Image Credit : Photography: Peter Ghobrial
Project Overview
A light refraction-inspired office design representative of Faculty's game-changing project work and culture.
Project Commissioner
Project Creator
Team
Design - Motive
Fit out - Soul Spaces
Project Manager - Alexandra Humphreys
Project Brief
Faculty's move from tech-generic to highly-curated space required not only an acute awareness of who Faculty are and who they intend to be but needed to feature elements that would ensure the team would be lured back to the office with a renewed sense of purpose and togetherness.
Faculty is a human-led AI-driven consultancy that uses its genius to aid its clients in predicting the future. Working closely with their people and brand teams, Motive had to ensure that the balance was struck between premium and playful, human and computer-learning, and also had an impact that announced 'Faculty have arrived'.
Working in a tight 2-month program, the team had to translate the Faculty's intangible 'feel' to ensure that tone and culture were accurately captured; the ultimate goal being to drive a sense of belonging amongst a large, typically tech/engineer-minded team that had become more remote post-pandemic.
Project Innovation/Need
As you arrive in the space, the Faculty's project output (data/graphs) has been brought to life using multiple mediums and techniques that demand attention and pride. 3D printed, magnetized elements allow for interactivity and multi-layered artworks bring to life and allow comparison between data that had only ever been seen on 2D PowerPoint presentations. 1 case study that successfully combatted terrorist videos on social media, titled 'Black Flag', had its data set embroidered onto an actual black flag, drawing more attention than had previously been achieved and prompting team members to request their own personal framed flags.
Due to the Faculty's position as a human-led AI company, the artwork featured in each meeting room was created by human inspiration and AI prompts. The same was done for the team photo wall, where the photography of each team was manipulated with AI to match the space's light-refraction aesthetic.
In the large breakout area, each wall was painstakingly hand-sprayed to achieve a seamless gradient of colors, inspired by light refraction, and to ensure copious amounts of vinyl/plastic weren't used to wrap the walls.
Also created was a bespoke "Game of Life" - a zero-player 'game' that creates unknown digital outcomes to inspire engineers and those who study machine learning. John Conway created this game decades ago to essentially answer mathematic questions of life & Motive brought it to life as an art piece.
Design Challenge
The 2 month programme was an obvious struggle. Not only to deliver a drastic transformation from the previously all-grey-everything, low-ceilinged bland space into one of life and key cultural references. Motive worked hard and quickly with the stakeholder team to understand the company in a way perhaps they didn't even know themselves.
The psychological transformation from the previously all-grey-everything, low-ceilinged breakout space into one of life and internal cultural references was a particularly powerful. 6 months after the fit out completion, the client remarked 'we sit together for lunch everyday now. That's never happened. If we'd have known the effect this design would have we would have paid double'.
Faculty wanted a space that they could call their own, one that showed people the light in getting back together to enjoy the human element of their formula. What they’ve got is a space that tells their story and no one else’s. A workplace that not only looks like a journey through time and space, but one that accurately reflects Faculty’s. It’s Pink Floyd in a Millenium Falcon. It oozes cool, pride, work ethic, collaboration, experimentation and process. It is undeniably Faculty.
Sustainability
As mentioned before, we went to great lengths to ensure limited vinyl was used, instead hand spraying the immersive gradient seen on all walls of the breakout space.
The fit out itself was inherited from the previous tenants, with partition alterations only made to 3 meeting rooms. The most sustainable fit out is the existing one.
Every artist, production team and design element used was also locally sourced, with no items being sent in from overseas.
Interior Design - Corporate & Commercial
This award celebrates innovative and creative building interiors, with consideration given to space creation and planning, furnishings, finishes, aesthetic presentation and functionality. Consideration also given to space allocation, traffic flow, building services, lighting, fixtures, flooring, colours, furnishings and surface finishes.
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