Project Name/Client: Callaghan Letellier Wiens Gibbons
Design Firm: Callaghan Letellier Wiens Gibbons
Location: Ottawa, Ontario
Products: Common Sense, First in Line

What is Design?
For Interior Designers (which we are), design is the creative and elegant expression of a client’s needs via the built environment . Design supports and enhances the activities of the occupants of the space by taking into account the client’s vision, function and goals. Design ultimately improves the quality of life for the individuals that occupy or use the space.

How is Design best illustrated through the project?
This design expresses who we are as an organization, supports our business goals and provides a serene work environment by providing for the functional requirements of the staff and respecting the environment through sustainable design.

Biggest Design Challenge?
The biggest challenge was the documentation process associated with our LEED CI (Commercial Interiors) submission. This challenge was solved through persistence, determination and research!

What made it Innovative or Unique?
- Design process was collaborative; all co-workers had a say in the finished product.
- Design was sustainable; this is the first LEED CI project in Ottawa.
- The sample room acts as the “hub” around which all other spaces radiate. This central space is equipped with a custom designed table with storage for in-progress boards, supplies, newspapers, magazines, etc., thus solving the stereotypical messy sample room syndrome that exists in most design firms.

How did Design make a difference?
- Sample room is always in use, but now, always neat!
- Within the first four weeks of the office being opened, we had tremendous interest from clients, suppliers, university business program and others with numerous request for tours and seminars! Over twenty people toured it by one partner alone (not counting an open house event). It seems the opportunity to educate our clients and peers about sustainable design is now a reality.
- After a staff survey, the rate of productivity is 2% to 10% higher, and the overall view of the space is “extremely satisfied.”
- The atmosphere of the office space is quiet and serene. New facilities have provided areas that have fostered team work and collaboration without disrupting the flow of those doing “heads down” work.

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