First post of this blog will be for Casa Carter, a 580m2 office located in Metrobank Tower in Punta Pacifica, Panama City. Already at this date the clients are in the middle of moving in and there are still some details to complete and be 100% happy with the result. I speak in plural because in this project I had the pleasure to collaborate with my friend Barbara Jaime, it was very efficient to work in collaboration and I hope it will be something repetitive in all projects of Arquídea, as the result is higher quality in every way.
For those who follow the account of Instagram, have seen the progress of this project from scratch. You can search the tag #casacarterpty to see how it is coming along. The purpose of this post is to make a brief memory of the project, in order to share the creative process and also to draw some conclusions. Each project is a manager of new ideas and new experiences that add up to improve every day, it is worthless that mistakes and errors are overlooked and in vain. As the Arquídea project is just starting, I have the passion to make good designs that are as conscious as possible with the environment and the available resources; to be able to do “more with less”.
This project was born January 2017. The clients found an office space that suited their needs, but urgently needed a “refresh”. The space had to be comfortable and comprehensive, including offices and also showroom to display many shoes and sneakers. In their requirements they had expectations of a comfortable and spacious office with a casual and modern look. We had to keep in mind that it would be a rented office and there was not a big budget, so we made a proposal based on this, plus our concept research.
In the search for low-budget materials, we found chipboard and construction materials as possible elements. Among those materials, our favorite was marine plywood, which has pine tops and raw-striped edges that look great on office furniture. It is an inexpensive material that doesn't need a lot of finishing to look good, and many of the furniture pieces were designed in this material with envelopes that were more touchable and handled with black plastic laminate (formica). We looked at different types of flooring that would not mean demolishing the existing floor and opted to use a high traffic vinyl floor that is installed in a tongue and groove fashion, which because it has no glue is easy to carry in view of a future move. In addition, we saw the opportunity to make our own installations that would not be expensive for the client but that would bring design and personality to the environment, in these installations we included colorful strings in the reception and offices, also lamps designed and manufactured by us.
The office program has a large showroom and offices to meet the program required by the client. The showroom is distributed with a generic display that can be adapted to any brand. The displays are configured to create semi-private spaces that accommodate the different brands and work areas. A chill out and console with beverage and coffee center was also included to serve customers.
The showroom displays were made with iron profiles bolted from floor to slab as an independent structure, between them horizontal and vertical pine profiles that support each other two-sided display boards and advertisements in two sizes. Slats and advertisements are bolted to the centers, which can be freely removed and adjusted.
The office layout went through several configurations until reaching the clients' favorite. The existing service areas were maintained, with minor modifications. The offices were distributed along the perimeters, leaving a central corridor with a large closet as a filing cabinet and a central space with a high work table with bar chairs. Different shades of gray were applied on the walls and slab, leaving the conference and management office with blue walls and slab. The small administrative offices were tiled in an opaque green, leaving touches of color in specific areas.
Several pieces of office furniture, made of plywood, were custom-designed. Some were coated in black plastic laminate and others tinted in colors (blue, gray and teal). Among the furniture are the closet in the main hallway, console as a side table in the conference room, self serve console in the chill out showroom, desks and work tables. All the furniture with doors has an openwork handle in the wood that, having two mirrored doors, adds design to the furniture. All the bases of the tables and buffet furniture are in 1″ matt black iron.
The project included installations made with 1/4″ colored elastic ropes. In the reception area the installation goes behind the reception furniture on the glass façade which is coated in frosted glass; so the design of the ropes varies as figure and background during day and night hours.
The lighting throughout the office is LED, mostly technical luminaires suspended from the exposed slab. Laser cut lamps were added as design elements in the showroom area and an installation of lamps over the open area in the center of the offices.
I will be updating this blog post as there is progress and more to show. To sum up, this project was successful because it met the expectations of the client and also of us as designers, however, there are always lessons to be learned to improve every day. Final reflections are pending once we celebrate the delivery of this project!
Comments