When designing the open plan layout of visual effects studio Black Kite’s London office, Bureau de Change Architects created a space which is simultaneously conducive to socializing and focussed individual work.
Key features
Bureau de Change Architects designed the new workspace for visual effects and design studio Black Kite. Located in east London, the office comprises work and creative studio spaces which aesthetically draw on the space’s industrial past. A series of intersecting, hollow painted timber-clad cylinders, which resemble boilers and kilns, fill the space creating secluded studios and open workspaces. Production and visual effects suites are enclosed to create a space isolated from external light and sound conditions for production, editing and colour. An open lounge at the centre of the ground floor connects to the front reception and workspaces towards the back of the space. A stainless-steel kitchen is covered in the same painted timber, surrounded by a bar and barstools. Despite the need for secluded studio spaces, the office follows an open plan layout and is not separated by sector to ensure social and creative mixing of employees.
Frame’s take
Visual effects production needs to be conducted in relative isolation. Lab-like conditions void of any external sound or light are required to do it effectively. However, a dark, quiet work setting kind of defies what we all know and hold to be the standard of enabling a social and wellbeing focused workspace. Bureau de Change Architects cohesively serves both with the Black Kite office by balancing the professional standard necessary for production with an open, social, and collaboration-focused office. Though the private studios are secluded from the rest of the space, the inter-weaving of group and individual work spots studded with social lounges enables the type balanced of workplace which has become the standard. It demonstrates that there are certain universal characteristics offices require in order to fulfil employees' social and professional wellbeing.