Aesthetics, functionality and ergonomics are three of the most important elements of good office design. As multifunctional spaces, a well-designed workspace should foster a friendly atmosphere, encourage collaboration, and, a more recent requirement, they are often used to entice employees to return to the office. While this is still relevant to law firms, the nature of the business further affects the layout of the space and its aesthetic qualities.
When BIT Creative took on the design of Greenberg Traurig’s Polish practice in the country’s tallest building, this was just the beginning of what the brief entailed. “Looking at current implementations of law offices, we can distinguish two major trends,” says architect Barnaba Grzelecki BIT Creative Studio.
“Law offices either want their interior to look traditional, finished with natural materials, or they want their interior to look nothing like a typical law office.” In the latter case, she says, the aesthetics are more free-form. These arrangements resemble projects from the IT or media industries, rather than typical law firms or financial funds.
Global law firm Greenberg Traurig enlisted architects from BIT Creative Studio, known for their unconventional projects, to collaborate on the design of their new headquarters taking on a less traditional design approach.
“We opted for an elegant space dominated by bright and warm colours. Minimalist in expression, the interior has been complemented by bold sculpture and artworks, which interact with each other to give the feeling of interacting with art known from the world’s best galleries. The whole is complemented by minimalist details, play of light and unobvious ceiling finishes,” says architect Barnaba Grzelecki from BIT Creative Studio.
The team at BIT Creative took a minimalist, yet elegant approach to the design narrative to create a welcoming space with a timeless character. The aesthetics of the entrance set the direction for the rest of the office with shades of warm beige complimented by classic materials such as copper, stone and wood.
“In the law offices we have had the pleasure of designing, the vast majority are dominated by the office layout. Primarily due to the nature of the work, which requires quiet and concentration,” says Grzelecki. “These are mostly offices of 1-2 people, sometimes 3 people. We often design the infrastructure and size of the room so that in the future the number of people in the room can be freely reconfigured. The open space layout works great in spaces for assistants, collaborative work or support rooms like copy points or coffee stations.”
Art plays an important role in this office design, adding a layer of depth and a sense of prestige. “The spatial sculpture in the entrance area has become a kind of dominant feature of the interior. It complemented the composition of the space subtly. In the rest of the common or conference rooms, the paintings on the walls blend in well with the space, giving them character. With natural colours and materials, such as stone or wood, paintings depicting linear, abstract compositions in warm but intense colours perfectly complement the aesthetics of the space,” says BIT Creative architect Jakub Bubel.
“We tried to develop a neutral, timeless interior where everyone would feel comfortable and at ease. An interior that will take advantage of the panoramic view of the capital, geometric and linear. Simple in its form, but with details that give character.”