Collective Office Space

Hanging Gardens

The project explores the formation of an alternative space of a different atmosphere within office spaces. Spaces that create attractive workplaces in the recent context of increasingly remote working habits.

The re-designed space represents a break-relaxation area of around 200 sq.m., situated in the L'Oréal office building in Athens. Particularly after the covid period, the design of office spaces has become the center of discussion in relation to new concepts for working environments. While before, the existence of the internet and remote working had already started to slowly undermine previously fixed design principles.

Today, the common workplace is competing with the qualities and comforts of the home and other spaces frequented for remote work. The new challenge is to offer working atmospheres that are flexible and suitable for different types of creative work. In this sense, from the beginning, the design of the break and informal meeting spaces at L'Oréal raised questions that asked for a re-thinking of common design practices. The general design and layout follow an organization by movement and zones for resting. It stands in contrast to typical work-spaces with corridors and closed rooms or the open plan principle.

Light dividers made of permeable louvers let the eye perceive the entire space through different layers. They allow the body to be directed in a kind of undulating topography. The relationship towards a patio space and the placement of climbing plants constitutes one limit of the elongated space as a "hanging garden". Across, parallel blind walls with mirrors reflect the hanging garden of the atrium. The borders of the space with plants intensify the relationship with the outdoor space. The light of the patio and the hanging garden is reflected on the opposite closed wall, thereby bringing further light into the space.

The placement of wooden elements on walls and ceilings creates a feeling of an outdoor pergola and an indirectly lit atmosphere. Office buildings and the working atmosphere in general have recently been the focus of contemporary architectural research that explores new working typologies. Our proposal for L'Oréal's breakout spaces aspires to contribute to this research.