When relocating its Sydney headquarters to a new office building, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) demanded a design that was complex, radical, experimental, and distinctive. Our previous experience collaborating with BCG gave us solid footing to choreograph a workplace that pushes boundaries and distinguishes BCG from the mainstream.
With a firm understanding of its core values, we conceived an overarching metaphor of ‘trans’ — transglobal, transcending, transdisciplinary, transformative. This metaphor served as a catalyst for the fitout’s bold aesthetics and unique floor plate, which is divided into a series of ‘villages,’ each with 25 employees, ranging from partners to associates to consultants.
Each village consists of enclosed (focused) spaces and open (collaborative) areas. There are informal meeting spaces and short-term ‘fly-in’ benches, which each have a distinctive feel. Each village has warm timbers, open colored ceilings, and suspended glowing lights.
To distinguish each village and reinforce the company’s promotion of knowledge, ideas, intelligence, and originality, employees were asked to nominate 10 ‘transcenders’ — people of historical significance. Each identity — some of which included Nelson Mandela, Coco Chanel, and Albert Einstein — were developed into custom-designed graphics referencing the various colors of the villages. This device not only creates a branded spatial experience and lends each room its own idiosyncratic atmosphere, but it also presents a logical navigation throughout the fitout.
As visitors enter, they encounter ‘Light in Translation’ — a 40-foot-long light installation that features hundreds of artfully suspended panels. Each panel is intricately laser-etched with one of 20 images, referencing the core industries to which BCG consults.
The light installation relies on the interactivity of passersby to be fully realized. As visitors walk to reception, a sequence of animated light patterns mimics their movements. This mimicry creates an evocative experience and an immersive path of navigation. It illustrates BCG’s core philosophy to be collaborative, individual, and experimental. And like the suspended staircase, which visually anchors the office, the wall is a feat in design and engineering.
Delivered on time and significantly under budget, this ingenious approach to spatial planning, aesthetics, and branding facilitates the evolution of BCG into something increasingly progressive and transitional.
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