Client The Office Group | Date 2020-2023 |
Interior Architect Universal Design Studio | Photographer c/o The Office Group |
Project Team Keith Bradshaw, Jaime Fuentes McGreevy, | |
In historic Berlin, a new seven-storey glass-enclosed structure wrapping around the back of the historic Pressehaus has created an open, light-filled workspace. Surrounded by a major road, offices, retail, transport hub, and residential zones, the external lit image required a careful hand, balancing creating an inviting and impactful exterior identity with managing the potential for spill light.
With the building acting as a lantern, our design approach for the internal light is the key to crafting the exterior identity. We recommended using different colour temperatures for the working spaces compared to the social and breakout spaces, contrasting the warm neutral of the former with a very warm domestic feel for the latter, creating distinctive ambiences while adding richness and depth to the exterior image.
In the publicly accessible ground floor entrance hall and café, very warm light glows on the vertical surfaces and key details, such as the feature staircase and behind the bar, creating a welcoming impression. For this space, we also collaborated with UDS on a feature ceiling detail, in this case, continuous glowing rafts that create an almost neon-like effect.
Located in London’s renowned Knowledge Quarter, the design philosophy for this new workspace focused on incorporating natural materials and harnessing natural light to create a welcoming and productive environment.
We were invited by interior architects Universal Design Studio (UDS) to consult on the overall lighting strategy and further collaborated with them on the undulating feature ceiling, a central aspect of their design. Our team worked to develop and refine an integrated lighting detail that delivers the required functional light but also enhances the visual appeal of the ceiling itself.