Inside MEC’s Colorful Sydney Offices
MEC is a global media agency that employs almost 5,000 people in more than 150 offices across 84 countries. The Bold Collective recently worked with MEC to design a new office for the company’s Sydney offices.
“A new direction was taken halfway through our design process when MEC took on a global re-brand. The new branding included a new logo, colour pallet and iconography. MEC chief executive Peter Vogel said: “The new brand identity is a powerful expression of our MEC personality. It’s bold, different and inspiring – and signals how we continually explore and identify new opportunities for our clients.” This became pivotal for our design solution forMEC.
From the new brand direction, we selected our colour palette and took on the circular portal in both 3D form throughout the office, and in the 2D graphics which would also depict the brand iconography. The biggest challenge for this design was that it was the first time the new branding was being rolled out into an office design globally and therefore heavily dictated the new direction and placed great pressure on the success of the outcome.
Meeting rooms were planned in the reception area to help to unify the floor and add liveliness to this pivotal area that connects clients and staff. A range of formal and informal meeting rooms are located throughout the office, as well as a large kitchen breakout which hosts different environments to work and collaborate in.
The use of natural light has been maximised through the design by building the meeting rooms around the core and planning the workstations around the glazed external walls. The existing concrete floor has been exposed and polished on the North side of the building to work as thermal mass. Environmentally considerate furnishings, fixtures and fittings were specified throughout the project.
The strongest element to the design was the new branding direction that we translated into the 3D environment and detailed throughout the space. We incorporated the new colour palette of white, green and charcoal as well as rounded elements seen in doorway cut-outs and environmental graphics. We designed a 3D logo that appears to hover behind the reception area and created vortex-like, futuristic elements such as the floating feature ceiling in reception and crop-circles embedded into the carpet.
The result is a fresh and unique design that incorporates the new branding concept in both 2D and 3D form and encourages employees to work in different environments. The success of the meeting rooms in the reception area was verified by MEC who say that it is frequently used and brings the space to life. Additionally, the large kitchen breakout houses a bar that again brings people together in an informal environment.”
Design: The Bold Collective
Photography: Cameron Zegers Photography
