Engineering materials get to be really sexy when the geometric shapes of the ducting, piping and grille stock in trade of the client’s business becomes standout features in a unique design

Details

Client:RB Akins Company
Design: Elliott + Associates Architects
Size: 1,260 sq m
Completion time: 10 months
Cost: £1,000,000

Project Details

Functional steel tubing, air-distribution grilles and copper piping aren’t usually the stuff of glamorous interior design projects, but when it came to designing a new HQ and showroom for Oklahoma City-based engineering equipment and services company RB Akins, Elliot + Associates Architects gave these surprisingly photogenic materials pride of place.

‘Whenever people ask what makes our projects unique, I always tell them that we focus on doing what I call architectural portraits,’ says the design practice’s Rand Elliott. ‘In other words, we think that the space or building we’re designing should grow from the business we’re dealing with.’

For this project, which involved the renovation of a warehouse building from the Fifties, Elliott took his inspiration from the industrial products and materials sold by the company, using them to create decorative features, even furniture.

‘What makes this project so intriguing for me as an architect is that generally mechanical systems and grilles are the kind of things that we like to see disappear into a space,’ says Elliott, ‘but in this instance we completely reversed that point of view.’ The big question, says Elliott, was how to make them sexy and interesting. ‘We did that by focusing on these products as if they were works of art,’ he says.

In the reception area, plastic air-distribution grilles, usually set into the ceiling, have been replicated on one wall to create a design feature. ‘They are interesting as geometric forms and a wall full of them suddenly becomes a design detail and a texture,’ says Elliott. As a backdrop to two Wave lounge chairs from Stylematters, the wall takes on a sophisticated look.

The reception desks is a long piece of white plastic laminate, and to add some visual interest Elliott and his team decorated it with sections of copper tubing usually used to carry water.

Perhaps the most dramatic use of industrial materials is the ‘duct wall’, a 30m-long wall in the product display area, which is covered with short lengths of galvanised steel tubing usually used for air conditioning ducts. In essence it is a piece of sculpture, but some of the wider tubes are also used to display products such as grilles.

The display area has plenty of space so that products such as air-handling units can be rolled out across the polished concrete floor to be shown to customers. The space is also used to host events and parties, so it needed a table. Rather than go out and buy something fancy that would have looked out of place against the exposed brickwork of the walls, Elliott and his team created one out of the same galvanised steel tubing used for the duct wall, this time topped ith glass and illuminated from within.

Nearby, an air-handling unit has been placed on a plinth in front of the blue glass doors of the computer room. ‘Normally that’s a device you would cover up,’ says Elliott, ‘but here we’ve brought it into the space, put it on a pedestal and treated it like a piece of sculpture.’

As well as creating the right look for the client, using industrial materials also helped to keep the cost down, which was an important part of the brief. Another consideration was that the company didn’t want a space that would look too polished and pristine. ‘The kind of people who will be using the showroom are engineers and contractors, and those kind of people tend to feel more comfortable in a space like this, with its exposed brickwork, concrete floors and exposed ductwork – it’s like wearing a comfortable pair of jeans instead of a suit,’ says Elliott.

The client’s work involves a huge amount of technical drawings and plans – in fact Elliott sees these as emblematic of the company. With this in mind, the architecture practice created a drawing storage wall with stacks of PVC tubes in which rolled-up drawings can be stored.

Elliott describes the building’s two corridors as the most challenging aspects of the project. Workmen in boots often use the passages, so the designers couldn’t use a material that would wear or stain easily. They settled on a simple vinyl tile which they had printed with the words ‘quality’ and ‘service’ – the company’s core values.

On a white wall at the end of one of the corridors is Elliott’s favourite design feature, a single, vertical row of air-supply nozzles. ‘Their purpose is to put air in specific places,’ says Elliott, ‘but we loved them as objects. We used them in much the same way as you might put a piece of artwork at the end of a corridor. These actually function, so you can walk up to them and feel the air blowing out of them. You can also move them around,’ he says.

Elliott and Bert Akins, the founder of RB Akins, have been friends for 25 years, so it’s not surprising that client and designer saw eye to eye. It was, says Elliott, a truly fun project with a client that was open to new ideas and a different approach to displaying products. ‘When they reopened for business after the redesign they had people saying “wow, I’ve never seen a space like this before”,’ says Elliott. ‘I think that convinced them that we did all the right things.’

Main suppliers:
Materials/flooring:

• Azrock - azrock.com
• Concrete Works - concreteworks.com
• Formica - formica.co.uk
• Shaw Contract Group - shawcontractgroup.com
• Spinneybeck Leather - spinneybeck.com
• Tate - tateaccessfloors.com

Furniture:

• Howe - howe.com
• Knoll - knoll.com
• Modern Furniture Warehouse - modernfurniturewarehouse.com
• Stylematters - stylematters.uk.com

Lighting:

• Hydre- hydrel.com
• Lithonia - lithonia.com

This article was first published in fx Magazine.