OLS Pavilions

As part of a renovation and expansion of the headquarters for a design and engineering company in the medical devices industry, the pavilions serve as informal collaboration spaces within a large open office. Designed with SJET, in collaboration with Reverse Architecture, the two interior pavilions are intended as iconic anchors within the office, linking the first and second levels on the one hand, and serving to mediate between the ‘working’ space and the ‘eating’ space on the other. With two team meeting rooms in each pavilion, these semi-private spaces will be the primary nodes for collaboration. Consequently they will need to promote the kind of creative and intellectual stimulus necessary for a high level of design, research and product development. The pavilions will act as key geographic features, serving as points of departure as well as arrival. They carry a distinct ‘weight’, therefore, in providing a diverse range of important functions.

While providing these functions the pavilions must also engage with their surroundings, not as intraverted foreign objects, but as integrated tools. It is this mandate that presses each envelope toward openness and transparency, providing a balance between some acoustic and visual filtering while sustaining some acoustic and visual connections. A type of ‘lightness’ of the meeting spaces occurs, in part, as a result of minimizing their solidity and opacity without compromising functionality. Perhaps more importantly, lightness is achieved through materiality, structure, graphics and form, employing a composition intended to cultivate a sense of playfulness and continual change.

Status: Completed, 2011
Client: Reverse Architecture
Location: Undisclosed

Credits
Designed by Radlab with SJET, in collaboration with Reverse Architecture. Interior renderings by Brent Hanson.

Project Team
Matt Trimble
Bob Williamson