A distinct lack of yellow and logos marks the new office interiors for the company evolving from producing Yellow Pages, in a scheme that takes it into the future

Details

Client: Yell Group
Design: Broadway Malyan
Size: 15,000 sq m
Completion time: Eight months

Project Details

But for a single logo behind the reception desk at Yell.com’s new HQ in Reading you may have a hard time guessing whose office this is. But as Brian Szpakowski, an associate director of design and architecture practice Broadway Malyan explains, Yell didn’t want to beat its employees over the head with an already familiar corporate identity. ‘After all, they know who they work for,’ says Szpakowski.

Currently in the process of transforming itself from the print media company responsible for the Yellow Pages directory into ‘London’s local search engine’, Yell was also adamant that yellow should be all but absent from the scheme.

As with most projects, Broadway Malyan went up against several other design practices for the job, but in this case the process was a bit different. ‘In a sense, we were chosen on the basis of our personalities,’ says Szpakowski. ‘Yell didn’t want to see pretty pictures or flashy visuals – the company just wanted to find people it could get along well with.’

Szpakowski and his team started by interviewing every senior manager in the company as well as conducting surveys and time-utilisation studies. What came to light was that, despite working in what Broadway Malyan describe as a ‘cramped and poorly lit office with tired furniture and a disorienting layout’, Yell staff were pretty happy, though there were concerns that employees felt disassociated from the senior management.

In the new office, which occupies eight floors of the 10-storey One Reading Central building, all working floors are basically the same and there is little distinction between senior management and the rest of the staff. But it isn’t always easy to persuade the bigwigs to relinquish their comfy private offices.

‘There are always some people who don’t want to do that,’ says designer Fiona Chong. ‘In practice here it was a case of giving them similar Vitra workstations to those used throughout the office – albeit of a slightly higher spec – and allowing them to choose from several options so they didn’t feel they were getting something second best.’

The new office also has a very high ratio of meeting spaces to desk space and the layout design encourages movement and interaction, with glass-fronted meeting rooms allowing clear lines of sight across spacious 199 sq m floors.

The brief from Yell was largely abstract: rather than specifying particular colours or materials the company suggested concepts like ‘friendly’ and ‘casual’ and asked Broadway Malyan to represent these visually.

Szpakowski and his team decided to use abstract graphics inspired by nature, which were manifested on walls and partitions throughout the space. ‘The client wanted something universal, something that everyone would understand,’ says Szpakowski.

The graphics help to delineate zones, or ‘neighbourhoods’, which give the different areas of the office character and make the large floors seem less capacious.

‘It’s a big office, says Szpakowski, ‘but when you’re there is doesn’t feel big because of these neighbourhoods.’

Broadway Malyan’s in-house graphic designers also came up with an abstract version of the Yell logo, which has been used to decorate privacy screens placed at the ends of workstations. ‘We wanted to use the logo in an abstract way to create a subtle link between the standard logo in the reception and the abstract graphics used on the main office floors,’ says Szpakowski.

Reception has a bespoke desk made of Corian with the abstract Yell logo etched into its front. Behind the desk is a single illuminated Yell logo with stainless steel letters, made by D Line.

The reception gives on to an anteroom, used as a meeting area for visitors and furnished with sofas from Hitch Mylius and tables from Naughtone. ‘We tried to use British furniture wherever possible,’ says Chong. Unlike the main office, this area has a largely monochrome palette, and most of the colour comes from a piece of abstract artwork on the wall chosen by a group of Yell employees.

The main office floors are similar in style, with rows of Vitra desks, task chairs by Knoll and carpets by Interface FLOR. Broadway Malyan decided to keep the walls white to maximise the impact of the colourful graphics on the glass walls of meeting rooms.

A cafe and restaurant on the 10th floor is a stand-out feature, and according to Chong it is also one of the most popular with staff. Here the designers used oak floorboards by Junkers, wooden benches and tables from Girsberger’s Box range, and graphics in various shades of green to create a bright, natural look. Loose furniture by Vitra gives a touch of urban sophistication.

‘Many staff like to work there, and some use it as a quiet place to take calls or have small meetings. It is also used for larger meetings and presentations,’ says Chong. Seeing Yell’s employees making themselves at home in the space is the most rewarding part of a project like this, she says. ‘Because of the move towards more open-plan working, we put in a lot of these different types of meeting spaces and seating areas that we weren’t entirely sure people would use,’ says Chong. ‘But to walk in there a week or two after the company has moved in and to see people using it in all different ways felt really great.’

Main suppliers:
Furniture:

• Vitra - vitra.com
• Hitch Mylius - hitchmylius.co.uk
• Arper - arper.com
• Naughtone - naughtone.com
• Knoll - knoll.com
• Girsberger - girsberger.com
• Haworth - haworth.com
• Humanscale - humanscale.com
• Triumph - triumph-tbs.com
• Borks - borks.dk
• Allermuir - allermuir.com

Lighting:

• Foscarin - foscarini.com
• Artemide - artemide.com
• Fagerhult - fagerhult.co.uk
• Modular - modular-lighting.co.uk
• Future Lighting - futuredesigns.co.uk

Flooring:

• Desso - desso.com
• Interface Flor- interfaceflor.co.uk
• unckers- junckers.co.uk
• Altro- altro.co.uk

This article was first published in fx Magazine.