design is
extraordinary
Design Firm: ikon.5 architects
Project Name/Client: Schindler Elevator Corporation - New York Regional Offices
Project Location: New York, NY
Product: Paparazzi
What is Design?
Design is creating the extraordinary from the ordinary. It is the ability to use common everyday objects of construction and interior design; such as paint, carpet, wood and lighting to fabricate a strong environment that is anything but common. Design is to fabricate an environment that has identity and meaning for those who live, work or visit the environment. The most difficult process in design is editing; knowing what to add or subtract to its most basic common and usually most powerful parts in creating an identity.
How is Design best illustrated through the project?
The New York headquarters for the Schindler Elevator Corporation creates a unique identifiable environment for all 100 regional employees using the ordinary materials of painted drywall, carpet tile, acoustical ceiling tile and florescent lighting. The red accent color for columns and lobby walls is the Schindler Elevator corporate color which is appropriated from the Swiss national flag, a reference to the origins of this international corporation. The carpet tile and acoustical ceiling tiles are used to provide a neutral ground plane in the open office environment and public core spaces so that the strong red accent columns and walls have a background to be read from. The fluorescent lighting is indirectly light to emphasis the quality of light and not the light fixture.
Biggest Design Challenge?
The biggest design challenge was to create a corporate identity in an old dairy warehouse on New York’s West side for employees leaving various other New York addresses such as the posh environment of offices in Rockefeller Center. Most employees did not want to move to this location. The new offices needed to consolidate all these locations and be completed within 8months on a very limited budget. Our solution was to create a thematically unique environment so all employees coming here from various locations would identify with the Schindler home base. We did this by designing walls, ceilings, floors and columns that appeared displaced and in movement from each other- an abstract metaphor for the elevator transportation company’s main mission- to displace its passenger from floor to floor daily and we did this with common economical and readily accessible materials.
What made it Innovative or Unique?
The design process started with an understanding that limited materials could be used to create various programmatic spaces and architectural aspiration. We understood from the start, given the schedule and budget that ordinary, easily accessible materials would need to be utilized to meet the budget and schedule. Indirect lighting creates a theatrical emphasis on walls, columns and floor planes that have been separated from each other to suggest a displaced or moving environment.
How did Design make a difference?
The design has unified all the New York regional employees in one location that they call home. It has a unique singular character that all employees now associate with where they work. The offices have created a greater sense of their corporate community. In addition, because there is only one regional office space located Manhattan now, the corporation has seen significant reduction in the cost of lease space and increased productivity.
