s notice.

The sharp triangular shape of the building presented a challenge for the design team, but lent itself to creating consistent spaces within each floor. On working floors, a unique space of collaborative settings and scrum spaces allows for ideation, retreat and teamworking. The rear is less exposed to sunlight throughout the day so

is home to meeting, training and focus spaces.

The centre space is reserved for social spaces, providing an impressive sense of welcome.

‘We used the nose of the building to create a ‘zen zone’ – geographically this made sense, with great views over the Wellington Place business district,’ we’re told. ‘The identity of each working floor is influenced by the function that it is required to perform: forum, meeting, presentation, focus, lounge and social. The use of each central area influences the entire floorplate’s look, feel, and flow. Our design team carefully selected colours, materials and fabrics that evoke an emotional connection and stimulate different responses. Every detail was carefully considered and purpose-led, from the acoustics to the materials and textures used.’

The bright and airy café was created using natural materials such as wood and plants to evoke a sense of calm. A south-facing outdoor terrace gives social events its own dedicated natural space, and the gaming space on the 8th floor encourages employees to socialise, relax and have fun. ‘We’re now seeing more staff come back to the office – more than any of their other offices – which is really quite inspiring,’ says Louise Wood, CRE Programme Manager at Flutter.w

INSPIRED BY NATURE

DESIGNERS & MANUFACTURERS OF WORKSPACE FURNITURE Part of the

Portfolio

WWW.GOF.CO.UK/KULTURE/RELO

UPFRONT

Whale Song

P

lastic Whale is a social enterprise with a mission, which has partnered here in the UK with Nomique. Founded in the Netherlands, the Plastic Whale team collects as much plastic waste with as many people as possible.

Every year, thousands of people who think like Plastic Whale take to the canals of Amsterdam to help to collect tonnes of plastic waste that can then be turned into something useful.

With 11 boats in Amsterdam and two boats in Rotterdam, Plastic Whale hopes to inspire as many people as possible to take action for plastic-free waters.

This innovative enterprise sees plastic is an incredibly versatile material, turning the thousands of PET bottles it fishes from Amsterdam’s canals into raw materials to create new products: plastic foam from which it makes its boats and plastic felt that it can adapt for various applications – including its amazing collection of lamps, acoustic panels, chairs and a spectacular boardroom table.

Inspiration for the top of the boardroom table is a surfacing whale, with its distinctive blowhole and gracious lines. It is made from layers of felt and foam made from recycled PET bottles and

the wood is robust FSC certified birch plywood, while the surface is exquisitely finished using PET felt that has been heated and pressed to give it a luxurious look and feel.

Sound exciting? Well, now one lucky firm out there has an opportunity to test an amazing whale table for itself. Plastic Whale and Nomique are looking for a home for said eightperson table (length 4,000mm, width 1,400mm, height 754mm). Simply contact Richard Olver at richard.olver@nomique.com w

Plastic Whale, boardroom table

10 | Mix 217 November 2021

bFRIENDS of the Earth

L

aunching earlier this month, bFRIENDS by Bene is a brilliant new collection of desktop accessories made from discarded food packaging. Comprising pen pots, trays and a stand for mobile devices, the collection is 3D printed from 100% recycled PLA, a corn starch-derived bioplastic, diverted from landfill. At the end of the products’ lives, they can be easily returned to Bene to be recycled again – creating a complete, closed-loop production cycle.

The collection is the result of a three-way collaboration between Bene, its longstanding design collaborator, Pearson Lloyd, and Batch.Works, a London start-up specialising in 3D-printed consumer products. In a project initiated, steered and designed by Pearson Lloyd, the three companies have come together, pooled their expertise, and developed the new line of products using locally sourced 100% recycled post-consumer PLA from Reflow, which specialises in recycling the bioplastics used in products such as food packaging for 3D printing. For Bene, the bFRIENDS collection is both the company’s first major foray into office accessories and its first commercial application of 3D printing technology.

‘The launch of bFRIENDS is exciting new territory for us, and makes Bene one of the very first furniture brands to offer a 3D printed accessory line,’ says Bene CEO, Michael Fried. ‘Pearson Lloyd’s design brilliantly demonstrates their capacity to balance form and function, and responds honestly and elegantly to both the material and the process of 3D printing. The circular manufacturing model being pioneered by companies such as Batch.

Works offers real hope for the sustainable future of design and production – and this collection is proof that it works. bFRIENDS is only the beginning.’ w

bFRIENDS Collection

London Showroom 25 Bastwick Street, Clerkenwell, EC1V 3PS

sixteen3.co.uk

UPFRONT

Record number of entries for Surface Design Awards

T

he finalists of the 2022 Surface Design Awards have recently been announced, with a record number of entries demonstrating a wealth of talent and material innovation.

Shortlisted projects include 22 Handyside, a London workplace by Coffey Architects, Maggie’s Centre for cancer care in Southampton by AL_A, and Sangini House, a workplace in Gujarat, India,

by Urbanscape Architects. There were nearly 200 entries for this year’s awards, with submissions sent from 24 different countries around the world including China, France and the USA. There are 12 awards in total, which form an integral part of the Surface Design Show (8-10 February 2022) and reward both interior and exterior innovation.

The judging panel, co-chaired by Nicola Osborn, Creative Director at Basha-Franklin and Joseph Henry, Principal Project Officer with the Greater London Authority (GLA), were clearly delighted at the quality and variety of the entries.

High on their list of priorities when discussing the projects were social values and a duty of care, as well as sustainability and surface creativity.

The winners of the 2022 Surface Design Awards will be announced on Thursday 10 February, in a breakfast ceremony at Surface Design Show at London’s Business Design Centre – including the coveted Supreme Award, which is selected from the category winners.

Meanwhile, with 100 exhibitors already signed up to participate, including over 25 New Talents, the show itself is getting ready to make up for lost time, having been forced into the virtual

Urbanscape Sangini House

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The Grid Farmers Den

Maggies

Coffey Architects: 22 Handyside Street

world earlier this year, and is back with some much-loved areas as well as some new ones for visitors to discover.

Many of the exhibitors will bring new product launches to the show, which are inspired by the theme ‘Sense of Place’, with the goal of putting humanity and the planet’s wellbeing at the heart of all decision making.

There will be a comprehensive talks programme, with over 50 speakers from diverse design backgrounds. New for this year are the ‘Legends Live’ sessions, taking place on the Main Stage and involving industry leaders interviewing someone in or connected to the industry who they see as their own ‘legend’.

Light School and its content partner, Light Talks, will feature once again – providing lighting suppliers with the opportunity to influence architects and interior designers in the role lighting can play in their future projects.

Visitors will also be able to enjoy the Stone Gallery, which brings an exclusive preview of natural stone to the show. The Stone Tapestry, meanwhile, is a bespoke installation piece exploring innovative textures, light, colour and pattern, curated by Squire & Partners.

Make Architects Three New Bailey

One of the highly anticipated and unique parts of the show is the New Talent section. Supporting new talent is a key focus for Surface Design Show. This year over 30 participants will display a range of sophisticated and innovative designs, from textile designs featuring augmented reality to 3D tiles of eco resin and waste materials.w

UPFRONT Mixology North21 Judges

Roger Stephenson OBE

Meet the Judges We’re just weeks away from Mixology North and, to whet the appetite of those fortunate enough to be heading to Manchester’s Kimpton Clocktower Hotel for the big night, here is an introduction to our illustrious awards judging panel. It goes without saying that we’re incredibly grateful for their time, efforts and expertise.

Founding Partner Stephenson Hamilton Risley Studio Our head judge Roger founded his practice in 1979, which has been deeply involved in the urban regeneration of Manchester. Roger has completed many of Manchester’s significant buildings - The new building for Chetham’s School of Music was shortlisted for the Sterling Prize. In 2001, Roger received an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to Architecture and is also a visiting Professor at Liverpool University School of Architecture.

Jamie Hills

Aisling McNulty

Suzy Wright

A chartered surveyor for over 14 years, Jamie works on a number of high profile schemes in the Ask portfolio, including flagship developments at First Street and Embankment in Manchester.

Jamie has also successfully managed the design and development of both phases of commercial office buildings at Embankment as well as taking N08 First Street from initial inception to practical completion. He holds responsibility for leading on all office lettings, and over the past few years has successfully completed leases with occupiers including Auto Trader, Jacobs, Ford Credit Europe, Gazprom, WSP and ODEON.

Aisling joined Bruntwood after graduating from Heriot-Watt University in 2006 and qualified as a chartered surveyor in 2008. Her current role as Development Director focuses on all aspects of new build development and largescale refurbishment for Bruntwood Works, from conception through to completion. Since joining the business, Aisling’s passion for sustainability has become a core focus in her role. Putting sustainability at the centre of every development decision the business makes, Aisling is setting the bar high for Bruntwood and ensuring the business meets its ambitious Net Zero Carbon targets.

Suzy is a property strategy professional with nearly 20 years’ experience in the property and facilities management sector. Having started her career as a space planner, following completion of a design degree, she now leads the UK office strategy and workplace design for BT’s Better Workplace Programme. She has worked in both consultant and client side roles for a variety of global private and public sector companies, and has successfully developed workplace strategies and implemented strategic workplace transformation and change programmes across a number of sectors with organisations such as BBC, Google, University College London and GSK.

Development Director ASK Real Estate

16 | Mix 217 November 2021

Development Director Bruntwood

Senior Manager, UK Office Estate Strategy BT

UPFRONT Mixology North21 Judges

Adam Higgins

Jonathan Stirzaker Philips

Tina Norden

Adam is Co-founder of Manchester based property developer Capital&Centric. His company is behind some of the North West’s largest property projects, including the joint venture delivering the £250m Kampus neighbourhood on the site of the old MMU campus in Manchester, the redevelopment of Crusader

A chartered building surveyor specialising in project management, Jonathan heads up the Colliers project team across the UK Northern region. He has experience of delivering a diverse range of projects through the full project life cycle; including commercial office and luxury healthcare fit-outs and high-end

Tina is an interior designer and architect with a diverse portfolio stretching across many contexts and continents, from hotel and restaurant design to high-end residential. Tina collaboratively leads design teams in both the UK and HongKong and is currently working on a new Park Hyatt hotel project in Jakarta, a five star hotel in Mumbai,

Mill behind Piccadilly Station and the soon to be built Littlewoods Film Studios in Liverpool.

Capital&Centric made national headlines recently with Adam’s decision to ban investors from buying their apartments at Crusader – in the process, creating the first city centre owner-occupier only community in the UK.

residential and commercial new build.

and her third restaurant for Rüya – an Anatolian restaurant brand in London’s Mayfair and Dubai.

