Valentine One: Workspace Design

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

Workspace Design

Walking up to the Manchester offices of Melbourne, an IT server hosting company, my expectations are not high. Dreary business park office buildings slouch amid a forest of To Let signs. Entering the foyer, only one level is occupied: the fourth floor. I take the lift. But as the door slides open, everything is not as it first appeared.

Oversized flowers, like props from the Wizard of Oz, look out. Two staff are animatedly playing on an arcade machine. Passing through another door, I am in an indoor garden, a small path winding through grass upon which more "workers" are sat cross-legged, playing on an old Nintendo.

I stagger on past a living room with an open fireplace, leather chairs and chandelier; a Mad Men-style meeting room replete with early 1960s furniture. A frame of pool is in full swing. A cupboard door opens into a Narnian winter. And amid all this, people are sat at desks