Stickybeak of the Week: A Meeting Room With a Difference
Room 1860 was designed by a big business with innovative thinking in mind – the crazier the ideas generated here, the better
You could be forgiven for thinking this colourful room was a backyard garage conversion. In fact, it’s a meeting area for creative thinking at the Kellogg’s head office in Sydney. “The clients wanted to ensure the space did not look and feel like the rest of the Kellogg’s office,” says Chloe Matters, director at Sydney design firm TomMarkHenry. “Their motivation was to inspire out-of-the-box thinking, promote creativity and facilitate idea generation.”
Before, the space comprised traditional board meeting and team meeting rooms. Now, it’s anything but traditional. “Room 1860 enhanced the function of the existing space, and also dramatically improved the aesthetics in line with a strong concept,” Matters says.
Before, the space comprised traditional board meeting and team meeting rooms. Now, it’s anything but traditional. “Room 1860 enhanced the function of the existing space, and also dramatically improved the aesthetics in line with a strong concept,” Matters says.
TomMarkHenry intentionally set out to design a meeting space that felt completely non-corporate. “The concept was translated into the physical space by using flexible surface treatments that allowed for temporary notes and ideas to be recorded,” says Matters.
“We maximised workable space by extending work areas to the walls,” she adds. A combination of perspex, acoustic felt and brown paper rolls were fixed to the walls. The perspex can be written on with whiteboard markers, while the felt allows ideas that need further consideration to be pinned up. The paper is there for note-taking.
Pegboard on the walls is a novel idea, but Matters says she chose the material for practical, as well as aesthetic reasons. “We implemented pegboard on the walls for prototyping tools to be hung on so that users had access to creative tools and prototyping materials whenever needed,” she says.
“We also had Perspex riveted onto tabletops so that ideas could be expressed quickly and freely as they came to mind for those seated,” she adds. The biggest challenge for the project was the small budget allocated to the job. To overcome it, the design team leveraged anything already available. “A number of furniture items were salvaged from the basement of the building for use in the room,” Matters says. “In doing so, we minimised resources used and waste generated.”
All furniture has lockable castors so it can be moved around the room freely and quickly.
The meeting area creates an environment that supports interaction and advancement of a team by promoting creativity and encouraging staff to come up with ideas – just what the client wanted. Matters says the TomMarkHenry team is proud of the project because it‘s an effective response to a design problem. “This is the core value of contemporary interior design, along with enhancing the usability of a space,” she says.
Who uses it? Room 1860 is a space designed for employees at the Kellogg’s Australia head office in Sydney.
What’s it for? The room is used to inspire employees and encourage a culture of creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.
Location: Pagewood, Sydney
How big is it? It has a flexible layout of 75 square metres that allows for large, open areas to accommodate team training and formal business meetings, and can also be made into smaller areas for ideation sessions, prototyping and casual meetings.
Cost: $38,000