WELSEND SOUTHWEST URBAN WORK-GROUND | Interior | AND lab | APAC Glocal Commercial Design Consultants Group

Office Interior | Corporate Headquarters

WELSEND SOUTHWEST URBAN WORK-GROUND | 

AN UNAUTHORITARIAN OFFICE

2022 | China Chengdu

The client has rented two floors in a high-rise tower in the city centre of Chengdu, China and asked us to design the lower floor, which shall house the administration level of about 80 staffs. This lower floor serves as a floor for the client to receive corporate guest, to interview new candidates and to train new staffs, while the upper floor is the operating floor of its call center business.

 

As we approached the project, we figured that the Modern typology of office has not evolved much for the past decades. The management level’s office rooms are still forming a row along façade blocking the sunlight while other employees are sitting in the open office. The problem is not about the hierarchy but the rooms are laid in a row, in a way that they blocked all the sunlight, view and fresh air. We think that the hierarchy system in a corporate should not restrained some of workers’ rights to access natural resources, hence, we went through a search for a non-authoritarian open plan while protecting the interests of all parties. We approached this project like a micro-urban planning and micro-architecture.

Paradigm Shift范式转变

 

We first break the required functions into smaller sizes and also the bonds between rooms so that rooms are no longer laid in a row, then we borrow the idea of multi-centers in urban planning to re-group and re-distribute repetitive functions into centers then scatter them throughout the floor. For example, instead of conventional way of having single area for pantry, printing area and meeting rooms, we have tiny pantries, printing and discussion corners, emphasizing on adjacency for different teams of staffs and failover availability and also encouraging staffs’ interaction.

Micro-urban in the sky空中城市

 

While avoiding the monotonous spatial quality within a high-rise and trying to bring in some urban spatial qualities, we decided to group spaces organically to form lobes, which in turn organically re-define and reshape the circulation and the open space, around the core like cells. So that when one moves across spaces, he or she is either bathed under the sunlight or expecting sunlight at the ends. On top of that, no matter at which corner the person is, he or she is always connected with the city, seasons and time.

There are two entrances into space as required by client to split different groups of people, i.e. client, staffs, trainees and visitors to its subsidiaries.

At the second entrance for subsidiaries, we designed a floating reception cantilevering for more than 4m.

At the other ends of the lift lobby is the main entrance to the office. After the main entrance, there is a reception area, where we placed an enclosed VIP room, in one hand, to prevent direct view into the space, on the other hand, it also diverts the flow between guests for meeting and staffs.

The VIP meeting room is in a form of a trimmed cone, which gradually opens up towards the windows.

After the reception area, we allocated the HR division, accompanying with some interview rooms. The HR division will interview quite a number of interviewees daily, according to client.

After the HR division, it is the restricted office zone.

 

The building’s floors and its lift lobbies are split into high and low zone. As the project located in the low zone and occupies whole floor, there is wide corridor, where it is meant to be lift lobbies for high zone’s floors.

We turned this wide corridor into a central pantry, linking the north and south office area.

Outside the entrance of the central pantry, we designed an open casual discussion area.

Along the open office area, we evenly distributed discussion area, printing area and small

pantries. In the open office area, we created double ceiling and use soft diffused reflected cove light as main lighting.

On the other hand, on the west side and right after the reception area, we allocated the meeting rooms and training rooms.

A large meeting room is placed like a box within the space, sitting back from the façade so as not to blocking the sunlight and view from coming into the interior. And it is divisible into two smaller meeting rooms by removable partitions.

The area outside the large meeting room can be used as a waiting area before the meeting or training starts.

Behind the large meeting room, is a training room, which can also be divided into two smaller training rooms, so as to hold training class for different groups simultaneously.

Just like the meeting room, the training room is also setting back from the façade, creating a bright and well-ventilated access back to the restricted office zone.

Client

Welsend Information Industry Co., Ltd.

URL

https://www.chinaws.net

Lighting Design

Zhongtian Lighting Consultant

Structural Design

C2 CONSULTING ENGINEERS

Publicist

Foong Chern Wong

Photographer

YU PHOTOGRAPHY / LIU Wei