Category: Visuals

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Office Design and Fit Out in Swindon

Office Design and Fit Out in Swindon

Client: One Technologies
Value: £260k

We carried out an Office design and fit out fit out project for One Technologies Ltd in Swindon,Wiltshire. The project included creating ideas for the design, detail specification and documents, planning and then organising the work which was completed on time within budget.

The customer is an American company that wanted to set up and office in the UK. They had a breakfast bar in their office in Dallas, we tried to replicate the way they work in the US so part of their culture of how they work comes across into the UK. The customer is a web based company and the new office will be receiving inbound calls so is basically a call center. The image of a phone box in the reception is intended to reflect this and is one reason why there is a  concentration of desks in space. The digital image that is printed on heavy textured wall covering. Desk footprint was important in getting the right numbers in, and we have designed this so they can increase the numbers easily, all of the future space planning has been done. You will see the grey wallpaper in the office is very textured to give some personality to the paper and help with sound performance.

The activities included Office Design, Project Management, CDM regulations, Building Regulations, contracts, stripping out work, demountable glass partitioning, decorations, design of a breakfast bar, supply and fit of all office furniture, air conditioning new and changes to existing, ventilation changes, lighting, electrical work, data cabling, supply and fitting of the communications cabinet, cctv, access control, audio visual equipment and connection, storage wall and flooring changes. We also supplied all of the office furniture, screens, cupboards, plants, graphics, chairs and monitor arms.

Preparation work.

Much of the initial time on the project was spent exploring different layouts and seeing how the space could work. Care was taken in seeing how the customer wanted to use the space to have an area where people could relax and have teas and coffees.

Design Visuals.

We have covered elsewhere in this website our view on visuals. Please click this link for more explanation as to the difference between drawing work, space planning and 3d visuals. As a large proportion of the cost of the project focused around the breakfast bar we felt creating visuals was really important. The breakfast bar being an essential part of the office design. The film taken of this project reinforces how much the finished build reflects the initial visuals we produced for the project. Although they are in the film clip, they can be seen below:

Specifications, contract and planning.

The next step was to provide much more detail in the the specifications in the form of written documents. We had a commercial contract drawn up, as well as produced a full build specification document detailing every aspect of the build. Due to the amounts of money involved £250k +, we produced a project plan which showed the phases of when payments were due to be made depending on when various parts of the project were delivered. The final document was a detailed Gantt chart showing project timelines, dates, slack periods, completion dates and contingencies. Also built in were times required for the American IT team to visit and have all of the computer equipment installed and configured.

Build Photographs.

As you can see from the photographs there was quite a bit to organise, in particular we had to follow the progress to a programme, as well as maintaining dates that had to fit in with the American IT team visiting the UK to install the server the programme had to be met for the financial reasons in order to maintain a steady flow of payments coming to us from the USA. The main office design and fit out project for us was only one small part in order to get the office up and working. The customers IT people only had 3 days to install all of the equipment, so all of the infrastructure cabling, power, air conditioning, cabinets and of course all of the security access controls and cameras had to be fully working before they came over to visit. They were bringing with them a special server built by Dell to handle the call volumes anticipated in the office and the server itself cost 7 figures.

Final photographs finished office.

We are very please with the final office design and fit out. If you have not seen the video in the first part of this page then you can also see it here by here by clicking this text..

Moving / expanding or have problems with your existing office space?

Many offices have problems with sound, problems with fitting enough people in, and may look dated and need reworking which is where we can help. From an initial brief as to what the problems are to the final completed office we can carry out everything that you need inside an office. In the project above we used demountable partitioning but using a special type of glass to enhance sound performance. The system was also a propriety demountable partition system called Komfort Polar. The glass wall was double glazed, with seamless glass joints for a smooth simple look.

Why Demountable Partitions in Office Refurbishments?

  1. Demountable partitions are tax efficient in that they are seen as movable items and so can be treated differently in writing down allowances in the accounts, we can also lease elements of office refurbishments. Anything that can be moved.
  2. We mainly lease Demountable Partitions as they are movable, this spreads the costs of having the work done as Demountable Partitions always cost more than customers think.
  3. Leasing of movable items is very tax efficient and Cre8tive can provide illustrations, please contact us for further information.
  4. Most landlords insist on demountable partitions in an office as it is much easier to take them out should the tenant renting the space leave for any reason. The benefit is that is saves making a huge amount of mess and destruction that would be need with a conventional stud and plasterboard constructed wall.

Not sure what to do?

Please give us a call and we can help with any aspect of interior office fit out, along with space planning and design work.

