Challenge

  • Create a workplace solution to match current needs as well as future needs as
    Kindred Group expands
  • Design an office with an international high-tech feeling that could be rolled out in
    other countries where Kindred operates
  • Ensure that the workplace reflects the entire Kindred Group rather than one of
    its 11 consumer brands
  • Develop different areas for different team needs, including closed high-security
    areas, while at the same time encouraging staff interaction and openness

Process

  • The process included discussions with all employee teams to ensure that each
    group’s specific needs would be met
  • Plenty of additional workspaces and equipment were added to enable employees
    from other countries to drop in and work. Studio Stockholm even helped Kindred
    develop its IT platform to enable this.
  • An advanced lighting solution was installed to achieve the right atmosphere for
    different occasions
  • Focusing on employee wellbeing resulted in the addition of a juice bar,
    ergonomic workstations, and a leafy in-house atrium that provides an oasis from
    the digital world. Here employees can connect with nature – as well as each
    other, through impromptu gatherings or a game of table tennis.
  • A large open stairway and atrium connect the two-storey office providing
    meeting points for employee interaction and the strengthening of a common
    company culture
  • Working with diagonal flows throughout the premises generates unexpected
    patterns of movement that encourage more informal meetings among staff

Result

  • A scalable solution was created where there is room to add additional
    workspaces in today’s spacious (8,000 m2) interior
  • An international concept has been achieved in premises where there is a
    harmonious balance between digital and analogue elements
  • The design, which is free of formal barriers, has lead to more informal meetings,
    resulting in a greater exchange of ideas and increased understanding of
    customers
  • Teams are working more effectively since their work area needs have been met
  • The concept has been so successful that it will serve as a model when Kindred
    Group builds its other offices