Strategy
Our design revolved around meeting seven strategic objectives at Arup to create a workplace that:
- Allows staff and visitors to experience Arup at work
- Supports the full spectrum of working modes
- Makes Arup’s people visible
- Challenges their people and inspires them
- Is efficient and easy to use
- Is flexible, elastic and adaptable
- Expresses health and sustainability
The key challenges we faced in meeting those objectives included:
- Same but different: Each workplace needed to convey the essence of Arup while still feeling like a place with a meaningful, local difference. We needed real insight into each location to get the balance right.
- Space to explore: Across the organisation, there’s an emphasis on sharing knowledge and experimenting with new ideas. But how people do that still varies across sites, where there’s a wide range of working styles. It took smart thinking and careful planning to meet all the different needs – and do it within budget and space constraints.
Process
Arup is an employee-owned business, and broad consultation is fundamental to how they do business. We took their lead, engaging with a wide range of people across the region – everyone from the CEO to graduates – through every stage of guideline development, design strategy and rollout.
We also customised both our quantitative and qualitative collection methods to match Arup’s approach, gathering data as well as anecdotal evidence.
This process of alignment made it easier for Arup to have an all-embracing conversation about the future of their business. That, in turn, shaped the workplace objectives and created opportunities to trial new ways of working.
The outcome was a set of guidelines and strategies that were right for Arup, putting them on the path to success with their workplaces.
Awards
Melbourne workplace
- 2019 New York Design Awards - Gold Winner - Interior Design (International Corporate)
- 2019 Sustainability Awards - Commercial (Large)
- 2019 Sustainable Building Awards - Commercial Architecture (Large)
- 2019 Workspace Awards - Technology
- 2019 Workspace Awards - Sustainability
- 2019 Workspace Awards - Office
- 2019 Workspace Awards - Workspace > 1000sqm
- 2019 Australian Interior Design Awards - Award for Sustainability Advancement
- 2019 Melbourne Design Awards - Gold in Interior Design - Corporate and Commercial