Description
Ted Baker PLC is a fashion label established in 1988 and an international retail chain. Ted Baker is an imaginary person invented by the company’s founder, Raymund Kelvin. It stands for the brand’s characteristics, serving as an identifying figure and a standard of value.
The cinematographic approach of the architecture of Matthew Priestman Architects won them the commission for the conversion of the top two floors of a post office building erected in the eighties to the new head offices of the company. Instead of an office, they designed an adventure park, the so-called Tedodrome. The transition into the world of Ted Baker takes place as a narrative. One enters the building known as “the ugly brown building” – whose outer appearance remains unchanged – through a large billboard, coming into a windowless lobby, furnished in a reductive style. There, one is greeted by a receptionist on a screen and given further instructions. Going down a long, yellow hallway past staged artefacts of company history, one takes a freight elevator to the third floor. It is not until there that Ted’s office environment presents itself. A previously unusable triangular inner courtyard has been transformed into a bright, spacious, communicative centre through the addition of a glass roof. All the workplaces are grouped around this.
Since everything from design to sales takes place in-house at Ted Baker, different departments work next to each other in the open-plan offices. Work organisation is facilitated by proximity – no long distances need to be traversed – and the community spirit in a big company family. The workplaces allocated to the different departments are situated at long double tables. These are positioned perpendicular to the outer wall supplying the necessary media connections, thus obviating the need for suspended ceilings and raised floors. All workplaces are indirectly lighted by ceiling reflectors. The lights are integrated into coloured storage elements dividing the double tables of the workplaces, and are thereby easily accessible for adjustment. None of the workplaces in the mechanically ventilated office are more than 8 metres from a window.
Variously designed conference rooms for internal meetings give the different work zones individuality. In the reception area, there are eight rooms of varying sizes and themes like Big Apple, Romance or Les Alpes available for meetings with external participants.
The narrative approach enabled the erection of a company headquarters at the interface between office work and office entertainment, where in addition to the spatial implementation of work processes, the narrative qualities of rooms are included.
Drawings
Site plan
Third floor with the showrooms for the collections and the café with its kitchen in the service area
Fourth floor: the different departments are situated right next to each other. Behind the reception area is the service area with conference rooms for meetings with external participants.
Section
Photos
Interior view of the café with the showrooms with the showrooms in the background
The workplace area with the raised storage areas containing integrated lamps directed upwards, their light being deflected back to the desks by reflectors on the ceiling.
Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.