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Celgene Pharmaceuticals HQ

Published: 05-Dec-2011

Moving staff from a pleasant riverside location to a business park site and a new open-plan way of working was made very acceptable by Scott Brownrigg creating interiors that used design to enhance to new open-plan culture

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Details

Project: Celgene Pharmaceuticals HQ, Uxbridge
Client: Celgene
Design: Scott Brownrigg
Size: 7,500 sq m
Completion time:Six months

Project Details

When Celgene Pharmaceuticals decided to move its employees from two riverside offices at Windsor to a rather less prepossessing business park in Uxbridge, the management was aware that not everyone would be thrilled. The solution was to create a bright and spacious office that would be a pleasure to work in, and the company chose interior design and architecture practice Scott Brownrigg for the job.

‘The company has some amazing people working for it and wanted to hold on to them,’ says Kate Mason of Scott Brownrigg, ‘but it was a bit of a trade off – moving from a not-so-nice office in a nice place to a nice office in a business park.’

As well as designing the interior of the two-storey Eighties building, which involved the refurbishment of the reception area, shell and cores – led by Beth Glen of Scott Brownrigg – and the interior fit-out works, the designers also helped redefine the way the company works. ‘We helped guide Celgene in the way it wanted to go, and that meant establishing a more open and collaborative way of working,’ says Mason.

Many of the employees had been used to cellular offices, but the company decided on a more open-plan layout for its new location. ‘It was a real shift in culture for those who were used to the space and privacy of individual offices,’ says Mason, who eased the transition by giving staff larger desks, by Bene.

Another key requirement was to provide a well-designed cafe/restaurant to replace the many sandwich shops and cafes that the employees had had access to at the Windsor site.

The designers used stone flooring for the cafe and a 9m-long, double-sided hexagonal bench made of stained oak with vinyl pad seating. Chairs by Hitch Mylius provide additional seating. One of the main issues in the cafe was the acoustics, so the designers created a drop ceiling with an acoustic fabric and integrated lighting.

Adjoining the cafe/restaurant is an ‘auditorium’, whose folding walls enable the café and three large meeting rooms to be opened up into one space. The meeting rooms also have the flexibility to become one large area to hold annual general meetings and events, with a capacity that can accommodate 120 people.

Also in this area, a library features Alcove Highback Sofas by Vitra upholstered in red, benches by James Burleigh and loose shelving by Pli Design.

The building has two atria and large windows, so there’s an abundance of natural light. ‘The client didn’t have any preconceptions about colour and there was no specific guidelines relating to corporate colours, but because of all the natural light we wanted to keep things bright and fresh,’ says Mason. ‘Staff were given a choice of three possible colour schemes, and they selected the one of predominantly lue and green.’

Graphics printed on to vinyl also play a big role in the scheme, and include manifestations of chemical compositions placed across the frontages of meeting rooms and phone booths. In addition, two walls of graphics, one of 4.5m high, provide dramatic design features in the cafe and lobby areas.

To add a touch of humour, Mason and her team also created a feature wall using several plaster-cast hands painted red, which function as coat hangers. ‘It’s not a media company so we didn’t want to do something that’s incongruous with the company’s identity. But we did want to add a bit of fun here, as they were such great people to work with,’ she says.

But for Mason, it’s the change in the way the company works and the ways in which the design facilitates that that really makes this project special.

‘It’s easy to put people in an aesthetically different space, and design is very subjective, but actually asking people to work differently is a whole new ball game,’ Mason says. ‘Helping them to understand how it’s going to work and why it’s going to work was key.’

And there’s every indication that it has been a success. ‘After it was finished, one person came up to me and said: “What you’ve done is great. Everyone is talking to each other and we’re using the space in exactly the way you said we would”,’ says Mason. ‘I think it helped that we had a very open-minded client,’ she adds.

Main suppliers:
Furniture:

•Vitra - vitra.com
•Bene - bene.com
•James Burleigh - jamesburleigh.co.uk
•Hitch Mylius - hitchmylius.co.uk
•Naughtone - naughtone.com
•Arper - arper.com
•Pli Design - plidesign.co.uk
•Humanscale - humanscale.com

Materials and Flooring:

• Spinneybeck - spinneybeck.com
• Quadrant - quadrantcarpets.com
• Desso - desso.com

Partitioning:

• Optima - optimasystems.com


This article was first published in fx Magazine.

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