Ginkgo Fellow, the owner of 200m2 office, is an NGO that helps the development of other small NGOs. After the renovation, the office will be a joint office and the pivot for different NGOs, several teams will be moving in and work together.
Different from my assumption, people from these NGOs are a bunch of very diverse individuals with different interests and personalities.
Therefore I think the co-working space should be like a rainforest where diversity naturally grows, people in here should feel transparency, inspiration, and freedom.
We separated 30 seats into 5 clusters and arranged them along the window side, they can be either private (independent) or shared (connected). In between were 3 lounges with distinct design languages. Meeting rooms (6 people) and conference room (20 people) can also be isolated or connected. A big lobby (50 people), library, and café area give more flexibilities.
Furniture figuratively acts like big trees in the rainforest, spaces near them are the places for conversation or original thinking according to different situation, in sum, the whole office is dynamic, however different you are, you will always find the right spot to live.
The owner required a fast transformation, therefore we chose the fast-built combination of furniture. Simple white sheet material shapes an abstract space without strong impact on staff.
Now it has put in use by Ginkgo Fellow, one thing that I did not expect, however, is their creativity and energy was out of imagination, they like the original designs, but would prefer to re-design them, they are nice to ask my permission to ‘sabotage’ the original design, I was happy, even excited, to let them release their desires. This is what I wished for at the very beginning, an organic place that grows, evolves, and prosper.
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