She has recently completed the refurbishment of East Hotel’s FEAST restaurant and Domain workspace in Hong Kong, and QO Amsterdam – a White Label project for the IHG hotel brand.

Darren Robey

Heather Evans

Emma Cullen

Darren has 20+ years’ procurement and fitout experience in the legal and hospitality sectors. In the last five years this has included 11 move or refurbishment projects and over 500k sq ft of space. During this time, Darren has been lucky enough to work with many truly inspirational people within the A&D and supply chain community. Working collaboratively with suppliers following a shared vision and values, which focuses on people and the environment, he has been able to consistently deliver high quality projects, which are thoughtful, innovative and sustainable.

Heather has an extensive track record in delivering expert consultancy for clients on sustainability, wellbeing and social value.

Passionate about developing sustainability strategies for clients that allow for improvement across all areas of sustainability – environmental, economic and social – and keenly interested in all aspects of sustainability, Heather has contributed to technical standards and spoken internationally on a range of topics.

Emma joined U+I in early 2021 as Assistant Project Manager for the Mayfield development in central Manchester; a 24-acre regeneration site, which will deliver 6.5 acres of public park. Her passion is in creating sustainable places that bring genuine value to the people using them, putting social value at the heart of project decisions. Her previous roles have seen her work in bids and planning before taking on a client-side role.

Co-founder Capital&Centric

Procurement Manager DLA Piper

Associate Director Colliers

Head of Sustainability Rider Levett Bucknall

Partner Conran & Partners

Project Manager U+I

Mix 217 November 2021 | 17

UPFRONT Steve Gale

Doing the right thing Steve Gale sees sustainability in hybrid working.

Steve Gale is Head of Workplace Strategy at M Moser Associates.

SteveG@mmoser.com 18 | Mix 217 November 2021

E

mployees have more negotiating power now that unemployment is low, and firms are competing to work out how to accommodate workers who have tasted freedom – and these employees are demanding more than greater choice and flexibility. They are defending the greater global environment.

Imagine a dial that plots your personal position on a motivational scale between unfettered venal ambition at one end, and selfless respectful altruism at the other. Do you think the past two years might have moved the needle?

There is some evidence, if you look for it, of a bit less dog eat doggery, in favour of a more sustainable approach to work.

We all know the gist of the countless surveys that ask, in different ways, how much we want to return to the office. The answer is we don’t. Some time in the office seems okay, but not more than two or three days, at the outside, please.

This might not be just a vote for an easier life, skipping the commute for an extra hour in bed.

Respondents are giving more sophisticated reasons that describe a bigger picture, a wider view of work and what it means for us.

Take, for example, the reduced carbon footprint from so much less traveling – less exhaust fumes, less energy, less pollution. It is even plausible that the office air conditioning could run at reduced power with fewer bodies around, while the usual occupants sit at home with the window open.

Employees are thinking outside the daily routine, and considering wider issues like unnecessary business travel, single use plastics in supply chains, and responsible policies for purchasing food and consumables. Goodbye avocados – and make sure you have no-dairy options in the office fridge.

For many, their work/life balance has had a top up during the pandemic, and the idea of community is now more than a group of work colleagues, as it extends to the places and people around the home rather than the office. Now there is an opportunity to reduce harm to the greater environment while

improving your personal life through work, all with the backing of employers that want a badge of environmental responsibility.

Maybe part of the motivation for hybrid working is a suppressed desire to simply do the right thing, at a time when the need for global action is front page news. We see individual preferences lining up with actions of institutions and governments, like fossil energy divestment, renewable power generation and, in the UK, a completely revised land management policy, which rewards farmers for sustainable practices.

Hybrid work styles are beginning to align with these visible and popular policies and employers want to be on the right side of a movement with higher aspirations than simply loosening remote working protocols.

Listed companies are also required to demonstrate responsibility under ESG (environmental, social and governance) reporting, while appealing to their potential talent pool.

If it turns out that hybrid working allows employees to articulate their wider aspirations for the planet, then it would be bad business to ignore them.w

UPFRONT Material Matters

The MOMENTUM Collection from David Thulstrup for Søuld The award-winning designer utilises the innovation of Søuld’s eelgrass acoustic mats to create four limited edition furniture designs ot-resistant, non-toxic, moisture-regulating, insulating, low-emission: eelgrass is a natural resource that reproduces itself annually in the sea, washes ashore without any human intervention, and is dried on nearby fields by the sun and wind. A type of seagrass, its use in construction dates back centuries; originally used by settlers on the Danish island of Læsø to create thick and insulating roof-thatching for their ‘seaweed’ houses – a technique not seen anywhere else in the world. After a decade of research and development into the material, Søuld’s products represent a passionate reinvention of Denmark’s forgotten seaweed house heritage, emerging as an expert in this wonderful material.

R

Working together with local Danish farmers, municipalities and ecologists, Søuld has optimised eelgrass processing based on environmental protection and the preservation of natural eelgrass meadows. The sea plant is found washed ashore along Denmark’s coastline as an abundant, renewable and overlooked local

20 | Mix 217 November 2021

resource, absorbing significant amounts of CO2 while growing in the sea, and therefore serving as a carbon sink when used in construction. Søuld has demonstrated that this natural and nontoxic material has numerous inherent qualities as a modern building material: it provides excellent acoustic and thermal comfort, effective humidity regulation, long-term durability, high fire-resistance and low susceptibility to mould and bacteria due to its naturally high content of mineral salts from the sea.

Formed from this impressive CO2-binding material, Søuld’s Acoustic Mats enhance the sensory experience of interior wall and ceiling cladding whilst providing acoustic performance, health and wellbeing benefits. Søuld offers the mats with wooden joinery or wooden frames – available both framed and unframed to offer a minimal and versatile acoustic solution.

Created with award-winning designer and architect, David Thulstrup, the MOMENTUM Collection explores the tactility of eelgrass

through four limited edition designs: a Low Table, High Table, Podium and Screen – marking the first use of Søuld’s eelgrass in furniture design. With a focus on the senses, each piece integrates glass and steel with Søuld’s eelgrass Acoustic Mats.

‘Working with eelgrass feels rewarding not only because of its truly unique characteristics, but also the fact that it’s natural, sustainable, and revolutionary,’ David comments. ‘I especially love the surface of the eelgrass, its warm hue, and the smell of salt. Visiting Læsø and understanding the history of the place played a huge role in the design process. Once I started to dissect how the eelgrass was used and applied in building the roofs back in the days, I realised that methods like layering, stacking and exposing the material would be an integral part of my designs.’

The result is a collection of honest and sensorial designs that improve acoustics within spaces whilst connecting modern interior design with nature.w

LET IT

Flow

FLUIT

CONTRACT CHAIR Design by ARCHIRIVOLTO

www.actiu.com

UPFRONT Desert Island Desks

A copy of Swiss Family Robinson

Desert Island Desks

For instructional purposes, obviously! I’m an architect after all – so of course I’m going to spend my time there building a palatial treehouse out of rattan.

Josh Stokes

Associate Sheppard Robson

J

osh is an associate at Sheppard Robson, having joined the practice in 2013. Working primarily in the workplace sector, Josh has overseen the delivery of large-scale projects from both an architectural and interiors fitout perspective. He has recently led the delivery of a high-profile 160,000 sq ft headquarters fit-out for a Fortune 100 retailer in Greater London, alongside delivering the architectural design of a new-build 100,000 sq ft headquarters campus for a technology consultancy near Cambridge. Nominated as one of Mix Interiors ’30 under 30’ in 2021, Josh is often praised for his personable and positive approach to every part of a project and his attention to detail. Here is what Josh would bring with him if he found himself stranded on our desert island…

Simply Nigella – Feel Good Food Because her slow cooked beef shin chilli with bourbon is the most delicious recipe on Earth, and the perfect end to a day of treehouse building.

22 | Mix 217 November 2021

Vitra Model A Cork Stools Because not only are they beautiful, they’re also a pretty good buoyancy aid for escape raft construction.

UPFRONT Desert Island Desks

My sketchbook.

There’s plans to be drawn for the treehouse after all, and there’s nothing more I like doing than sitting down and having a good scribble.

Wildtable BBQ by Cashmere Caveman Co Something I saw at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year and desperately want… despite currently living in a two-bedroom flat.

Offering leather solutions, plus antibacterial faux leathers for workplace and contract seating

Wilson (from Castaway) Because I need company and, frankly, I think I’d re-enact Tom Hank’s role quite well!

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OPINION

D

Paradoxically Speaking: Booking The big management consultancies with big clients and big offices that cast big shadows all had them several decades ago.

What is Neil Usher talking about this month?

Neil Usher is Chief Workplace & Change Strategist at GoSpace AI, and Author of The Elemental Workplace and Elemental Change 24 | Mix 217 November 2021

esk booking systems – in the days where you pulled a thin wire out of each end of a plastic holder and plugged one into a phone socket and the other into your laptop to dial in and use it. These pioneering organisations ran close to the desk sharing wind, with ratios of around three or four desks for every ten people because most of the time was spent on client sites, drinking their powdered vend instead.

Then the booking systems went away, replaced by our evolved ability to scan and select.

Now they’re back, their development hastened by a global pandemic that resulted in a number of reasons for their resurgence.

In the earlier stages of COVID’s rampage, the prompts were socially distanced desks, restricted attendance and a helpful record of who is intending to be in, should there be a positive test. Latterly, as the plastic shields are progressively shipped off to paintball warehouses, the drivers are variable and unpredictable attendance, matched with a desire to ‘right size’ (that is, reduce) the portfolio for a world of hybrid work.

As a genre of software, booking systems are designed to manage the demand for, and supply of, an increasingly scarce resource: desks. They have some clear benefits.

Reservation is a process we instinctively understand. Holidays, flights, hotels, theatre seats, a PCR test – we want to maximise the opportunity (make sure we get a spot for something desirable or necessary) and minimise the risk (that there will be no spots left for us when we arrive). At the time of writing, they’d be useful at petrol stations.

Potentially supermarkets.

Furthermore, in shared (hot, warm, simmering) desk environments we can short circuit the race from the station or car park to bag the seat we covet by being the first one out of bed and onto our phone. They generate useful information – we can see who else is intending to be there to ensure we can avoid them, allowing a safe to return to bed. And if we use them as intended, we can scan, click or press to show we’ve fulfilled our intention and shown up, generating potentially useful management data for a lonely slide.

They have some clear downsides, too. It’s an ancient idea, adapted for the smartphone age.

They introduce yet another administrative task for the newly productivity-obsessed that, whilst annoying in itself, also draws out our innate shortcut-seeking instincts.

If we can see that desks are available even when we’ve booked, we’ll stop booking. Quite possibly by the second time we notice there are

desks free when we’ve bothered booking, we don’t bother booking.

