If a picture is worth 1,000 words then this tower of Getty archive images, created as the centerpiece of a radical makeover of the company offices, speaks volumes about design

Details

Client: Getty Images
Design: Bluebottle Architecture and Design
Fit-out: The Interiors Group
Size: 2,000 sq m
Completion time: Eight months

Project Details

When Bluebottle Architecture and Design and The Interiors Group were asked to inject a bit of personality into the London office of stock photography company Getty Images, inspiration was close at hand. ‘There’s such an incredible database of images to draw from,’ says Bluebottle Architecture and Design’s David Bishop, ‘so the starting point for the project was asking how to use that imagery in a sophisticated, timeless and intelligent way.’

It was decided early on that pictures from the company’s image library would feature prominently in the design, but the office needed more than just a face lift – services were positioned on the perimeter of the office space, blocking natural light from the windows, so the designers decided to strip out all of the existing ductwork and reposition it in a central bulkhead in the ceiling.

The main office floors are furnished with desks and task chairs by Bene and have grey carpets from Interface FLOR. Large-scale pictures from the Getty Images library are applied to walls though, on the whole, these spaces are deliberately understated.

‘We concentrated most of the design on the central staircase, which links the office floors and the reception area,’ says Bishop. Here, walls have been painted dark grey and the focal point, occupying the centre of the stairwell, is a 16m-high light box, covered in a mosaic of 5,000 photographs selected by the Getty Images creative team.

Parts of the grey walls are clad in panels of MDF spray-painted in the company’s corporate colours of fuchsia, green, blue and yellow.

The other main area of interest is the reception, which is visible from the street and functions as a kind of marketing tool for the company.

‘We wanted to display Getty Images’ moving imagery, which is a growing part of the business, so we created a media wall – a 108in plasma screen, placed at portrait orientation, which is visible to passers-by and displays Getty’s moving image stock,’ says Bishop. The screen is mounted on a glass wall, which separates a meeting room from the rest of the reception. A long desk, with a white Corian top, and a smooth white-tiled floor provide a subtle backdrop to the media wall.

Getty Images’ senior facilities manager Zelda Hogg has called the office ‘an engaging environment that truly reflects our products and culture’. But, according to Bishop, things didn’t always run smoothly. ‘The client was worried that we painted the stairwell dark grey to highlight the light box,’ he says. ‘But they loved it in the end.’

For Bishop, the light box is unquestionably the highlight feature of the project. ‘It was a monster to build but I think it works really well,’ he says. ‘Every time I visit, I notice a new image and I have to stop and look at it for a moment. That, for me, is what this project is all about.’

This article was first published in fx Magazine.