Meeting Rooms – Suspended Transparent Cube
The Scandinavian architectural firm Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects has designed some pretty amazing meeting rooms for the offices of Nykredit. Nykredit is a leading mortgage bank in Copenhagen, Denmark. The meeting rooms are innovative in that they are suspended boxes in the form of a transparent cube. This cubical structure gives a clear visual display of Copenhagen Harbor, which also supplies water to maintain the temperature of the office building.
[via DesignBuzz]
Saatchi & Saatchi Office – Bangkok
Saatchi & Saatchi recently resdesigned their regional Bangkok office space. The work was undertaken by Supermachine Studio, which is a multidisciplinary design firm established by the architect Pitupong in 2009. Supermachine was the team of choice to design Saatchi & Saatchi’s office space because their creative director, Joel Clement, wanted playful and unexpected design solutions for the office. Clement wanted a space “that inspires, is genuinely fun to come to everyday, and that didn’t take itself too seriously.”
The tight budget posed challenges that Chaowakul and team solved with bold ideas that leave much of the space open but accented by strong visual elements. This openness was also part of Clement’s brief to Supermachine, as the previously scattered teams had to learn to work together and become one functioning family.
[via]
Tokyo office designed to beautify the female form
This space was once again renovated by sschemata, it was the office space of a long established Pharmacy in Tokyo.
The client wanted to achieve two things, the first was to decrease the amount of documents and clutter in modern day offices. The client was baffled by the amount of mess that accumulated despite the fact that we live in a digital age. The second goal was somewhat more aspiring, the office was to be designed in such as way as to beautify the legs of women. The architects therefore aptly named this project ‘the foot fetish office’!
To achieve the first goal the office was made slim-lined and minimalist; the second aim was achieved by ensuring that nothing was placed lower than 700mm from the ground. If practicality required it to be on the ground it would be painted bright orange. I guess the idea was that the office would be an uncluttered canvas for the feminine form, although surely this will equally apply to male legs!
[via]
Macquarie Group Offices – London
Clive Wilkinson Architects are the Hollywood based team behind Macquarie Group’s Sydney office headquarters. The team has now completed their most recent brief from Macquarie, the creation of the new Macquarie London Office space. In case you didn’t know, Macquarie is a global player in banking and investment services, whose presence in London was previously scattered throughout several buildings in London. They therefore recently decided to consolidate in the brand-new Ropemaker Place. Macquarie occupies 6 floors in the office building, which incidentally is LEED Platinum. The building itself was designed by Arup Associates.
The beautiful, open space is a triumph of simplicity. A skillful and meaningful use of bright colour, combined with the all-white inner structure gives the open plan a sense of delight and order.
[via]
Lexington Avenue Agency – Valencia
This cool modelling agency is located , despite what the name may suggest, in Valencia. It was designed by + Quespacio a Spanish based design firm, specifically by Ana Hernández Palacios. They took their inspiration from the trendy urban Lexington Avenue in New York, along with inspiration form the city itself. Thus the bright vibrant yellow was used as an ode to the famous NYC taxi cab. The mixture of black and yellow has been done very tastefully, with the bespoke Spanish furniture matching impeccably!
[via]
Hotdesking with a hint of privacy
The Eclipse Office Hotdesking System was designed to provide an adjustable private hotdesking office space within an open plan environment. It allows workers to access a versatile and adjustable space, thus hopefully increasing communication streams and productivity, while still allowing for privacy to be maintained. This system seems to tap straight into the growing trend of hot desking in the office, and I personally love any sort of synergy between futuristic technology and office furniture – if only it was real!
Video
[via]
Nokia GEM – Touchscreen All Over
The Nokia GEM is the latest gift from the Nokia Research Center, the concept behind the phone is that it’s totally customisable with touch screens on every surface of the phone. Essentially, the phone is one big touchscreen device. The shape of the phone is more reminiscent of the old school Nokia phones, rather than the iPhone/HTCesque phones of late. Though clearly some time away , it does indicate the exciting possibilities to come!
This isn’t Nokia’s first innovative/crazy phone idea. It also showcased the Nokia Kinetic bendy concept phone at Nokia World 2011.
Touch Sensitive Interactive Desk
For most people, especially office workers, the desk is the main workspace utilised. With the growing importance of technology in the work place the typical desk also usually has at least one vertical display that shows digital content and a larger horizontal area, containing input devices such as a mouse, keyboard and documents. BendDesk is a curved interactive surface that combines a horizontal and vertical multi-touch surface seamlessly with a curve. Such a touch sensitive desk seems to be the logical step for the ever-immersive technologies that are cropping up and and is an exciting vision of the future of office spaces.
RIP Steve Jobs
Drawing from some of the most pivotal points in his life, Steve Jobs, chief executive officer and co-founder of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, urged graduates to pursue their dreams and see the opportunities in life’s setbacks – including death itself. His speech never fails to inspire me, and with his recent passing away it’s never been more poignant. RIP Steve Jobs.
Windows 8 Unveiled
Steven Sinofsky, the Microsoft Windows Division President, recently unveiled the newest version of Windows, known as Windows 8. The release was done at the BUILD conference in Anaheim California to an audience of developers. Sinofsky called Windows 8 a “bold reimagining” of the platform, saying that 1995 was the “last time Windows underwent a significant bold overhaul.” One can only imagine this new approach is an attempt to combat the dominance of Apple. Will it work? Only time can tell!
In a nutshell the key points of the Windows 8 experience are:
- Fast and fluid user experience
- Immersive and full-screen
- Touch first with full keyboard and mouse
- Web of apps working together
- Experience for all PC devices and architectures