HIT Technopark accommodates more than 600 people working in more than a hundred technology-oriented companies on an area of around 30,000 square meters. In the centre of the technology park, Christoph Birkel and his team offer a comprehensive range of services for their tenants in their 355 square meter headquarter office.
In order to do justice to the changing working methods in the digital age and to promote collaborations, PLY planned for and with the owner Christoph Birkel to start the change within their own office.
PLY ATELIER is taking up the principles of New Work: Agility and open communication channels should determine the work - enriched with a variety of possibilities to be able to work concentrated and undisturbed.
As the administrative unit and communication centre of the hit Technopark, craftsmen and tenants come and go here every day. The team is constantly receiving visitors who come to exchange information. One of the most important tasks was how to welcome these visitors openly and transparently without disturbing employees in focused working situations.
As a central and style-defining solution, offices were created, which are equipped with floor-to-ceiling, double-leaf doors. When these wings are closed it means: please do not disturb. But if they are open, then the respective employees are part of the open-space area, which is formed around the inviting counter close to the kitchen and the spacious library table.
The 75sqm, which are divided but still open due to the wing doors, for concentrated work, are juxtaposed by 220sqm of open work space with different meeting areas.
When entering the office, employees as well as visitors are greeted at an 8m long, free-standing kitchen counter, which is the centre for conversation between customers and colleagues and from which conversations, calls, and conferences are then distributed to the lounge zones or meeting rooms.
The inviting, atmospheric space uses only ´real´ materials:
Oak shelves and doors, rubber flooring, exposed concrete ceilings and columns, the counter coated with sheet brass with a black-stained multiplex substructure and a lot of frameless glass.
A lighting concept, which on the one hand ensures that the lighting complies with the guidelines, yet sets accents depending on the situation and supports moods through the luminaire body and light colour, forms the arch of a balanced and for an office almost unusually atmospheric mixture of material, colour and lighting.
