Commercial offices

The Challenge
In today’s challenging commercial climate offices must be as multi-functional as the people who work in them. While they may be designed for 300 people, ‘hot-desking’ often means they may accommodate far more and must provide a comfortable environment which boosts productivity. At the same time, they must be sustainable and suitable for existing needs while versatile enough to adapt to future needs.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is undertaking a major investment in its assets nationally and wanted to upgrade its Barnard Castle offices in County Durham.

Service Design Partnership (SDP) was called in to create electrical and mechanical designs for its façade, corporate boardroom, and commercial offices.

Service Design Partnership Solution
Employees are more productive when they have a comfortable environment which means good lighting and optimum temperature.  This must be tempered by an organisation’s budgetary restraints and its environmental ambitions.

GSK wanted to update the existing offices which house 300 people to take advantage of the latest energy efficient technologies.

Service Design Partnership created a versatile and energy efficient SMART office system that takes account of the level of occupancy of each office, the time of day and the need to enhance natural light.

Using solar control, it is helping GSK to reduce its overall carbon footprint while ensuring its team is working productively and comfortably.

The final piece in the jigsaw at the office complex was the boardroom. For an organisation of GSK’s international standing this must provide the right tone as well as respecting financial imperatives. While being suitable for high powered meetings of key decision makers and influencers, it was also important that it could be versatile and host other events.

Service Design Partnership developed a system that would create an external facing image in keeping with the GSK brand.

Outcome
A three-stage office development was efficiently managed to deliver the client’s main objectives.

Their brand shines a light to visitors and employees in keeping with the organisation’s ethos and values.

Their existing system was updated and future proofed to be sustainable with innovative environmental technologies that provide real cost savings while not impacting detrimentally on productivity.

There was minimal downtime while the site was prepared for improvement and during work to upgrade the system. The new system enhances existing productivity, improves energy performance and has the capacity for future growth.