Unilever
Schaffhausen
New Agile Working Environment for the Global Supply Chain
UNILEVER SCC ASCC
Spitalstrasse 27
8200 Schaffhausen
Switzerland
PROJECT:
Floor Area: 2`350 m2
Work Style: Agile
Completion: June 2011
SERVICES:
- Project Management
- Construction Management
- Research & Brief Development
- Full Architectural Services
- Workplace Design
PHOTOGRAPHER:
Peter Würmli
With the expansion of the Schaffhausen offices as the main European hub for Unilever’s Supply Chain Company, Unilever asked Camenzind Evolution to create their new 2'300 m2 office with an identity that would clearly reflect and represent their core values and visions to the outside world, employees, clients and visitors alike.
In addition, Unilever wanted to introduce ‘Agile Working’ as a Global Workplace Standard: A well-balanced, activity based workplace design to develop and retain the skills of their employees with improved motivation, commitment and health.
Agile workplaces contain different zones designed to support different types of work activities: Focus Zones for individual and concentrated working, Connect Zones for collaboration and communication and Vitality Zones to socialize and revitalize.
Therefore Camenzind Evolution’s concept created a new workspace layout, which is able to support the Unilever values and visions in the context of Agile Working. It was essential to break-up existing traditional workspace layout arrangements for an innovative and efficient way of working and providing a continuous communication flow for improved networking and easier collaboration.
This was achieved by distributing differentiated functions along the periphery of the central communication hub and creating an open, centrally located staircase linking all three floors for visual and social connectivity. The chosen approach of an open-space office also reflects an open and honest work environment based on mutual trust and respect, in which people are easy to locate and always approachable.
Inside the space, the Unilever brand is omnipresent to strengthen the idea of belonging to the Unilever family. This was achieved on a variety of levels, e.g. by strong visual branding on the core elements, displaying Unilever visions and values. Mixed product branding was cleverly employed in the individual meeting room designs, with each meeting room representing and named after selected Unilever brands. Quiet Areas and Vitality Zones were designed with a concept of atmospheric branding through the use of brand or product attributes creating moods that evoke feelings of certain brand attributes.
Unilever’s new offices in Schaffhausen are an excellent example how a company’s identity with its core values and visions, in the context of an agile workplace, can be represented in various layers in the design and be experienced on multiple levels by employees as well as visitors and clients.
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