They reduce the inherent flexibility of a workspace, institutionalising the anti-social practice of ‘beach towelling’. We can avoid the embarrassment of being called out for hogging a seat by simply producing our all-day ticket. In this way, they’re a regressive stride back from the agile workplace of the last decade, where the natural human ebb and flow ensured the availability of work settings when needed.

Finally, they don’t help teams work together. They are neither dynamic (they can’t respond to change unless instructed to do so) nor intelligent (able to synthesise and evolve multiple preferences). The amount of messaging needed, therefore, to arrange a mutually agreeable day, time and location to book exists in a separate domain from the app, unseen and unidentified.

Where booking has been introduced alongside a re-tipping of the balance of work settings away from desks towards ‘collaborative’ spaces, a fundamental problem remains – if we feel we can only attend the workplace if we’ve booked a desk or been invited to a meeting, attendance will be limited to the number of desks provided. For all the desire over several decades to de-couple the desk from work, while we may have for short stints of assignmentbased activity, we’ve not managed it at scale.

We’re even less likely to when there has to be a compelling reason to attend the office.

Our paradox becomes: I need to book a desk so I can be collaborative and hang out.

Booking becomes, therefore, ticketing. Our right to be present. It’s our base from which to explore, should we wish to, knowing there is a safe harbour to which to return when needed, complete with all our stuff should anyone be in any doubt. It’s our evidence, too. We were there. Whether because we felt we ought to be, or due to corporate edict, there is no doubt.

This is where the coming genre – dynamic, occupant-driven scheduling – offers distinct advantages over booking. Setting out our preferences for where we wish to be during a week and allowing dynamic, intelligent, biasfree technology to locate us with our team and with those teams we work most closely with, when we want, while preserving the inherent flexibility of the space. No messaging or coordination needed.

Whether booking systems prevail as the pandemic eases, expect new norms and behaviours, both beneficial and distracting. As with hybrid working itself, we’ve yet to see them in action at scale. What we do know is that simply hanging out has never been so formal.w

PROPERTY

2022 Mood Swings: the year of mixed opportunities Look out for life sciences, private rented housing, coliving and student spaces. All are tipped as major growth areas for your business in 2022. So says research from the Urban Land Institute, whose Chief Executive spoke exclusively to Mix. David Thame reports…

26 | Mix 217 November 2021

PROPERTY

University of Bristol, Life Sciences Building

by Sheppard Robson

T

hese days the future is a problem. On the one hand there are loud proclamations of certainty about the coming ‘new normal’.

On the other, one thing we learned from last 20 months is that tomorrow is always predictable.

Keeping these two contradictory ideas in play simultaneously inevitably produces headaches, as almost everyone in the property business can attest. Luckily, a super-effective painkiller has been provided in a report published a few weeks ago by the Urban Land Institute.

Written jointly with PwC and using data from Real Capital Analytics, the report is a deep dive into both property market sentiment and property market fact. It is the 19th annual look at what makes European real estate tick, and it is the closest to certainty the property market gets.

This year the big takeaway – and even bigger surprise – is the strength of property market optimism. For those who depend on the property market for their workflow, this is good news indeed According to this analysis, business confidence in the real estate sector is at its highest level since 2014.

On the face of it, this level of confidence is bonkers: as the report itself shows, fears about inflation, continued distress in the retail and leisure sector and the prospect of forced fire-sales are at the front of property’s list of anxieties. Each of these issues is predicted to be big (bad) news by more than 70% of the 800 plus senior property operatives interviewed by researchers.

Mix 217 November 2021 | 27

PROPERTY

“The fact remains that none of us have any experience of re-starting an economy – we’re all finding out as we go along – and the result is that sentiment can move up, or down, in a flash. Tell them something has changed – like energy pricing – and suddenly there is doom all over their faces“ Urban Land Institute Chief Executive, Lisette van Doorn, says the high levels of optimism her team discovered astonished her.

‘The huge level of short-term optimism is a real surprise,’ she says. ‘We’d expected some optimism because, with much of the pandemic behind us, in many sectors the market is up to, or better than, pre-pandemic levels. But what we hadn’t expected was the real excitement and I’m still not 100% convinced it is real.

‘Maybe we saw so much optimism because we did much of our research over the summer when vaccinations were going well, inflation was okay and the supply chain didn’t look like being a long-term problem – but we don’t know.

‘The fact remains that none of us have any experience of re-starting an economy – we’re all finding out as we go along – and the result is that sentiment can move up, or down, in a flash. Tell them something has changed – like energy pricing – and suddenly there is doom all over their faces.’

Lisette’s conclusion is that ‘people still find it very difficult to get balanced’ after almost two years of pandemic, lockdowns and non-normality. Mood swings, she suggests, are the new normal What the research can say, with some certainty, is that large bets are being placed on a handful of favoured property sectors. These will be the ones to watch in 2022, regardless of mood swings (below).

28 | Mix 217 November 2021

The pandemic has reinforced the trend of investors targeting sectors that profit from megatrends, operate anti-cyclically, and continue to generate resilient income. The vogue for bedsand-sheds investment strategies – development, logistics and residential – has been popular among UK investors. But there are other niches – which will be of more interest to Mix readers – now getting top billing from investors.

For now, things like life science floorspace, coliving and senior living may be relatively small in value, but they are regarded with outsize enthusiasm by investors.

According to Lisette’s team, the top 10 investment niches include senior living,

affordable housing, private rented housing and – worth watching – healthcare and life sciences.

Social housing, coliving, student housing, coworking and hotels are to be found in the following pack, but the gap between coworking (ranked 17th) and hotels (ranked 22) is a large one, and since the list stops at No 27 (city centre shopping malls – the least favoured property class of all), the hotel ranking is hardly a compliment.

Unfortunately, the report offers no consensus on the future of offices, with some respondents enthusiastic about the future of flexible, prime assets, while others envisage an inevitable contraction in overall demand.

Top sectors to watch in the 2022 OVERALL RANK

SECTOR

2

Life sciences

5

Healthcare

6

Retirement/assisted living

8

Affordable housing

10

Private rented, residential

SOURCE: PWC/URBAN LAND INSTITUTE, EDITED TO REMOVE INDUSTRIAL/LOGISTICS SECTORS

PROPERTY

They do, however, conclude that there will be a lasting increase in time worked remotely, according to 85%, while 82% see a continuing role for HQ buildings in conveying culture and attracting talent, and 74% see a growing valuation gap between primary and secondary offices.

The trend to watch, however, is an increasing focus in the office market on exactly what kind of occupier takes the lease. The days when an office building was simply an office building, and the occupier simply an ‘office occupier’ are long gone in some markets, and going in others, the report indicates. Landlords and investors have realised that some occupiers – tech and life sciences are particularly favoured – have different requirements, and a different propensity to sign leases.

Landlords and investors want to move away from the concept of the ‘office occupier’ and instead think about the professional occupier, the science occupier, the tech occupier...

Lisette’s team call this ‘a more granular approach to real estate investing, drilling down into the specifics of subsectors when making asset allocation decisions’, and in the course of 2022’s mood swings, it could make all the difference.

‘The direction of travel is towards a more granular way of thinking about who occupies offices, now that investors have realised that different kinds of occupiers behave totally differently,’ Lisette explains.

‘So we’ll see more focus on life science occupiers, coworking occupiers and so on.

‘The next step after that is thinking how you manage the interface between these different users. This is going to be about a lot more than old fashioned asset management. Landlords and investors are now realising it will mean a constant conversation with occupiers and property customer service. This means a totally new direction for real estate.’

With all these changes in flux, this year’s survey showed that organisational transformation is a key five-year priority for 68% of respondents, driven by evolving relationships between landlords and

30 | Mix 217 November 2021

“The direction of travel is towards a more granular way of thinking about who occupies offices, now that investors have realised that different kinds of occupiers behave totally differently.

So we’ll see more focus on life science occupiers, coworking occupiers and so on” tenants in every sector. The strongest influences are real estate as a service and changing customer demands, both cited by 89% of respondents. The third-ranked influence with 81% is the ESG agenda.

The wellness agenda also scored heavily among property market players. An amazing and all-but-unanimous 92% either agreed or agreed strongly that ‘health and wellbeing will remain a very important factor across all sectors of real estate’. Scarcely surprising after a global pandemic, but nonetheless an interesting measure of the mood.

But there is a downside. The report questions the property industry’s ability to adapt at the speed and intensity required, identifying an ‘entrenchment’ reflected

in the view of 83% of respondents that existing culture is the greatest barrier to change in their organisations.

The report concludes that there is muddled thinking, created by a willingness to change, but uncertainty about how to do it More mood swings? That seems likely as the property market digests the implications of the last two years. But in some sectors, like coworking, coliving and life sciences, the 2022 swing seems to be going only one way. Up.w

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MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

It might be right for now, but is it right forever?

We’ve all had to adapt to change over the past 18 months, but the reality is that change in the commercial interiors sector is nothing new – it’s just been a little more urgent and often unplanned, post-pandemic.

As specifiers race to tailor the work environment to shifting workplace routines, occupancy levels and technologies, are we becoming too focused on adjusting to the new normal and overlooking the pandemic’s biggest lesson of all: change is coming and it will be relentless?

We’re at the Clerkenwell home of our partners, CMD, where, as ever, we’ve brought together a number of the industry’s finest minds. Slightly unusually, however, our guests represent not only leading A&D practices, but also the most revered furniture brands and product design firms.

I

n this roundtable conversation, we look beyond the immediate needs of workplace environments and ask how flexibility can be built into the workplace so that it can continue to evolve with as little disruption and waste as possible over the long-term. How can we learn to adapt to new live/work models, new demographics, climate change, changing sensibilities, heightened issues around health (particularly mental health) and wellbeing, and technological advances? Also, what does this mean for the world of workplace product design and manufacturing?

We begin by discussing those advancements in technology and how far we’ve moved in such a short period of time; accelerated by our reliance on tech throughout the past 18 months or so. With all this in mind, do our guests feel that this makes what is happening in the world of work unique or is this the direction we were always headed – merely at a heightened pace?

Adrian: My take is that, up until now, the power has always been with the organisations.

32 | Mix 217 November 2021

When you’re a commodity manufacturer, everyone wants to know how you reconfigure, what does the wire management look like, what are the guarantees? All of which tick boxes on a spreadsheet but don’t do a single thing to help the person who is actually using that space!

The only benefit is to the organisation. The 66% of people working from home are healthier, wealthier and more productive. So you could argue that the industry has done quite a poor job in creating spaces that 16 million people have chosen not to go back to! Now, the power is with the individuals. There obviously does have to be a levelling up and a balance – but this is why I do think this is a pivotal moment. This is not all about the hard issues; it’s about the emotional issues – brand, culture, social value, aspiration.