01380 73 88 44

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All Project Categories Office Furniture Office Refurbishments Suspended Ceilings Visuals

Office Fitting out in Trowbridge

Office Fitting out in Trowbridge

Client: Sea Terra Trowbridge
Value: £12.5k

Office Refurbishment

This project involved the office fitting out of an existing office space in order for the company to occupy. The existing office looked quite dated, but the position of the space and the structure suited the customer well. As the office was going to be busy with lots of noise on the phone a suspended ceiling was essential, as well as providing CAT 2 lighting which is needed when working on computers.

Space Planning and design work.

The space was quite small, there was also a requirement to fit a certain number of people inside the office and so a basic space plan was required.Moving on from a basic space plan we applied some colours to the layout as well so the customer had some idea what could be done by using different carpet colours. There is a difference between basic drawing work and space planning, please click on the link for more of an explanation.

Final photographs.

Luckily the office space was empty so it made fitting the suspended ceiling much easier. The original space was just an old shop with a plasterboard ceiling and old fissured (squiggle pattern) tiles which made the space look really dated. The lighting was surface mounted tubed light fittings which are not allowed under the Visual Display Regulations, so they had to be changed anyway to CAT2 at the very least as the customer was using computers.

The project included the installation of a new suspended ceiling, new CAT 2 lighting & electrics,  new flooring, decoration and furniture. The ceiling was slightly tricky as the existing space had arches located centrally within the space.

Suspended Ceiling

Suspended ceilings are almost always used when carrying out an office refurbishment as existing ones can look tired. We have a bit more information on suspended ceilings on the following link if you would like to have a look, please click this link. The choice of the suspended ceiling is almost always price versus performance. It is possible to have a plasterboard ceiling but the problem with this type is that it is very hard to get services over the ceiling with access problems, and the hard surface of the ceiling lets the sound bounce around. The mineral fibre tiles that are generally used offer good sound absorption properties, and can easily be taken out to get to any cabling that you may wish to run over the grid system.

We also install all our ceilings with a self leveling laser to so the ceiling is completely flat. Some builders try and put ceilings in and we do often have to put them right, it is important to get the supporting wires tensioned properly as well as centering the grid system properly so it looks evenly balanced in the space.

The furniture chosen was a beam system type of furniture which allows cables to be hidden in an integral beam that joins the leg frame uprights together.

Please give us a call on 01380 73 88 44 for more information about this project or any requirement you may have.

Categories
Air Conditioning All Project Categories Office Furniture Office Refurbishments Partitioning Suspended Ceilings Visuals

Complete Design and Refurbishment in Bristol

Complete Design and Refurbishment in Bristol
Making a feature of the pillar

Client: Smufit Kappa
Value:£75k

Office Design and Refurbishment

A complete office design and refurbishment project was required, involving initial space planning and design, through to stripping out and refurbishing the office space.

The existing space had a problem with an existing pillar which could not be moved and it was in the middle of the space, so we made a feature of it. We constructed a curved wall around the pillar. The project included: plastering, decorations, air conditioning, flooring, lighting, new suspended ceiling, demountable partitioning, the design and build of a specially sized conference table with pop up modules in the desk to connect a laptop to for presentations. The project also included the supply and installation of office furniture fully co-ordinated with the colour scheme. We also produced some visuals which allowed the customer to appreciate the colour choices.

Design Work

Once we have looked at the current space and taken a brief from the customer, then we draw it. We use Autocad, and we first have to identify exactly what is in the current space which will include the existing lighting, electrical and air conditioning aspects, as well as the walls and other items in the space. In coming up with a new design we first look to see what the customer wants and then try to squeeze it in. In this case we had a pillar in the way, so we made a feature of the pillar in the design. We always draw technical drawings which allows our suppliers to cost items, but sometimes customers can’t visualise what something may look like. We therefore organise some visuals to be produced which help the whole process in getting the project approved.

Visuals

We appreciate that we still carry out visuals by hand and some may say that computer generated visuals are better. However we like to have another perspective on the design and so these are carried out by another company. The visuals are hand drawn and then painted or coloured in and it is a final check that we are happy with the design.

Existing Space Photographs

Stripping out Work

Finished Results

The most pleasing aspect of this project is that we identified a major issue with the layout and as we could not move it, created a feature of it. The pillar ended up being the focal point of the space where the directors could display some of their samples.

Do you have something similar and need help?

Often with these projects the hard part is knowing where to start. In particular with this project the space was really awkward. The directors knew that something had to be done as it was so dull but we are a loss on what to do.

Translating ideas into a cost can be quite difficult, so what we do at Cre8tive is to listen and then try and interpret what the customer wants. We go through certain steps and doing the drawing work is one of them.

If you are struggling to come up with something, please do not hesitate to give us a call 01380 73 88 44 or email us on [email protected]