Our Way 2/22 1
OFFICE MAKEOVER TEXT ISABELLE KLIGER ILLUSTRATION
S STRATEGISK ARKITEKTUR DRAWING PEOPLE New ways of working call for a new kind of office, the kind that attracts people. That´s why Soya Group is planning to turn a section of the head office into a common lounge and meeting space for everyone. This new open-spaced area will be designed to draw people in and bring them together. hen parts of Soya Group’s head office at Swedenborgsgatan 19 in Stockholm were due for a thorough renovation, it coincided with the need for a new kind of office. Postpandemic, many Soya Group coworkers have had the opportunity to work in a different, more flexible way than before. Today, an office needs to be more than just a workplace. The design team took this into account when tasked with developing the concept for the redesigned office. One of the perks of having property developers within the group is that there is a deep pool of architectural and design competence on hand when you need to put together a team for this kind of assignment. The main focus was to create an office which is both effective and flexible to the needs of today. This line of thinking spawned a new concept – to remodel parts of the building’s groundfloor reception to create a lounge area. The goal was to fashion an appealing common area that would attract employees back to the office and encourage facetoface interactions, both with people from within the group and externally. The ambition is to start the construction work in the beginning of 2023 and be done by summer. 18 OUR WAY 2/2022 WITH 40% OF OUR CO-WORKERS WORKING FROM HOME POST-PANDEMIC, AN EMPTY OFFICE CAN FEEL QUITE DESOLATE. WE’RE MOVING TOWARDS SMALL MEETING ROOMS AND COMMON AREAS THAT PROMOTE SOCIALISING AND WELL-BEING TO CREATE AN APPEALING MEETING PLACE. Jens Jenslin, Architect and Project Developer, Wallfast OTHER SOYA GROUP UNITS GETTING NEW OFFICES/AN OFFICE MAKEOVER: Johan Mattsson Managing Director, Wallenius Marine “Wallenius Marine’s new office will be more of a meeting space than an individual workplace, with more, smaller meeting rooms, featuring conference facilities for Teams. Since we’ll have varying numbers of people on site at any given time – due to remote working – the hybrid office will need to play a different role than previous ones and be even more ergonomic. We’ll have more open areas and more meeting rooms, while also allowing for spontaneous meetings and discussions as before. This will create an interactive, functional working environment.” Louise Sandell Head of Financial Systems, Group Financial & Business Control “GFBC has two modules at Swedenborgsgatan 19. One with three office rooms, a landscape with workplaces, meeting rooms and a conversation room, and another with office rooms that is planned for renovation in 2023. We wish to create a clearer separation between social and working spaces. The landscape has workspaces for collaborations between teams, and there are project rooms where it’s possible to work undisturbed. We believe these modern, task-appropriate offices, and the opportunity to work remotely twice a week, will contribute to an even better working environment.” PHOTO: KARIN RÖSE PHOTO: MARIA MIKKO