People are out there because they want the selfesteem of going to work. That’s why this is such a huge shift.

Jon: Product development definitely needs to be driven by the user experience and, as employers consider strategies for bringing people back into the office and supporting them at home, that’s more important than ever. For us, that means connecting the whole CMD team

in product development activities to build enduser feedback into the process, and drawing in market insights from consumer trends, alongside office environment trends.

Tom H: It’s interesting that a lot of people have spent the past 10 years trying to convince us that we don’t need to be in the workplace – and now they’re trying to convince everyone to come back!

Adrian: That’s a great point!

Jon: Ideally there should be a degree of choice, but that’s hard to manage in practice. The challenge for employers and their supply chain is getting the balance right and adapting to the need for genuine agile working in the office: tech will form a big part of the answer to all that.

Tom H: There’s a lot of money tied up in this.

We’ve got to remember the whole psychology of new behaviour here – we’ve got so used to doing one thing that we’ve forgotten what it was like before. You only remember the bad things. Just think about all the relationships that started at work, particularly for younger people, for whom

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

In partnership with

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

34 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

“

We’ve got to remember the whole psychology of new behaviour here – we’ve got so used to doing one thing that we’ve forgotten what it was like before

” a lot of what they do revolves around the people they meet and befriend at work. There’s a whole level we’re missing here. We’re missing out on seeing and talking to people by not being in the workplace – and by being around these people we’re reminded of what we’re a part of. I think people need to remember and be convinced that it’s pretty good to be out there and to do a bit of both.

We ask where mentorship and leadership sit within this debate.

Tom H: I think there are organisational interests here and there’s an element of employee experience that people are missing.

There’s an element of creativity that’s been lost.

Chris: Particularly when you’re really busy and you’re working online, when you get someone new to the organisation or even new to the profession, there does need to be that understanding of the company culture, the policies, hearing how people communicate and how they talk. I’ve found that if you try to schedule regular check-ins with these people, you’ve only got a 15-minute window to actually talk to them before you’re on to your next call – and they then potentially have an entire day or the best part of a week without coming into contact with you again. They don’t get to hear those important conversations.

As an extremely creative business, we ask Tom L how Pearson Lloyd has been able to avoid losing that creativity.

Tom L: We can’t do without each other – but there’s definitely a series of paradoxes going on here where we have to figure out the balance.

Tom L: Everyone has been back at their desks for six months. I’m actually just challenging what’s being said here! Cities were actually created because that’s where data was and that’s where communication was – you had to go there to pass a piece of paper. That’s where all the bankers were, for example, in one place. The proximity was important – but that’s not relevant in the same way anymore, certainly when it comes to hard skills. It is when it comes soft skills such as social interaction and networking. Maybe now is the time to distribute out of London and allow every other city to thrive!

Tom H: It feels as though, at the moment, there are still a lot of people who don’t understand the power of coming to work. They’re still in a holiday period.

Tom L: Why do we need to convince people to come back? In whose interest is it?

Tom H: Wherever people get together, there are going to be benefits – whether that is out of town or in the cities. I do agree that you don’t necessarily have to travel into central London just to get those benefits.

Chris: It is more difficult to orchestrate that.

When you have that centralised model of people coming in, then that is when you’re going to get that critical mass of feedback – which is important.

Jon: I used to have a boss who was 100% clear in his belief that culture trumps strategy every day of the week. What the past 18 months have shown is that we need to be together to create that culture. It’s so important. I’m not sure it’s more important than a good strategy – but the two are certainly side-by-side.

Chris: We’re physical human beings and we occupy physical space – and just the interactivity you get with people, reading their body language, reading their gestures…these are things that are easily lost by not coming together.

Tom H: There also needs to be that sense of belonging. If you are relatively new to a business, then being around people makes that transition so much easier.

David: If you’re trying to make the biggest decisions – big investments – then you really want to look someone in the eye, to see their body language. You want to know they are on side and that they’ve got your back. I think the discussion about the balance and the shift of power is really interesting. What we’ve been talking about for four or five years now is user choice and control – but actually that’s been held by the employer or the organisation, who will reduce your space to a 14x8 footprint and will then give you some ancillary space, but it’s ancillary space that they’ve designed and you must use. I do think the choice and control is more towards the user or employee because they can work from wherever they want – and I think that will have a fundamental impact on how a space is going to be designed and used. A lot more thought is going to have to go into the setting, the application and the way that space supports activities. I also think we’re now seeing a lot more care and attention is being shown to the furniture, the technology, the acoustics, the lighting…

Speaking of which, we move on to discuss where the market currently is when it comes to product development, starting with Jon, who tells us about the design direction and latest innovations at CMD. Jon: Good design needs to bring in influences from different environments and focus on the user experience. And, as we’ve learned over the past couple of years, end-users are all individuals so, now more than ever, good design and product development need to factor-in adaptability. With this in mind, we have now collaborated with a couple of external designers – including Andrew Wills, who has worked with us on Miro; a brand new monitor arm, which is double articulated and unlike anything else on the market. We realised that we needed to invest in the right designers, so that’s really quite exciting for us. We’re also looking at our infrastructure products – products that link with the Internet of Things and smart buildings. We need to harness tech; not simply because it’s

In partnership with

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

there, but to make buildings more functional and flexible for users.

Jon: Are you not seeing more collaborative stuff on floorplans?

power distribution systems, which enable easy reconfiguration.

David: I do think you have to be brave right now.

We’ve seen an incredible bounce-back from some of our brands – we’ve got some cool new products now coming through, but it is something of a gamble and a brave thing to do when you can’t necessarily see an end to things.

David: We are – but I’m still surprised by how many and how much of those floorplans are largely unchanged.

Adrian: There are still some pretty astonishing figures out there – for example, 98% of government employees are still not back in the office! Not a single government employee was furloughed and not a single government employee was made redundant – so that’s some pretty big economics.

Adrian: I think there’s been a wider acceptance of a lot of the products that manufacturers have already had for a while, but people are now catching up as the conversations move on. So there is this perception that there are a lot of new products out there, when actually people are now listening. Some of the stuff that has been around for 10 years is now totally relevant.

David: People are looking at new concepts and have the space and the time to do that. There are some clients out there who are just really keen to do something – to do anything – because they’ve held off for so long. I think that has been one of the real surprises; how many floorplates have been left unchanged.

36 | Mix 217 November 2021

Stephen: We’re now starting to see more change as people return to the office. A lot of the people we have been talking to are saying that they think they know what they are going to do but they still aren’t sure about when this will happen.

David: There’s only so long you can hold off.

Also, there are a lot of conversations going on about just how expensive it will end up being to change everything.

Jon: That certainly rings true for us. Where we were once getting plans for a certain number of fixed workstations, we’re now also getting options two and three! People are planning for multiple options – how many people are going to come back into the workplace at fixed desks, how many are going to work in collaborative settings…it’s driving demand for our underfloor

Conclusion:

As Chris said a little earlier, we’re all physical human beings and we occupy physical spaces.

It is those ‘softer’ human issues, such as social interactivity and belonging that we’ve been missing – but we need to develop workspaces that support the ‘harder’ elements, such as productivity as well. Thankfully for our friends in the design fraternity, the leading tech and furniture manufacturers have not been resting on any laurels and are continuing to produce products that can help support a new focused way of working – and not just aid collaboration.w

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with CMD

Meet our guests

Stephen Block

Chris Crawford

Tom Lloyd

Adrian Campbell

Based in London, Stephen is the Sales Marketing Manager for the Austrian furniture manufacturer Bene’s English-speaking regions, including the UK, Ireland, Australia, the UAE and India. Stephen has worked for Bene for more than seven years, and has a further five years’ experience in design promotion as event manager at Clerkenwell Design Week, as well as other notable London design trails and events. Helping businesses to realise spaces for people to feel good and to work happily is his professional motivation and passion.

Chris is a Senior Associate in the Gensler London office and the EMEA Regional Leader of their Media Practice. He works with a broad range of companies, specialising in PR, advertising, gaming, broadcast and publishing.

For Chris, it’s about being intelligently creative. It’s about designing the kind of space that’s going to make people feel better, enhance their daily lives, inspire collaboration and compel creativity.

Tom is an industrial designer and Founding Partner of awardwinning London design studio, Pearson Lloyd. Through design, Pearson Lloyd transforms the way in which people use and experience public spaces and services, and delivers products that are relevant, efficient and beautiful. Trained in Furniture Design at Trent Polytechnic, before completing a master’s degree MA (RCA Distinction) in Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art in 1993, Tom went on to found Pearson Lloyd with Luke Pearson (RDI) in 1997.

Adrian joined The Senator Group, the UK’s largest manufacturer of commercial furniture, to understand the wider impacts of age, health, education and international cultures on the design of workspaces. With boundaries blurring of what constitutes workspace, Adrian has designed spaces as diverse as St Georges Park for the FA, Southmead Hospital, Derby Council HQ and Cambridge University Press.

He has also led the client design engagement for Jaguar Land Rover and the HM Government super hubs programme.

David Hay

Tom Helliwell

Jon Holding

Sales Marketing Manager BENE

MD Steelcase

David has held a number of senior leadership roles in the interiors industry over the last 20 years.

This has included running some of the UK’s largest dealers, through to executive positions with major European and global manufacturers. David currently leads both Steelcase’s sales and distribution organisations in the UK and Ireland, helping steer these businesses through significant growth over the past few years.

David is also part of the Steelcase EMEA leadership team.

Studio Director Gensler

Regional Principal of Strategy, EMEA Unispace Based in London, Tom leads the strategy discipline across Unispace EMEA and is vastly experienced in workplace strategy and change management. Having worked on multi-scale projects across many sectors, his expertise lies within articulating and translating client aspirations and business objectives into unique working environments, responding to the individual culture and values of his clients.

Co-Founder Pearson Lloyd

Workplace Design Senator

General Manager CMD Jon has worked for CMD for over 10 years, having worked initially in an external sales role before becoming head of the UK sales team. Jon brings over 20 years’ experience in this sector and has overseen ongoing significant sales growth.

In partnership with

Our Mixology judges (see page 16) seldom have an easy task when it comes to selecting finalists and winners for our awards.

This year, however, they had twice the trouble (or should that be twice the fun?) selecting products from both 2021 and 2020.

Here, over the next few pages, is the fruit of their labours. A huge thank you to our judges and congratulations to our finalists.

