Cambridge Consultants new Boston Seaport workplace area helps and embodies their hybrid work mannequin.
Mission Overview:
- Design Agency: SGA
- Shopper: Cambridge Consultants
- Completion Date: October 2022
- Location: Boston, MA, USA
- Dimension: 22,000 sqft
- Inhabitants: 110
SGA – a number one agency whose work spans structure, inside design and grasp planning – partnered with Cambridge Consultants to conceptualize and design their workplace area on the twelfth flooring of Two Drydock Avenue – additionally designed by SGA – within the Seaport neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. Their new area is the bodily embodiment of a deep dive into their company tradition and model that spans 22,000 sq. ft.
Cambridge Consultants was confronted with a tricky resolution: Keep of their present area, or make the transfer to a extra centralized location in a contemporary constructing that might current a clean canvas for them to understand the best workplace for his or her various workforce. The selection was clear and the administration consulting firm collaborated with SGA to design a brand new, progressive area that might assist and embody their hybrid work mannequin. To take action, the designers targeted on intentional technological integrations, acoustic issues, a mix of coworking and personal areas, in addition to residential- and hospitality-inspired vignettes. SGA stays proud to have led all features of the design and construct course of.
In collaboration with Ember Inventive, SGA efficiently built-in the graphics of the corporate’s new brand into the general design — making a path that inherently guides staff and their shoppers by the area, providing an immersive wayfinding expertise that additionally carefully aligns with the corporate’s core values. Angles on inside partitions mirror the consumer’s brand and showcase a refined but deliberate design ingredient. This harmonious integration enabled SGA to create a way of openness inside the constructing in addition to an ethereal aesthetic that’s additional accentuated by floor-to-ceiling home windows on the finish of every hall.
Included within the design expertise is a mesmerizing gentle reveal within the elevator foyer that leads guests into the reception space. Right here, staff and shoppers discover a wall with an immersive digital show surrounded by hand-selected artifacts that playfully mirror Cambridge Consultants’ long-standing historical past and wealthy firm tradition whereas participating with the onlooker.
The lighting plan integrated the identical angular idea from the model’s brand, and leveraged a collection of pendants to create a non-directional sample over the open workplace. Through the construct, SGA was capable of deal with lead time points and scale back price by reusing supplies — corresponding to accent pendants and inside doorways — from the present area and different earlier tasks with out sacrificing aesthetic integrity.
SGA accentuated the consumer’s hybrid working mannequin by designing all of the furnishings to be dynamic but useful, with adjustable heights and a full suite of energy capabilities. By means of their collaboration with Cambridge Consultants, SGA created a vibrant and immersive workspace that displays the consumer’s model and values and supplies an progressive ecosystem wherein staff are empowered to thrive.
Mission Planning
As a product improvement and expertise consultancy agency, Cambridge Consultants was notably attune to the artistic however methodical nature of the work that SGA does as designers. Resonating with stakeholders at each stage of the Cambridge Consultants company construction, the design course of was extremely collaborative and consultant of concepts and opinions from entry-level staff up by C-suite. To take action, SGA partnered with a taskforce of key Cambridge Consultants stakeholders that mediated efforts corresponding to pre-planning surveys, focus teams, and envisioning classes.
When the groups started collaborating, Cambridge Consultants had not selected a brand new location. Due to this fact, pre-planning surveys targeted totally on which type of facilities and way of life attributes a brand new area ought to provide. The challenge workforce was curious to understand how staff received to the workplace so they may extra precisely weigh the worth of issues like proximity to public transportation and entry to parking. These surveys additionally touched on neighborhood facilities, such because the significance of being close to espresso retailers, lunch spots, and after work actions. Designers started to broach a higher-level feel and look right here as nicely; how staff ranked being on the next or decrease flooring and whether or not they most popular trendy or historic atmospheres.
After a location was chosen and secured based mostly on these responses, the design workforce shifted to creating a collection of focus teams and envisioning classes that dove deeper into feel and look. Right here, the challenge workforce created digestible shows that could possibly be understood with out dialogue, and by non-design professionals, whereas highlighting key areas for remark. From this follow, SGA garnered perception into the kinds of workstations, technological integrations, adjacencies, and versatile areas that might be wanted to empower Cambridge Consultants to finish their finest work.
