Description

Richard Hywel Evans Architects’ new headquarters for Cellular Operations Ltd. consciously takes into account a new type of office work that has been developing in recent years. Companies have been outsourcing their customer communications to call centres. By implementing modern information technology, the call centres operate round the clock, independent of time and place. Their staff are the blue collar workers among the white collar workers. From non-territorial workstations, they work exclusively individually in project-based groups. Since conversations with customers take place in accordance with a precisely defined sequence, call centre workers have limited autonomy.

Richard Hywel Evans and the clients speeded up the project by following the auto industry’s guiding principles for the interior fittings of cars – “Surprise and Delight.” This way, an exciting, playful working environment was to be created in order to minimise the high employee fluctuation typical of this sector.

Cellular Operations’ entry into the office environment takes place through an air lock made out of hydraulically-moved, outsized sheets of glass. An amorphous shaped counter of riveted aluminium transforms itself from reception desk into espresso bar, over which hangs a neon sign saying “Rick’s Café.” This refers both to the CEO with the same name and to the most famous café in the history of cinema. “Surprise and Delight” become evident in many details: the central data server and the main stairway of skeleton-like concrete elements are orchestrated by light; the lifts are technically linked with an external fountain; when the lift goes up, the fountain rises too. The lavatories are designed thematically as they are in clubs, from futuristic stainless steel to more elegant black marble.

In accordance with the principles of event architecture, a conventional and therefore cost-efficient basic structure was enriched with more costly individual elements. The office areas to the south have been built using a simple reinforced concrete structure, the ‘black box.’ In contrast, to the north, a costly glass structure, specially developed with Pilkington for this project, forms a traffic and communication zone. The glass hall, visible from every workplace, is the focus and identification point and supplies the workplaces with daylight.

With the CellOp headquarters, Richard Hywel Evans created without fuss, a functioning space for a type of office work still novel. A piece of event architecture becomes an office building and thereby blurs the boundary between work and leisure.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.