WHERE WORK MEETS PLAY

This project marked the first commercial design undertaken by the studio, presenting new design opportunities. Our client, the creative agency PLAYGROUND, are driven to inspire and challenge their clients. Their dynamic mission statement set the tone for the brief, which was to create a client-facing set of spaces that would upend the preconceived notions of a typical office fit-out.

We wanted to create an environment that is reflective of us as a creative studio. A place with a strong design aesthetic and unexpected moments of creativity.

~ Sally Dobell (client)

Our clients had taken possession of an industrial 3-level office space that desperately needed a holistic design solution. We proposed a series of curated spaces that felt more like the interior of a home than a formal office space and that would inject color, curves, texture and greenery into the space.

We conceived of four distinct spaces on the entrance level - the open plan library, an intimate client lounge, a small meeting room and a boardroom. The library sets the tone for the overall aesthetic, pairing domestic-style pieces like a Sphere chair by Boris Tabacoff with a stunning Italian modular marble and fibreglass bookcase.

The shelving set up the whole scheme and was our way to connect the client lounge with the main library room. For us, concepts often start with that one special piece. The beauty about the shelf – apart from its gorgeous design – is that it gave us the opportunity to display an assemblage of books (one of the client’s great obsessions), ceramics and other interesting accoutrements. Playground is a creative studio, so what better way to show it!

~Simone

In the client lounge a Jan Ekselius Etcetera Lounge Chair reinforces Playground’s playful approach as does the mixed and matched collection of chairs in the boardroom.

A client recently walked into the new space and asked if it was my own home. His observation affirms that we have achieved the desired result. Simone and the team pushed me out of my comfort zone, suggesting pieces that I would never have selected individually, yet they all work together. They definitely have a future in workplace design.

~ Sally