For more information on this year’s shortlisted products and projects, visit mixinteriors.com

38 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Flooring

Product of the Year 2tec2 (1) Marble & Desert Amtico (2) Form Collection EGGER (3) EGGER PRO Design Flooring Greentec Interface (4) Embodied Beauty IVC Commercial (5) Rudiments Milliken (6) Northward Bound modulyss 7) The Heritage Collection Shaw Contract (8) Beam and Braid ComfortWorx Tarkett (9) Fusion TierGlobal (10) Dry Lay Ceramic Flooring

Mix 217 November 2021 | 39

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Lighting, Technology & Accessories Product of the Year

Agilita & Studio Vix (1) Leaf Delta Light & UNStudio (2) Soliscape OE Electrics (3) Piccolo DC Qraft Lighting (4) Uno Your Workspace (5) Simplicity Smart Lockers

Surfaces

Product of the Year Camira (1) Quest Casa Ceramica on behalf of Mutina (2) Mattonelle Margherita Parkside (3) Criaterra Ultrafabrics (4) Coast Unilin Panels (5) Master Oak Collection

Storage

Product of the Year Bisley (1) Belong KI (2) Colonnade Your Workspace (3) Simplicity Smart Lockers

40 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Loose Furniture Product of the Year Allermuir (1) CROP Arper (2) Kata Gresham (3) Relo Nomique (4) Hemp Fine & Hemp High Offecct (5) Falabella Orangebox (6) Campers&Dens Pedrali (7) Babila XL Recycled Grey PLANQ (8) Ubu Chair Senator (9) The Play Collection sixteen3 (10) Bodyn

Task Furniture Product of the Year Arper (1) Mixu Orangebox (2) Kirn Pedrali (3) Temps Low Back Senator (4) Qdos

42 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Bar & Leisure Interiors Project of the Year Bridge Architects (1) The Churchill Tree, Macclesfield DL Design Studio & Lakeside (2) Lakeside, Nottingham DV8 Designs (3) Southport Market, Southport Faber (4) The George Hotel, Birmingham JMDA (5) The Botanist, Bristol Jolie Studio (6) The Club at Deansgate Square, Manchester Lazzeri Creative Interiors (7) Rivendale Bar & Bistro, Ashbourne Studio Two Interiors (8) Lucia, Harrogate

Hotel Interiors Project of the Year

APM Design (1) Clifton Arms Hotel, Lytham Concorde BGW Group (2) Ingleside House, Doncaster JMDA (3) Clementine's Town House Hotel, York KKA Interiors (4) Courtyard by Marriott, London

44 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Living Interiors Project of the Year 74 (1) The Headline, Leeds 74 (2) Symons House, Leeds FaulknerBrowns Architects (3) Eskdale Terrace, Newcastle ID:SR Sheppard Robson (4) VOX, Manchester Jasper Sanders + Partners (5) The Tannery Student Living, Leicester Jolie Studio (6) The Tea Room at Deansgate Square, Manchester Jon Matthews Architects (7) No 1 Old Trafford, Manchester KKA Interiors (8) River Street Tower, Manchester

Public Sector Interiors Project of the Year

Fairhursts Design Group (FDG) & Hawkins\Brown (1) Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building, Warwick FaulknerBrowns Architects (2) Newcastle Civic Centre Refurbishment HLM Architects (3) James McCune Smith Learning Hub, Glasgow ID:SR Sheppard Robson (4) The Barony Campus, Cumnock Ward Robinson (5) India Buildings, Liverpool Spatial Environments & DAY ID (6) Xplore!, Wrexham

Mix 217 November 2021 | 45

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Workplace Interiors <5k sq ft Project of the Year

Altro, Ideal Flooring & Tapper Interiors (1) Tapper Interiors, Banbury Chameleon Business Interiors (2) University of Hull Energy and Environment Institute OBI (3) Clearwater International, Manchester OfficeInsight (4) Continental Textiles, Manchester Pick Everard (5) Halford House, Leicester SpaceInvader Design (6) Tosca Debt Capital, Manchester

Workplace Interiors >70k sq ft Project of the Year AHR (1) The Spine, Liverpool BDP (2) Royal London, Macclesfield Bridge Architects (3) Glasshouse at Alderley Park, Manchester Design North (4) The Catalyst, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hermantes Studio & GroupGSA (5) Link Group, Leeds KSS (6) AXA Training Centre, Liverpool tp bennett (7) One City Square, Leeds TSK Group (6) Flutter Entertainment, Leeds

46 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Workplace Interiors 5-15k sq ft Project of the Year

3DReid & Bruntwood Works (1) 111 Piccadilly, Manchester ADT Workplace, Hollis & 'kin (2) Taylor Wessing, Liverpool Bluesky Design Interiors (3) Savills, Boston Spa Dragonfly Contracts (4) Blackfriars House, Manchester Fairhursts Design Group (FDG) (5) ION Trading HQ, London OBI (6) Elevate at City Tower, Manchester Sheila Bird Studio (7) Peak Manchester HQ SpaceInvader Design (8) One Victoria Street, Windsor tp bennett (9) Playdemic, Wilmslow Workspace Design and Build, Sheila Bird Studio & Sixteen Real Estate (10) OneStream Software HQ, Manchester

48 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Workplace Interiors 15-30k sq ft Project of the Year

5plus Architects (1) BASF UK, Stockport Bridge Architects & Bruntwood Works (2) Bloc, Manchester Fairhursts Design Group (FDG) (3) Sherard House, Oxford MCM (4) Channel 4, Leeds Northspring (5) Park Row, Leeds OBI (6) Huckletree Ancoats, Manchester Opus 4 (7) Ascentis, Cheshire Sheila Bird Studio (8) SEESAW, Manchester TSK Group (9) MoneySuperMarket, Manchester

50 | Mix 217 November 2021

MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Workplace Interiors 30-70k sq ft Project of the Year

BDP (1) Eversheds Sutherland, Manchester Chameleon Business Interiors (2) Ideagen Head Office, Nottingham Greenmount Projects (3) The Very Group: Skyways Hub, Liverpool Sheila Bird Studio (4) Portswigger HQ, Knutsford SpaceInvader Design (5) Domestic & General, London tp bennett (6) DLA Piper, Birmingham Wellwood Leslie (7) Ashurst, Glasgow Workspace Design and Build (8) USDAW Head Office, Manchester

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MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Design Firm of the Year 74 (1) Fairhursts Design Group (FDG) (2) Hermantes Studio (3) ID:SR Sheppard Robson (4) Incognito (5) Jasper Sanders + Partners (6) MONIKA Studio (7) OBI (8) Sheila Bird Studio (9) Smith Brothers Design (10) tp bennett (11)

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MIXOLOGY21 Finalists

Manufacturer of the Year Amtico (1) Bisley (2) Dams Furniture (3) Milliken (4) Orangebox (5) Pedrali (6) Your Workspace (7)

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Mix 217 November 2021 | 53

CASE STUDY ClientEarth

54 | Mix 217 November 2021

CASE STUDY LIVING ClientEarth Property

Planet Earth When one of the world’s most ambitious environmental charities looked to transform its headquarters and how it worked, collaboration and sustainability were front and centre in its thinking.

C

FCS certified, recycled plywood pallet boards, used as panelling throughout the office, create an impressive entrance that is then continued as you walk through the space

lientEarth – which uses the power of the law to bring about systemic change to better protect the planet – relocated to a 10,405 sq ft office in London’s Drayton Park in June. The charity required a new space where its team could come together and thrive post-lockdown in a space that would reflect its strong values and motivate everyone to continue delivering impactful work, and turned to Peldon Rose to deliver just that.

ClientEarth believes that a future in which people and planet thrive together isn’t just possible: it’s essential.

Sustainability is at the heart of the project and it was vital that its global headquarters echoed this.

‘ClientEarth relocated to the Joinery, located in the bustling borough of Islington, North London,’ says Sasha Jenner, Project Designer at Peldon Rose. ‘The space is a large converted warehouse, with striking 4m ceiling heights throughout. The wide-open space boasts industrial charm and is flooded with natural light, providing Peldon Rose’s design team with the ideal blank canvas to create a unique workplace that is as inviting as it is inspiring.

‘We had not previously worked with ClientEarth. From the beginning of

the process, a collaborative approach was taken. We worked with various members of the ClientEarth team, including the senior leadership as well as those further down the business. This enabled us to really delve into exactly what it was that ClientEarth needed from the space. It was important that they were included in every part of the decision making process, working as a close knit team alongside Peldon Rose.’

‘The standout objective was for the project to be as sustainable as possible, so that has been applied to every aspect of the design. As well as reusing existing furniture to avoid making unnecessary new purchases and saving on landfill, we selected recycled, reclaimed or reworked items.

‘The nature of their business was the clear driver to the concept behind the design; creating a connection to nature.

From very early on in the project we spent a lot of time looking into every sustainable aspect of the project. Also, lots of soft green tones have been used throughout the scheme to mimic the outdoors and bring the outside in.

‘To ensure that employees feel connected to the charity’s mission, artwork exhibiting the positive impact of it’s work is displayed throughout the

Mix 217 November 2021 | 55

CASE STUDY ClientEarth

below From very early on in the process, Peldon Rose spent a lot of time looking into every sustainable aspect of the project

“

The standout objective was for the project to be as sustainable as possible, so that has been applied to every aspect of the design

”

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office. We worked hard to bring the outside in through a sustainable design and as a result, staff are able to feel connected with nature.’

The project took on a rustic feel and natural materials were utilised in conjunction with a biophilic design to deliver an environment that showcases the very best nature has to offer. The FCS certified, recycled plywood pallet boards, used as panelling throughout the office, create an impressive entrance that is then continued as you walk through the space.

Even the low VCO level paint selected by Peldon Rose and A+ rated environmentally efficient flooring meets the green seal standards. Additionally, by opting for motion activated LED lighting and energy efficient equipment, the space actively reduces energy consumption and CO2 emissions. No stone was left unturned when it came to sourcing environmentally friendly products, helping the fit-out to achieve SKA Gold rating. Every aspect that has been built and created has been done so in a sustainable

way. ‘We sourced materials from the local area and recycled furniture from their previous office,’ Sasha continues. ‘It was important that no trees were cut down in the process and therefore all wooden materials had to be from recycled wood.’

ClientEarth’s previous office on Richmond Road had become run down and offered limited spaces for collaborative working. Having spent long periods away from the office due to lockdown restrictions, the charity’s leadership team recognised the importance of creating a workspace that encouraged employees to come back together – both professionally and socially.

ClientEarth wanted to bring people back to an office where teams could meet for lunches and so a long table in the teapoint area brought this to life and sits within the heart of the office.

A large event area has also been incorporated, with the capacity to hold seminars for up to 75, as well as be used as a dining area or breakout space.

