Every office has a tea point and the brief here asked for a social kitchen along the lines of a coffee shop, with local artisanal offerings. This request inspired our design team to turn the concept on its head.
Build it like a bar
The servery is a full length counter with stools along the front, lit from above, with planting on the shelf behind and a wire mesh screen closing the back. It is detailed in the same way as a hotel bar; the functional elements are on the far side of the counter and the side people see is elegant. Bins, machines and cabling are hidden inside the joinery. The materials are chosen to be textural and tactile: stone for the counter, a fluted timber base, bronze on the accents, a solid surface for the planters.
Stools change the behaviour
A tea point with nowhere to sit produces a queue and a quick exit. Place stools at the counter and people stay for conversation and connection.. That is hugely beneficial but costs only the price of eight stools and a metre of extra depth.
The same instinct at the entrance
At the other end of the floor the arrival space has its own island; it is the building's former reception desk stripped of its cladding and rebuilt to do a new job. This was a suggestion made at the first meeting rather than a saving found later, and is rooted in a wider concept: existing furniture repurposed rather than replaced, and refurbished pieces specified in selected places because this sustainability activity in practice. The entrance counter is an excellent example, visitors stand at it without any idea that it used to be somewhere else.
Planting is not styling
The green above the counter and along the run is there for three reasons. It softens the sound, which was explicitly requested. It breaks up a long horizontal, and it gives the run a focal point when seen from across the floor. This is how the counter becomes a destination rather than an amenity. Planting on a commercial fit out works only if there is a contractor to maintain it. That is a line in the operating budget rather than the capital cost, and it is noting at the design stage rather than at handover.
Materials with a story
Parts of the scheme use materials chosen for what they comprise as much as for how they look, including tables made from mushroom and chairs pressed from hemp. In a servery, where people stand close to the surfaces and put their hands on them, this is one of the few such decisions that draw attention and become a talking point. This is why these items are here rather than in a meeting room.
