Futurice | Ester Bruzkus

Working with Color! Ester Bruzkus Architekten use a strong color concept to bring the workspace for Futurice into a bright future. The design strategy gives each team space its own distinctive color: everything in the team rooms is unified by a common hue - wall paint, carpet, furniture, lighting, film on corridor glass panels, and fabric curtains. Custom meeting tables are made from painted steel frames with linoleum tops in different colors; workshop chairs have been purchased in the different colors of the rooms. As employees walk along the corridor, the team rooms present themselves a diverse choice of colorful and surprising shop windows.

The design strategy echoes the innovation consultancy Futurice’s own corporate mission: to improve communication and collaboration with new ways of working. Since collaboration with colleagues and with clients is so critical to the work that Futurice does, the team rooms receive most of the design attention: meeting rooms, phone booths, welcome areas, printer areas, storage spaces, kitchens, and multifunctional spaces - rooms for meeting in person as well as for conference calls. The focus on colorful team spaces is also a cost-effective strategy designed to maximize the impact of the renovation budget: individual work spaces are left more muted to be a deliberate contrast to highlight the importance of collaboration and teamwork.

The transition from the hallway into the team spaces receive special design attention. A quarter-circle sweep of the door marks the entrance to each team room as the floor color changes to toned carpet. Colorful fabric curtains also play an important role in the design of the team rooms. In each room, differently colored curtains create a soft plane of fabric along the corridor window and introduce acoustic dampening, potential privacy from the hall, and a soft domestic touch. By simply drawing the curtains, the users can transform the feeling of each team room.

At the center of the office is the cheerful communal kitchen. Here, all the employees come together – and all the colors come together. When you mix all colors of the meeting rooms you get gray, so a gray kitchen works as a neutral background for colorful chairs and colorful cabinet door handles. All the colors are brought together by the red lines of the steel table supports as well as the grout between the tiles.

A large room on another floor has been developed as a multi-function space and company canteen. In addition to the color concept coming together in this space, an existing ceiling has been transformed by a dense installation of Japanese paper lamps. An extra-long curtain can separate the kitchen space from the assembly space for big event events and conferences – or to just change the mood. Movable folding tables and stacking chairs can be rearranged to generate different scenarios - lunch breaks, skype meetings with other companies, game nights, lectures, all sorts of events.

Using bright colors, custom furniture, clever purchases and cost-effective transformations, Ester Bruzkus Architekten have enlivened, unified and updated the collaborative workspace for Futurice.