Mock-ups
This is the fourth post in the blog series about our new office.
Read other posts from the serie:
1 - A cool office is not the best office
2 - Building a concept
3 - A very time consuming process
4 - Mockups
5 - Buying furniture
We spent a lot of time creating a concept that would fit our team. Read more about the concept.
With this concept in mind, the architect came up with a great design for the new office. It’s perfectly aligned with the concept, with three different sound areas on three different floors. It has everything we need to accomplish our mission in creating the world’s best office.
Let me guide you through the office.
Welcome to the High Energy zone.
Your first step in our office will be on the artificial grass of the football locker room. To the right you have the Futchi goal (http://futchi.com). Futchi is a new ball sport invented by a fellow Göteborg company.
On the right hand side you have the Shuffleboard and a Ping-Pong table. We think Shuffleboard is a great game because everyone can play it, whereas Ping-Pong and football can be slightly excluding. This area will also be used for meet-ups, and boasts a 50-person capacity.
If you continue straight forward you'll walk into the kitchen, where our office manager Marika can prepare our daily breakfast. Here's a big kitchen table that fits up to 24 people.
Player Tunnel and Gaming room
After walking up the stairs you will come to the final room of the High Energy zone, the gaming room. There's also an indoor balcony where we will have a ball pit installed.
Room 6 – The Work Zone, aka the garden
The idea that the different zones should have different sound levels is one of the most important aspects of the concept. The Work Zone is therefor sound proofed from the High Energy zone.
The idea behind the Work Zone is that you should feel like you're entering a quiet garden. We consulted a botanist who had a workshop with all the employees, where we talked about which trees and flowers we might be interested in. He told us that we could have plants more or less anywhere in the office. So we decided that plants in the office would be an ongoing process, which will improve over time. We will start with two different trees, four in total, in the Work Zone.
This tree will be located when you enter the Work Zone. It's called "Benjamin Ficus" and will be three meters tall.
We will also have a Ficus Lyrata-tree, which will be two meters tall
All the trees will be planted in custom built boxes.
As you can see, we don't have any white boards, lounge areas or that sort of thing in the Work Zone. This is to keep the sound level as low as possible. After all, this is the most important area of the office, where the productivity is critical.
My co-worker Joel came up with the brilliant idea to build a device table, which will be used to store various devices so we can test new features of the application.
The device table can hold up to 30 devices
We also have two quiet work rooms (room 8 & 9) with desks, comfortable chairs and a phone booth (7) as well.
Regarding seating, Cecilia from Spotify advised us to put the chairs with the back facing each other, so the employees can interact more easily.
The Relax Area
There's a mezzanine on the second floor that will be used as a relax area. When you work your way up the stairs you will find a big flower box in front of you.
In room 4, behind the flowers, there's a library in a glass room what will be even quieter than the workspace. Perfect for research and contemplation.
Room 3 will be a third quiet workspace, and room 2 is a Zen room with a custom built bed, tatami carpet and flowers hanging down from the roof window. It will be the ultimate relaxation room.
The ball pit will be in room 5, which is attached to the gaming room in the High Energy zone.
Mock-ups:
What do you think of the plans for our new office? If you have any comments or suggestions, please do write them below!