Quintiles office, Reading

17 September 2012

Quintiles office, Reading

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

On upper floors’ glass and slatted-timber ‘skyboxes’ contain extra meeting spaces.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

Business lounge sections are furnished individually with their own colour palette.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The cafe is intended to offer more than a place to have lunch.

The central atrium

The central atrium

The central atrium

The central atrium

The central atrium

The central atrium

The design team was tasked to provide a ‘speculative’ building with interiors suited to a variety of uses in the multistorey building – created by the architecture arm of the same practice

Client: Quintiles
Design: Scott Brownrigg Interior Design
Size: 11,275 sq m
Completion time: 16 months

'It was one of those projects that had disaster written all over it' - that's how director of Scott Brownrigg Interior Design Ken Giannini describes the award-winning 11,275 sq m offices in Reading for Quintiles pharmaceutical services.

But the project turned out to be anything but disastrous. Despite contractor Overbury having just 16 weeks to fit out the office - a feat Giannini says has never been done in a project of this scale - the building has been a resounding success. This year it won the British Council for Offices (BCO) Fit Out of Workspace Award for the South West of England, Thames Valley and South Wales, and in 2010 received the OAS Award for Best Development Outside London.

Giannini and his design team won the job after an unusually long five-month competition in which they pitched against four other practices. These competitions, he says, are becoming more common in the industry.

The brief asked for a speculative building, one that could suit a variety of different uses. The four-storey building itself, designed by Scott Brownrigg's architecture arm, was rated BREEAM Excellent. Inside, the building needed flexible spaces that encouraged collaboration; it also had to have interiors that respect the building's low energy consumption.

Scott Brownrigg's designers created an interesting work environment centred on the idea of choice. From the moment visitors enter the building, a business lounge in the shape of an 'X' presents four different seating quadrants to choose from, each with their own Artifort or Allermuir furniture and colour themes. Also on the ground floor is a 200-seat dining area with in-house restaurant, a branded coffee bar and cafeteria-style buffet. Diners can choose from bench seating, cafe chairs and tables, or large red booths. The entire space doubles as a conference area from which furniture can be cleared for town-hall-style meetings, with a drop-down screen that can be positioned in front of the space's terrace.

'For the restaurant, what we were trying to create was a place that people could use for more than just their lunch time,' says Giannini. 'We wanted it to feel different. It has much more colour and vibrancy than the general office space ... It is going to be a buzzy space, and we need to accept that and just play up on it.'

The theme of choice continues in the building's middle storeys, where the designers created a mix of different workstations. Open-plan floors of workstations border the outside windows while cellular offices sit further in, still illuminated by natural light through their glass walls. Each desk and cellular office is communal, as well as being available for pre-booking.

Jutting out from each upper floor work area are timber and glass 'skyboxes'. These small cubicles create additional meeting areas and viewpoints for workers as well as adding architectural interest to the cavernous atrium at the centre of the building.

Quintiles had + moved into the building by July 2011 and found the flexible space suitable for its varied needs. Giannini says: 'It's made the Quintiles people proud to be at Quintiles.'

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