Spectrum Brands Offices – Mexico City
BACE Arquitectos was tasked with the office design for Spectrum Brands, a global consumer products company, located in Mexico City, Mexico.
Spectrum Brands is an American group of big consumer brands, with presence in more than 160 countries. Being a group with focus on different markets, reflecting the identity of the company was one of the main concerns for the design of the new offices. For the client was particularly important to reflect the global brand identity without losing the individuality of each of the brands that make up the group.
Facing this challenge, where the whole is formed by many independent parts, we decided to look at the smallest living element that makes every living thing functional. The cell. Taking as a concept the cellular functioning, we decided to place a central area or better called “the nucleus”, where all the common areas converge (central kitchen, meeting rooms, social area), the purpose of this center is to have a space of easy access for all the areas, where thanks to a lattice (our nuclear membrane) we can have an independent space that unifies and integrates all the components of our cell.
Since they represent many consumer brands, another concern of the client was to find a way to display their products without being a whole showroom or a simple display cabinet, they were looking for a solution that would be eye-catching for the clients but that would not occupy many square meters. When thinking about how to solve this need, we decided to create a double nuclear membrane where, following the same language, we created the necessary spaces to exhibit different products, to be able to observe them from the inside or outside and at the same time only use a few square meters as part of the main circulation.
Once we had solved our core, the different components of our main membrane were adapted in the space, the areas were delimited with different furniture arrangements, with changes in flooring, always conserving a neutral palette with color accents inspired by the branding of the company (blue and green) that crosses the space longitudinally, differences in ceiling, special lighting for each area, as well as the implementation of vegetation in interiors which is present as a protagonist element in many areas.
Spectrum Brands is a successful project where it was possible to meet all the functional, aesthetic and budgetary needs of the client; we managed to create an organic project in a highly orthogonal building, which makes the user have physical and mental benefits that translates into greater productivity and sense of belonging to the space. We were able to find the formula for the coexistence of all the brands and all the distribution and space needs that concerned the client were solved. At BACE we always design thinking about how the end user is going to feel, for us the most important thing is the user, that is why we create living spaces, inspired by living beings, for living beings.
Design: BACE Arquitectos
Design Team: Paulina Barajas, Julio Cedillo, Sergio Quiñones, Pablo Miguel
Photography: courtesy of BACE Arquitectos
