Collaboration can be anywhere. This multi-story collaborative space brings new life to the expanded London offices of Condé Nast International—renowned for its publishing portfolio including Vogue, GQ, Wired and many more.
The two new floors feature contemporary workspaces including open-concept offices, huddle spaces, boardrooms and designated quiet rooms. At the heart of the space sits ‘The Well’ – a stunning stairwell-cum-informal presentation space featuring a 6 x 14 Christie Velvet Apex Series video wall with a 2.5mm pixel pitch. Content for the display is managed by Christie Pandoras Box and processed by a Christie Spyder X20 driven by a simple, template-based custom content management system by Amigo.
MIX Consultancy worked with MCM Architecture Ltd.and Focus 21 (now part of AVMI) to ensure the technical aspects met the overall vision.
“Looking at the floorplate early on, we realized that this building is ultimately a series of pockets where people work, and what it needed was a ‘heart space’ to bring people together, to collaborate, to celebrate, and to inspire them,” says Deepak Parma, design director, MCM. “The stairwell is the natural centrepiece of the building. Once we knew we were going to work with a multi-storey building, we came up with some ideas of having this staircase which would double up as bleacher seating, enabling not only presentations, but also town hall meetings.”
According to Phil Hallchurch, AV consultant, MiX Consultancy it quickly became clear that Christie’s LED technology would provide the greatest impact. “The Apex (LED) product has remote power supplies which are redundant, so if one fails the other one kicks in. It is also front serviceable, so we were able to build it into a recess without worrying about accessing it from behind later or having to make access panels.”
“The team managed to create more than just a stairwell,” said Aidan Geary, director of operations, Condé Nast International Digital. “They created the beating heart of the office. The impact has been two-fold: the media wall is not just arresting in its beauty, it has become a place where teams spontaneously meet to hold presentations and get feedback from others. We saw an instant change in how people worked.”