CASE STUDY ClientEarth

below Being in a warehouse setting 4m high ceilings, the M&E team had to ensure that

the ventilation systems reached every area of the space

Client ClientEarth Interior Design Peldon Rose Fit-Out Peldon Rose Hard Flooring Forbo Carpet Modulyss Tiles Schluter Paint Finishes Dulux Acoustic Systems Soundsorba

“

It was important that no trees were cut down in the process and therefore all wooden materials had to be from recycled wood

”

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‘We carried out workshops with employees from across all levels and departments and discovered that more desking was required, as well as social spaces,’ Sasha tells us.

As leaders in the climate change movement, the organisation wanted to create somewhere it felt proud to welcome visitors to external events and seminars.

Peldon Rose incorporated several elements into the design to ensure this was achieved, such as a reception desk with added wheels so that it can be adapted into a bar for evening functions. Other flexible spaces include a front of house that can also be used as a yoga studio and a wellbeing room, which provides a quiet area for employees to use for down time.

In the open plan woodland area near the entrance of the office, planting provides a natural canopy connecting staff with nature whilst undertaking their daily work. The ‘bunker’ provides a place for staff to gather thoughts and ideas, while the passageway through the reception and garden café are flooded with natural light – a welcome reminder of the planet’s natural beauty that drives ClientEarth’s work.

The greenery and planting inside increases occupant connectivity to the natural surroundings while the courtyard area allows teams to spend more time outdoors, which is proven to boost mood and productivity. The space features bee houses and bird feeders, encouraging teams to enjoy nature and wildlife.

‘We created dedicated spaces dependent on the activity going on in the space – one example is the boardroom, which needed to be very confidential but is situated in one of the busiest areas of the office,’ Sasha reveals even more of the unique elements of this impressive scheme. ‘The concept behind it was to create a bird box style space where those within the space could see out but could not be disturbed from those outside. This allowed for confidential meetings in a private setting without being completely disconnected to the rest of the office.’

What were the greatest challenges for the team?

‘The biggest challenge for our team was the building itself,’ Sasha reveals. ‘Being in a warehouse setting and not the typical office environment with 4m high ceilings, our mechanical and electrical team had to

CASE STUDY ClientEarth

ensure that the ventilation systems reached every area of the space. With a ceiling made out of plastic sheets instead of glass, this was key in ensuring that the office remained at the correct temperature for all those using the space.’

And what is Sasha’s own personal favourite element of the space?

‘The kitchen has been designed to evolve throughout the day for different usage. During the day, the space can be used for eating and collaborating with others whilst in the evening it can be adapted into an event space. The idea behind it is to bring teams together that have been siloed for so long, to continue the passionate work they do for the planet.’

‘The people who work at ClientEarth do so because they want to take on challenging roles through which they can help others and work to secure a healthy planet,’ Karolina Kaczmarek, Operations Manager at ClientEarth, concludes. ‘Driven by passion, they work incredibly hard and deserve to do so in a space that they feel comfortable, motivated and inspired.

‘Peldon Rose’s design has surpassed our expectations. Our office proves that sustainable can be stylish and the response from employees has been superb.’ w

above Existing furniture has been used to avoid making unnecessary new purchases and saving on landfill.

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MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

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MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

Collective displacement: workspace on the brink?

The last two years have been one long mighty displacement – from the workplace to home, from normal life to the abnormal and uncertain. Workspace design has also been through some traumas, thanks to the surge in homeworking and a wobble in occupier confidence in the idea of ‘going to the office’.

Collective displacement has had a monumental impact on people’s behaviours, and many companies must now face the fact that the colleagues and customers they knew so well have changed. Or have they? Is the workplace a kind of hotel for working in, or home-away-from-home, complete with communal kitchen, cosy lounges and sleeping pods? Or is it (what no one will admit) just a well-disguised factory, not a love-in or a gateway to personal fulfilment?

W

e’ve gathered together half a dozen of the biggest names in the city’s interior design at Bruntwood’s Bloc building in central Manchester in an attempt to bring order to the conceptual chaos of the last 20 months. The event, in partnership with Amtico, looked at the hotelisation of the workplace, and the way homes have become both offices and vice versa.

To begin, we asked the panel whether there is a limit in each of these sectors, have we reached it yet – and how will we know when we have?

‘Our Pioneer programme is creating a home in the

‘The answer is to design with purpose, to create destinations,’ says John Brazier, Studio Lead: Interior Designer at Day ID. ‘Flexibility is just a function of design so that it can be adapted, but so long as it is branded and feels like a place people will still want to go.’

If there is a ‘secret spice’ that can make rethought workspace work it is operational skills, says Jayne. ‘You can create the most wonderful spaces – but if they don’t work they are going to fail,’ she warned.

It also depends on understanding an occupier’s culture, explains OBI Property’s Darius Baniabassian. ‘It is about

workplace,’ says Jayne Baguley, Bruntwood’s Design Team Creative Lead, revealing that the central Manchester Bloc building contains sleeping pods. ‘This creates an opportunity to connect socially, because people need people – whether it is sat behind a desk, or yoga or being in a café, it is about people and conversation and that’s how innovation is driven forward.

‘A lot of what we have in our buildings allows the merging of hospitality with workplace all under one roof – and we were working on this trajectory before the pandemic struck.

Now it is about every space has to work, but we’re now creating spaces that have the ability to evolve – rather than chucking all this out and starting again. Its adaptability.’

But isn’t there a risk that multipurpose adaptability turns into unfocused blandness? The panel agree there is.

‘If we get these places wrong, they will be empty,’ says Daniel Lesser, Regional Director at AHR Architects.

understanding the business, its culture and that of the locality. So, for instance, at Salford’s MediaCity, it’s lots of small and larger media operations and they need certain tools – you might, for instance, want to create podcast rooms.

‘Landlords now understand it is not about a building, so much as a building with a purpose – and that will change and depend on occupiers.’

From wide experience in the fast-expanding life science sector, Emily Kirkham, Interior Designer at Fairhursts, adds. ‘Many of our clients are in science, often chemists, and they want more breakout zones, more sensory zones, spaces where people can chill out. It’s very collaborative and about breakout focus rather than being lab heavy – that’s a big switch. The lack of social interaction in the last two years has meant more emphasis on that. We’ve found a real change going on in that sector.’

In partnership with

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

“

I think people are struggling with change, but I don’t think we’ll go back to a pre-pandemic world. The genie is out of the bottle

” This includes appreciating that some people – and some businesses – are not naturally extroverts.

Quite the opposite. ‘We have to recognise that introverted personalities need spaces too. I think that is one of the changes in thinking that we’ve seen since the pandemic,’ says Darius.

‘The key is to understand the pulse of the business,’ muses Atul Bansal, Founder and Co-owner of Sheila Bird Studio. ‘Before the pandemic, if you asked that question about the pulse of the business, they would look at you as if you were really strange, but now they seem to understand it. Because they all ask for the same things – agile workspace and so on – but some of them don’t actually want it.’

Emily enthusiastically backs up the point. ‘You have a conversation with them, present them with an agile look, and they look disappointed and ask where the cellular offices are,’ she explains. ‘I think people are struggling with change, but I don’t think we’ll go back to a prepandemic world. The genie is out of the bottle.’

This is often the result of a psychological tug-of-war going on inside the minds of business managers, suggests Darius. ‘You see a split between business owners who want agile working for everyone but control of their own space, and leaving their own space requires a huge leap for them. And when they see the final plan, they take a deep breath, and ask themselves do they need more desks, have they taken too many out?’

‘Our job is to question the briefs we are given,’ says Atul. ‘And if they don’t believe in what they are asking for, then they shouldn’t do it.

Challenging is what we should do more often.

Otherwise the results will just be rubbish.’

‘Do business owners feel they have to do something different post-pandemic, rather than doing what they really need?’ asks Jayne.

‘Absolutely,’ Atul replies. ‘You get asked to do things and realise the boss doesn’t really want

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it. We need to know relatively quickly whether they mean it or not. But the result may be that they tell you you’re fired when we say their brief is wrong because what they really want is this or that. Half the trouble is selling someone an idea that you think is right and that they don’t want – it’s a huge waste of time.’

Amtico North West Project Specialist, Joanna Griffiths, identifies a trend apparent across the UK office sector. ‘Occupiers are worried because they have people working at home on one hand, and others coming back to work – and they don’t know what the direction of travel is, so that is leading to caution. They aren’t quite sure where that business is, how the mix works and what the culture is any longer,’ she says.

At which point, the discussion turns back to the idea of workspace as homespace, something that had already become a reality during lockdowns.

‘During Zoom and Teams call we all felt, to some extent, that we were in each other’s houses.

Perhaps for the first time we got to know each other as people, without context around us.

The result was that we were in some ways more connected than ever before – but in the office you have a different persona. The question now is how can we get that sense of really knowing people inside our offices?’

Michaela O’Hare, Senior Interior Designer at Chapman Taylor suggests that the hospitality theme, now apparent in every part of the commercial property world, still has some challenges ahead. ‘The processes we’re going through now, about how to get people back into some environments, is very testing. In the end it is about trying to get the human side of things back,’ she says.

The difficulty is that what feels right isn’t always commercially viable, and that mixing uses in the fluid flexible post-pandemic way can lead to blandness and mathematical headaches.

The shared view around the table is that workspace design costs are now being shared between landlords and tenants in a way that was not often the case before the pandemic.

Landlords are designing and equipping common areas more thoroughly, leaving tenants to focus on a different range of issues.

‘The focus on costs has changed’ says Atul.

‘We’re working with clients who are looking at the cost of occupying the building from fit-out to recruitment to travel expenses. They start to create a spreadsheet and the cost to run the whole office is huge – and if they can partner with a landlord then they can afford to spend more, because more of what they need is already in the building itself.’

Amtico’s Joanna points to the uncertainties that still remain. ‘We’ve seen so much research on changing space needed by office occupiers – do they need less these days? And it’s not clear whether they need quite so much, or perhaps just different types of floor space.’

Landlord-organised office fit-outs can be one way to ease occupier qualms about their floorspace needs. But it is not one without its drawbacks, says Chapman Taylor’s Michaela. ‘With no tenant, there is no brief to go by. You end up working on a floorplate that may have to be divided into four units, or just one, but still has to work, and what gets lost along the way is the art. There are cases of landlords asking for plug and play space, who then end up with the wrong furniture and service points. The best option is to leave all that until the occupier comes along because we can’t specify until we know who we are designing for,’ she reasons.

The biggest takeaway from the pandemic is perhaps not inside buildings, but outside them.

This is the growing realisation that neighbourhood context matters as much as indoor amenity. A great gym nearby, or a coffee bar over the road, can render expensively-created facilities inside the building redundant or wasteful.

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

In partnership with

MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

‘It is all about encouraging the neighbourhood to come into the building, to make it part of the community,’ Joanna says.

