HSBC Dublin

11 May 2009

It is a confident brand and equally confident designer that works up a scheme for a new headquarter without having the worldwide-known logo on every surface. The HSBC and designer Lom did just that for the bank’s new Dublin center.

Key facts

PROJECT: HSBC Dublin

DESIGNER: LOM

CLIENT: HSBC

SIZE: 6,000 square meter

COST: Undisclosed

COMPLETION TIME: 24 weeks

Project description

The ‘world’s local bank’ is also one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Even if you don’t know the acronym stands for Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, you can spot the red and white geometric logo from a mile away.

HSBC’s new Dublin office occupies three of five floors in a building by local architecture practice DMOD. Its glass facade and panels of green and blue dichroic glass shimmer in the midst of a new commercial and cultural quarter called Grand Canal Square, at Dublin’s Docklands.

The interior design by LOM is to be a benchmark for the bank’s future offices. ‘We have worked with HSBC on other projects’, says John Avery of LOM, ‘and we were commissioned to provide a full architectural service, from briefing and feasibility through to design and contract administration’.

Three giant red shards made from steel frames covered with stretched Barisol punctuate a sunny atrium, instantly bringing to mind the logo of a brand that has been carefully honed and publicized in recent years. The atrium contains an internet bar, informal meeting spaces, and a cafe which seats 100 people.

LOM was careful not to overuse the bank’s corporate colors and opted not to use them in the main office space. Signage is minimized throughout the office. Instead, a color palette reflecting the global nature of the brand and also the well-traveled and environmentally aware work force, distinguishes each area: blue represents the ocean; green the forest; purple the mountains, and orange the sunset.

The workspaces are open-plan with desks from Senator, interspersed with breakout, meeting and resource areas. There are glazed partitions with full-height windows that overlook Grand Central Square and fill the office with light.

Graphics, printed into dichroic vinyl applied to glass partitions, feature heavily. They help to distinguish various areas of the office by referring to the HSBC brand without overusing the logo.

The two boardrooms, named Ireland and China, are decorated with motifs inspired by Celtic coins and dragons respectively. ‘Ireland’ has a boardroom table with a bespoke walnut top sitting on an Eames base, and Eames Softpad chairs by Vitra, while the less formal ‘China’ has black leather sofas and armchairs by Orangebox.

A graphic of a breaking wave nods to the office’s waterside location and recurs throughout the building in the lift lobbies, atrium and resource areas.

It’s easy for a large office development like this to feel monotonous, and for each floor to be indistinguishable from the next, but LOM has done much more than simply express HSBC’s corporate colors.

The designers have translated elements of this global business into a design scheme that gives each area its own personality, reflecting the bank’s Eastern roots as well as the location of this smart new Dublin headquarter.