SGA empowered Cambridge Consultants to proactively handle this alteration by transparency and by involving all staff within the course of from the very starting. Integral to the general success of a challenge, this excessive stage of worker engagement ensured that each workforce member was sufficiently conscious of the method, timeline, and methods wherein their day-to-day would evolve all through its course.
The workforce at SGA was in a position to attract on beforehand carried out business analysis and expertise to pair it with project-specific info derived from pre-planning surveys and envisioning classes to exceed necessities and expectations.
Mission Particulars
One of the invaluable well being and wellness initiatives on show within the Cambridge Consultants Boston workplace is the Mom’s/Wellness room. The group is obsessed with mixing work and life. The workforce sought a office that staff could be proud to convey their households to; one they’d really feel comfy and supported in doing so. This sentiment resulted in a state-of-the artwork Mom’s/Wellness room that stands out from the remainder. With its personal distinctive id, the initiative supplies each spatial and aesthetic reduction from the workplace it serves. Right here, designers had some enjoyable with colours and texture to create an idea that feels remarkably completely different from the office it inhabits. Providing staff a bodily and psychological escape from their work to cope with a few of life’s tougher moments in peace.
All through the area, designers labored diligently to offer a wide range of vignettes so {that a} various pool of expertise would really feel comfy of their work setting. Respecting the neurodiversity that empowers organizational success, a wide selection of workstations -such as one- and two-person cubicles, cellphone rooms, huddle rooms, convention rooms, and a hospitality-inspired lounge area – allowed for various psychological and bodily wants. When planning furnishings, SGA was aware of guaranteeing that each seat provided a strategic place for a laptop computer that would offer comfy posture and assist for each most popular work place.
Designers labored with Ember artistic to determine elevated model graphics in a strong follow parallel to the general design course of. Cambridge Consultants was very obsessed with sharing their model imaginative and prescient and message all through the area in ways in which would resonate with staff, shoppers, and guests.
Cambridge Consultants realizes their mission and imaginative and prescient as a thread tying their staff collectively. This idea has been integrated into their area in a wide range of participating purposes; within the elevator foyer, the primary level of contact with the area, staff and guests are met with a single blue gentle reveal that begins within the ceiling and drops down to attach with a painted blue line within the flooring which pulls them by reception and into the bigger area.
Within the reception space, a bespoke assortment of hand-picked artifacts line the wall round a dynamic digital show. These artifacts signify highly effective moments within the group’s historical past and supply a thought-provoking exhibit that highlights the previous, current, and way forward for the work Cambridge Consultants completes.
As staff and guests not far away into the work space, they’re greeted by an interactive artwork piece on the wall that consists of three spools of thread in beforehand established model colours. Wood pegs representing ever-changing questions sprawl out past the spools and urge staff to wrap these threads across the solutions they resonate most with. This piece expresses the interconnectedness of their neighborhood and shows the worth in variety of thought.
Merchandise
General Mission Outcomes
Each side of this alteration was embraced by the whole group. Due to a clear course of and excessive stage of worker engagements, SGA empowered Cambridge Consultants to handle expectations and construct pleasure. Because the workplace transitioned from assigned desks to a flexdesk mannequin, the group offered trendy caddies to assist staff make the shift. These pair with the SGA-designed storage space wherein every worker is assigned a locker to maintain private belongings and workplace provides.
The group’s research-based mentality translated nicely to the challenge’s course of and SGA designers fostered profitable client-led inner focus teams that started discussions on how completely different teams and departments would share area early-on. To make selections, SGA marked up design paperwork to elicit the precise responses requested, their workforce took the time to totally current ideas and concepts to a small group of inner stakeholders who would flip round and current to a bigger group of employees to get suggestions that was successfully translated again to SGA.
Enthusiastic about steady enchancment, designers at SGA are presently within the strategy of finishing a post-occupancy survey to grasp what components excite end-users probably the most. The verbal suggestions the design workforce obtained at move-in was outstandingly constructive with reference to each kind and performance. SGA is raring to proceed their open dialogue with the consumer workforce to find out about the entire methods their workforce has leveraged their new area for continued success.