Designers are on the lookout for half-hearted efforts, says Atul. ‘Buildings that just talk about or refer to themselves will fail, eventually,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes this effort to integrate with the community is very false, very transparent, and everybody knows this. It will get found out. You have to join up the dots and really mean it.’

He points to a Manchester Northern Quarter office scheme of 30,000 sq ft, which he felt needed ‘a beating heart’.

‘The landlord didn’t really know what that might mean in practice – so the job was to go out and find a business that could animate the building. And we did. And the landlord was persuaded to initially pay for this start-up to be there, for their fit-out, to give them a generous rent-free period, and the result is the building now has a pulse. It is now fully occupied.’

Jayne agrees. ‘This is about bringing in local businesses, and creating partnerships.’

Conclusion

The displacement we have all experienced over the last 20 months has had all kinds of consequences for the workplace.

Some of them are apparent, and some are still working their way through displaced minds. But if our Manchester roundtablers are right, a little generosity of design and intention can go a long way to solving them.w

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MIX ROUNDTABLE In partnership with Amtico

Meet our guests

Daniel Lesser

Jayne Baguley

Michaela O’Hare

John Brazier

Daniel has developed a wellrounded knowledge of the industry, having successfully delivered projects ranging from £1m to over £100m. His main body of work has been in commercial, residential apartments, blue light and retail/ leisure sectors. He leads and project manages multiple projects from AHR’s Manchester office, working for public bodies and blue chip clients with both creative and practical proficiency.

Jayne has worked in the design industry for over 20 years. Her project experience is extremely diverse, from unique workspace and yacht design to an abundance of bars, restaurants and hotels. As the Creative Design Lead, Jayne is responsible for leading Bruntwood’s in-house interior design team, overseeing workspace and hospitality-led projects in buildings across Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool, each designed to improve the health and wellbeing of its customers.

With over 10 years’ industry experience, Michaela is a senior interior designer with expertise across several sectors, including workplace, hospitality, residential, leisure and retail. She is passionate about responsible and sustainable design, and recently undertook a WELL accreditation assessment and the re-design of the Chapman Taylor Manchester studio, which focused on the post-COVID workplace and wellbeing best practice.

John heads up the interior design department in the Manchesterbased DAY studio. With over 20 years’ industry experience in various sectors, he specialises in commercial interior design with a focus on human experience. The team at DAY focuses on design-led strategy and culture in workplace, education, residential and leisure sectors. ‘We have always helped our clients with an open approach to their project requirements and begin with how people engage with space and how culture and identity influence and drive the creative process,’ John says.

Emily Kirkham

Darius Baniabassian

Atul Bansal

Joanna Griffiths

Emily is a key member of FDG’s Interior design department. She brings a contrasting skillset and fresh ideas to the team. She’s been with the company for two years and has quickly bonded with the existing members, making the team dynamics even stronger and more colourful. Emily is excited to be further developing her skills within the commercial and life sciences sectors at FDG and is currently working on a laboratory and office fit-out in Stevenage, a reception refurbishment in Manchester and a coworking scheme in Greater

Darius joined OBI in 2016 and leads the workplace consultancy team, creating bespoke solutions to enhance businesses across a wide variety of market sectors – and particularly for fast-paced tech orientated organisations. Having delivered award-winning projects across the UK and the Middle East since 2003, Darius utilises inventive and considered concepts with an evidence-based approach to design, utilising his keen interest in technology and designing for inclusivity.

Atul epitomises his motto – ‘Love what you do’ – and breathes life

Joanna has worked in project specification sales for 35 years,

and love into every one of his projects. Known for his magnetic energy, his creativity and frank and honest approach, he understands the effects spaces have on people and their role in business success.

With 35 years in the industry, Atul’s innovative approach stems from an understanding of how nurturing interaction in the design process empowers, supports creativity, productivity, culture and community.

spending 29 years with Gradus, and then working with Amtico for the past five years. ‘I thrive working alongside my designer and architectural clients, helping them to create amazing floors,’ she says.

Joanna has been involved in awardwinning projects at Leeds University, and has also helped create practical spaces in the Princes Quay shopping centre in Hull.

Regional Director AHR Architects

Interior Designer Fairhursts Design Group

Design Team Creative Lead Bruntwood

Workplace Consultancy Interior Design OBI Property

Studio Lead: Interior Design DAY ID

Senior Interior Designer Chapman Taylor

Founder and Co-Owner Sheila Bird Studio

Commercial Sales Executive Amtico

Manchester.

In partnership with

Bite Club With an assortment of settings for all work styles, pladis’ new London HQ – at Chiswick Business Park – celebrates the joy of making, baking and sharing through a carefully crafted space, helping its people return to work in an agile, flexible and personalised way.

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Gensler has created a space that encourages pladis’ people to create and harvest nourishing ideas and delicious experiences

Mix 217 November 2021 | 67

CASE STUDY pladis

A

s one of the world’s leading confectionary and snacking companies, pladis’ move to a prime West London location required a workplace to showcase their iconic brands – including McVities, GODIVA and Ülker – helping support them in their vision of bringing ‘happiness to the world with every bite’. Gensler’s design team was challenged to create a futureready, feelgood space that celebrates the art of baking and captures the joy of sharing.

The second largest biscuit manufacturer in the world, pladis is home to some of the world’s best tasting and most loved snacking brands. Its diverse portfolio of snacks is enjoyed in more than 150 countries and is a staple in billions of homes.

The visioning process for this impressive project used a mix of pladis’ most important ingredient – its people – assembling the whole team to discover fresh ideas. The client embraced the journey, engaging HR to champion wellbeing, and helping Gensler to discover the distinct ‘flavours’ of pladis. Participatory charrettes helped unpack their vision, create goodwill, empower thinking and build strong relationships with all stakeholders.

Designed and delivered during the global pandemic, this experimental project offers an insight into how the future of work could look. The result is a landmark example of agile working, which pladis’ multi-generational workforce has embraced. This isn’t a universal solution, but a custom-created space for pladis’ people to celebrate and flourish in – a space that encourages everyone to create and harvest nourishing ideas and delicious experiences.

above The spectacular rolling pin chandelier gives a lighthearted nod to what pladis does

right Inspired by the leafy location, the space is filled with biophilia and maximises natural light to promote wellbeing

“

We spent a lot of time getting to know them and their brands to ensure the space would reflect who they are and what they are about

” 68 | Mix 217 November 2021

CASE STUDY pladis

below Gensler wanted the space to be light, open and soothing to everyone experiencing the new pladis home

“

It was a very clear brief in terms of their aspirations to leap into the future for a dynamic, progressive, diverse and inclusive workforce

”

70 | Mix 217 November 2021

Gensler helped guide pladis through a dramatic shift away from traditional work models, listening and collaborating to facilitate the transition. Adding value through its workplace research, data, thought leadership, and expertise – distilled over more than 55 years of office design – Gensler created an assorted ‘biscuit tin’ workplace with something for everyone and moments of happiness provided through different flavours, tastes and textures.

The ‘heart’ space is welcoming, warm and convivial – a bakery-meets-hotel composition – with aromas of baked goods and coffee creating a multi-sensory brand experience. The open kitchen, with rolling pin light installations and ovens for baking and biscuit warming, provides a perfect hospitality setting where the products take centre stage and people can connect.

A live digital screen links to the bakeries – celebrating the bakers’ key role in the pladis family and showing the process behind the products.

The different pladis brands are accommodated with a range of customisable spaces. Brand hubs

with flexible content and digital screens can be adapted and used by any group, and the ‘Family Room’ provides a large lounge space that teams can take over. Inspired by the leafy location, the space is filled with biophilia and maximises natural light to promote wellbeing. Maternity and wellness rooms form part of this people-led design approach, which prioritises happiness, health and self-care.

We’re told that pladis was previously based in Hayes on the outskirts of London. ‘The new space is in the Chiswick Park complex that is a series of multitenant buildings and amenities in a beautifully landscaped setting,’ Christopher Crawford, Senior Associate at Gensler, tells us. ‘We did help them with due diligence on potential sites and test fitting the options.

‘We worked with the client in a workshop/co-design approach. We spent a lot of time getting to know them and their brands to ensure the space would reflect who they are and what they are about.

‘Their very visionary CEO wanted the new space to launch them into the innovative and technology

CASE STUDY pladis

Client Pladis Interior Design Gensler Main Contractor 21Construction Furniture Provider Wagstaff Interiors Group Joinery Realm Glazing SioSystems Fabric Walls Maharam Carpet Shaw Contract Timber Flooring Havwoods

enabled work environment. Seeing the space was designed entirely during the year and half lockdown phases of COVID, it was critical we pushed the workplace model into the future of work for a post-COVID workforce desiring hybrid working. The CEO requested we capture the ‘soul’ of what makes pladis, pladis.

‘It was a very clear brief in terms of their aspirations to leap into the future for a dynamic, progressive, diverse and inclusive workforce.

‘We were very inspired by what they do – essentially baking. They bake and make things that bring joy to our lives like biscuits and chocolate. It was important to us that the space felt positive, happy and uplifting.

What does Chris feel makes this project unique?

‘It is one of the few projects designed and delivered during the pandemic to embrace hybrid and agile working,’ he considers. ‘The function of the office changed because of the advancements in working and desires of the modern worker – the one silver lining

Indeed, Chris tells us that learning the best means to design, develop and deliver a project in a completely virtual world was the greatest challenge for the design team.

So what is at the heart of Gensler’s concept here at Chiswick Park? ‘Definitely agility and collaboration – from a work model standpoint,’ Chris reveals. ‘Sustainability and wellbeing are built into the design conceptually.’

And how important to the scheme was the furniture/finishes selection?

‘Super important, as design is only as good as our ability to deliver a concept in form, lighting, colour and materiality. We also had a ‘no black’ mantra – as most workplace interiors in London look like Darth Vader’s bachelor pad. We wanted the space to be light, open and soothing to the humans experiencing pladis!’

Finally, we ask Chris about his own personal favourite element of the space.

‘It has to be the ‘heart space’ as it really captures

to the pandemic. In many ways, even calling it an office is a misnomer as it a place for people to come together to meet, collaborate, socialise, mentor and experience pladis’ values, brand and culture.

baking and community – which are essential to what makes pladis, pladis.’w

above The ‘heart’ space has been designed to be welcoming, warm and convivial

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#195 Orms Senator

#201 SpaceInvader Modulyss

#202 MCM Pedrali

#197 LOM architecture + design Karndean DesignFlooring

#197 tp bennett Interface

#200 Various 20th Birthday Issue

#198 Squire & Partners Brunner

#196 Conran and Partners Autex Acoustics

#207 Modus Workspace Milliken

#206 Buckley Gray Yeoman Arper

#199 HOK Autex Acoustics

#203 DV8 Designs Camira

#214 Squire & Partners Johnson Tiles

#209 Gensler London sixteen3

#204 Oktra Hitch Mylius

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Mix Interiors

The Grand Atrium is very much the heart of Iona

Ship Shape British cruise ship operator, P&O Cruises, has launched the latest addition to its fleet – Iona – with interiors designed by hospitality experts, Jestico + Whiles.

