Architecture firm archive has designed a new 'raw' workspace for company ‘Little Team’ situated in Shanghai, China.
The new office of Little Team which located in an office building along the street puts forward higher requirements for the flexibility of space. The space is mainly composed of three parts: office area, the meeting room, and display area. Three areas need to be separated while connected to some extent, so how to deal with the boundaries has become the key point of the design.
Design is a process of discovery where the possibilities and uniqueness of space are revealed. By removing the coated white surface layer and exposing the structural wall as the background, the rest is used to define the new content of the space. Two newly built partition walls cut off the horizontal windows and continuous ceilings of the old space. We attached mirrors on both sides to complete the visual “restoration” with reflection. Both new and old space permeate here.
The partition wall of the conference room is designed as a folding door that can be fully opened to meet the needs of flexible use of space. The exhibition area can be used to display Little Team’s own brand hobo series, and can also be used for external art projects. The client hopes that people who come to the exhibition would take a glance at the office area, but they would not easily walk in. At the same time, staff in the office area could keep an eye on those activities and join them if they want. Therefore, while dealing with this interface, we used the thickest stainless steel chain array to form a door curtain. The door curtain can separate the space, as well as maintaining a sense of transparency. The heaviness of the stainless steel chain conveys the difficulty of penetration, hindering visitors from entering into the office area, and can also be dispelled by the lightness of its array form.
The benches, shelves, and display tables in the space are assembled from a set of daily materials. Plywood is placed on the hollow bricks and clamped with woodworking clamps. Such fixing method is convenient for both assembling and disassembling. Bright yellow woodworking clamps play the role of decoration at the same time. The transparent acrylic board “cuts off” half of the 3.6 meters long office table, from double size to a single person one. Using screw rod to fix the acrylic board with the remaining half.
