Check out The Barbarian Group’s Superdesk: 4,400 square feet of undulating, unbroken awesomeness to keep people and ideas flowing
At The Barbarian Group in New York, they believe in the power of ideas to provoke a reaction. So when challenged with their own brief – to keep the Barbarian tribe happy and inspired everyday – they turned to Clive Wilkinson, an architect who shares their passion for interesting ideas in a world pre-disposed to boring sameness.
The challenge was to create the most collaborative, creative environment possible. The result? A superdesk that they could all share, literally – 4,400 square feet of undulating, unbroken awesomeness to keep people and ideas flowing.
The desk features archways and cubbies, and is topped with a single unbroken surface created by a continuous pour of resin.
Agency chairman Benjamin Palmer and CEO Sophie Kelly introduce the new space in this video below.
2 Comments
Wow, now you can have an idea, shout it out, and BOOOM!, someone in another part of the office hears your idea and adds to it. Cool, it’s like one big brain working together on all pieces of business. ‘You don’t get one brain, you get all of our brains’.
Seriously, open plan for creative businesses is usually championed by suits and stiffs, and basically ignores the fact that it hardly ever works like that (I’ve experienced this sort of thinking more than a few times).
The best work mostly happens when you fuck off somewhere quiet without having to listen to the agency dickhead playing Lorde or Florence on Spotify over and over again, or having a suit constantly annoying you over the fact that the digital part of your business fucked something up again.
I miss offices and walls. Not to keep people out, but to cover with scamps. The overnight test works best if you walk in and can immediately see what you did yesterday. You also get good feedback from the drive-bys.
A bunch of Zetas with marker scribbles, instantly visible on a glance, is a much better tool than the same bunch of Zetas in a messy pile, or whatever electronic format.
I’ve found open plan is usually championed by the CFO. It is cheaper. I worked in one agency where the CEO and CFO announced how great the shift to open plan would be. They were the only two people in the agency who kept their offices.