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CASE LIVING STUDY Property Iona

below The Glass House features an impressive wine list

B

ritain’s largest and most environmentally friendly ship, powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG,) will accommodate up to 5,200 guests. The ship’s maiden voyage was undertaken back in August, when Iona sailed the UK coast and up to her namesake island in Scotland.

The award-winning interior design and architecture studio at Jestico + Whiles has designed most of the food and beverage spaces throughout the ship, as well as the most spectacular space of all – the soaring triple-height Grand Atrium, which captures unprecedented panoramic views across the ever-changing seascape, as far as the horizon.

‘Despite the challenge of such a large space, we have worked closely with P&O Cruises to create a unique Grand Atrium that is harmonious with the separate venues, making the space both open and intimate,’ Jestico + Whiles’ Associate Director, Jennifer de Vere-Hopkins, explains. ‘The refocusing of the guest experiences on the sea is the heart of an entirely new brief. The sea becomes the focus of the triple-height space; the sinuous curves are shaped around it, framing and complementing the views to the outside.’

‘We’ve set out to make sure the sea is the star on Iona, and the design of the Grand Atrium tells you so much about how special she is going to be,’ adds P&O Cruises Senior Vice President, Paul Ludlow. ‘Balancing intimate spaces with larger social areas, guests will be wowed by the three-storeyhigh glass walls and the ever-changing view they reveal. From the moment they step onto the staircase, I know guests will be swept away by the beautiful design.’

Elsewhere on board, Jestico + Whiles has designed P&O Cruises first ever ‘gastro pub’ – The Keel and Cow – on Deck 8, with views over the Grand Atrium and the ocean. The Glass House on Deck 7 includes an impressive wine list and menu curated by award-winning wine expert, Olly Smith.

Speaking of wine, connoisseurs of the grape are well taken care of with a new experience: the Cellar Door at the Glass House, which will offer wine talks, tastings and winepairing dinners. Guests can relax with unbeatable views as they watch impromptu aerial and circus performances in the threestorey high space. On Deck 6 at the Vistas Café Bar there is a unique offer from P&O

Cruises Food Hero and master pâtissier, Eric Lanlard, while the nearby Emerald Bar will evoke the glamour of a 1920’s cocktail bar.

Jennifer and Jestico + Whiles’ Director, James Dilley, are happy to tell us more about how this fantastic project came together. We begin by asking about the design process itself. Had the firm worked with the client previously?

‘The client came to us quite out of the blue,’ we’re told. ‘We were recommended to them for our strength in hospitality work. P&O Cruises were searching for a partner without any previous experience or preconceptions of cruise ship design. Though many of our projects do come through personal recommendation, we were delighted to have a new client who welcomed our fresh perspective (informed by our projects as diverse as the reimagining of Fortnum & Mason and the panoramic restaurant, Aqua Shard) and our innate sense of curiosity.

‘First, we launched into an intense period of testing the layout of the whole ship, looking at people flows and capacities and setting out initial design concepts for the spaces. The narrative, a deep dive into the

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CASE STUDY Iona

below Key entertainment spaces have been designed to effortlessly accommodate a wide variety of experiences

“

We’ve set out to make sure the sea is the star on Iona, and the design of the Grand Atrium tells you so much about how special she is going to be

”

76 | Mix 217 November 2021

cultural and historic context, is always the starting point for our design. Re-finding the ‘sea as the star’ very quickly became our priority, as well as exploring all the layers of story that could be told in each space.

‘We developed a fantastic dialogue with the client, and with them challenged the expected at every step, whilst also learning the ropes of ship design. Building relationships was essential to the success of the collaboration with the client, the shipyard and the contractors delivering the project. And, finally, gaining an understanding of the particular guest profile and anticipating how a new generation of guest might want to experience Iona was woven through the design process.’

How was the concept conceived and subsequently implemented?

‘Considerable attention was paid to the design for the atrium, which was envisaged as the beating heart of the ship. We had a vision of an open, flowing space with soaring voids and a showpiece staircase to bring back the glamour and theatre of the bygone glory days of cruising. We explored ideas through 3D studies

and physical models, as well as building the spirit of the space though materials and detail. Achieving the expressive curves that define the edges of the space required us to challenge the existing structural solutions and services routes. Multiple mock-ups allowed us to refine all the details of the staircase and deck edges. The team worked extremely hard to realise the effortless spirit of the ‘Fred & Ginger’ staircase that now features in almost every guest’s photos!’

As Jennifer and Paul previously said, the Grand Atrium is very much the heart of Iona. This lively focal point encapsulates the spirit of the ship, featuring spectacular views and spectacular levels of natural light. This special space is designed to ‘draw the outside in’ and, accordingly, Jestico + Whiles has made the sea the hero of the space, allowing guests to connect with the seascape around them. The Grand Atrium is, according to the occasion and time of day, either playground or sanctuary.

This key entertainment space has been designed meticulously to effortlessly accommodate a wide variety of experiences, from musical performance

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CASE STUDY Iona

below The Atrium Bar offers everything from morning coffee as the sun rises through to ‘sundowners’ at dusk

“

Considerable attention was paid to the design for the atrium, which was envisaged as the beating heart of the ship

”

78 | Mix 217 November 2021

to thrilling aerialists. At other times it will attract guests throughout the day for convivial repose, offering morning coffee as the sun rises through to ‘sundowners’ at dusk.

An elegant, gravity defying, arcing staircase of Italian marble with a filigree, bright silver serpentine balustrade serves as the centre piece to the space, evoking the glamour of the iconic cruise ships of the early 20th century. Designed as a sculpture, its swooping form leads guests on a journey through the decks, offering ever-changing views.

Open vistas offer a backdrop of the ever-changing seascape, complemented by flowing curves that lead the guests consciously, or subconsciously, from one new experience to another. This was a fresh take on the established P&O Cruises brand, we’re told.

What do our hosts feel makes Iona unique?

‘How spaces like the atrium and main dining rooms embrace the sea is quite unique in the P&O Cruises fleet. Whilst many ships focus mainly on the internal experience, double-and triple-height glass is used here to flood the spaces with light and create this unique connection to the sea and passing

landscapes. This is the experience that draws people to a cruise holiday. We were very clear that this is not a floating hotel – it is a ship.

‘We also designed-in pieces of memorable theatre, such as a gin still that produces unique batches for each voyage, often purchased as a collectable keepsake.’

What were the greatest challenges for the team?

‘Holding fast to the initial vision as the complexities of shipbuilding revealed themselves to us. Whilst some concessions were necessary, we were ultimately able to deliver the vision effectively intact, to give a truly unique experience.’

The finishes were extremely important in conveying a sense of quality and timelessness here.

Unifying different venues within the same space meant finding a neutral backdrop to complement each of the ‘personalities’.

‘The selections also need to perform to special marine standards, amongst others, and the client has a particular eye on the robustness and longevity of materials. These aspects, alongside our own interest in the sustainability of our choices, drove us to really challenge ourselves on materials.’

CASE STUDY Iona

How much did the pandemic change both our hosts and their client’s thinking when it came to both the design and function of Iona?

‘Apart from the special protocols in place on cruises at the moment, the design approach remains the same – to create a memorable experience for guests who choose to spend their time on board. The escapism of a cruise has become even more valued as we, hopefully, emerge from the restrictions.’

To finish, we ask about our hosts’ own personal favourite elements of Iona.

‘Andersons Gin Bar, with its wingback chairs in plush velvet and illustrated wall coverings, has a real sense of intimacy and sophistication,’ we’re told. ‘The gin itself is distilled on board – from a recipe inspired by the ship’s namesake, the Scottish isle of Iona – and is a first for a cruise ship! But you’re never far from the pull of the atrium, and the Emerald Bar is the focal point of evenings there. The striking colour was chosen to draw you in from a distance, and the bespoke mirrored artwork creates a subtly reflective backdrop. This is the perfect blend of old with new and captures our vision for this special ship.’ w

below Designed as a sculpture, the swooping form of the spectacular staircase leads guests on a journey through the decks, offering ever-changing views

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THE FINAL WORD

Data data everywhere and not a spot to think Mark Twain once said, “There are Lies, Damned lies and Statistics” and this was before anyone had invented data dashboards. I dread to think what he’d say today.

A

s we progress through transforming our business, we are developing more and more sources of information to help us understand the world we find ourselves in. The only problem is that the more data we have the less clear some things seem.

So, the answer must be more (better?) data.

Technology has the answer. We can now get a sensor to measure almost anything, from how many bodies in the room, to how hot it is or how humid or how much CO2 is in the air or how many times a toilet was flushed or how many cups of coffee were served. There is a veritable mountain of data pouring in daily, so the trick now is working out what questions to ask. Some obviously don’t work. For example, Cups of Coffee Per Square Foot will not give you deep insight into anything more than how many staff are onsite. On the other hand, Kilowatts Per Head might shed light on how the office is being used and whether the “Grow Lights” in the biophilic meeting room were such a good idea.

Get the question wrong and you can make some expensive mistakes.

Take the example of attendance. We asked

Mike Walley is Senior Director of Global Real Estate & Workplace Strategy at Criteo 80 | Mix 217 November 2021

the organisation to tell us how many days per week they would come to the office under a hybrid working pattern. We got very clear answers that indicated people would come to the office once or twice per week. Wonderful, we thought, now we know how much space we

want. Trouble was, we hadn’t asked which days everyone wanted to come in, and it seems they all want to come in on a Wednesday. All 1,000 of them. So now we have to go back to everyone and explain that we cannot build an office for that working pattern and that we’d like them to think again. Happily, we had not executed any leases based on the data.

Data alone is not the answer.

At the risk of raising the Quote Per Article metric a little high, I am reminded of a quote that has stuck with me over the years. It was in the office of the head of an audience survey company, and it simply said, “People Lie on Surveys”. His premise being that the data gleaned from a survey cannot just be read, but it needs to be assessed in the light of experience to really drag the truth from it. I would say the same holds true for data from any source. It is said that doctors take the answer to the question, “How many units of alcohol do you drink per week?” and routinely double it to get a more accurate assessment.

We didn’t need a survey to know that the offices will be busy midweek and much quieter on Mondays and Fridays, we just needed to apply a little critical (cynical?) thought to it. So, beware the data that gives you the answer you wanted, go find a quiet space and think about how you might have answered before you believe it.

Turn the Grow Lights off as you leave, thanks.w

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