Macquarie, a global provider of banking and investment services, needed a new group office space to hold all of its employees that were scattered around a number of different buildings in London. The company hired West Hollywood-based Clive Wilkinson Architects, who designed their offices in Sydney, to create a brand new space in London in a project that was completed earlier this year. The company occupies 217,500 square feet on six floors in the 20-storey, LEED Platinum building Ropemaker Place in the heart of the city.
The layout of the space is based on the concept and new trend of transparency in financial services with large glass windows and floor to ceiling glass walls. The free open spaces occupied by simple and brightly coloured furniture create a cohesive space of order, comfort and delight. The large red staircase (resembling those seen in the Paris Metros) is the centre piece of the entire space and serves to connect the different floors to create a sense of unity.
Privacy is evident in the more secluded client areas, where the traditional pinstripe lines appear in several iterations in ceilings, partitions, environmental graphics and other visual cues.
source: The Cool Hunter
