Interior Design

The Weir Group Plc Headquarters

Brief

Keppie Interior Design was appointed in 2005 to design a new headquarter office for the Weir Group's senior management team.  Occupying the fourth floor of the award winning Clydesdale Bank Exchange Building, the brief was to create a modern, flexible working environment to suit their current and future work practices.

Response

Keppie held initial meetings with The Weir Group at their existing Victorian offices in Cathcart.  A study of their existing workplace revealed a very traditional approach with individual offices and wall and ceiling mounted services.  In order to demonstrate the benefits of open plan working, Keppie produced a series of spatial arrangement drawings.  These studies demonstrated how careful placement of storage units could provide privacy between workstations without the need for partitions. They also showed how the workstations could be re-configured for future change or expansion.

Outcome

Staff and visitors enter the office from a central core.  A generous walkway runs around the central core with low level storage cabinets separating this from the working areas.  Cellular offices are limited to the company's Executive Directors. These combine large semi-transparent glass planes with acoustic laminate wall panelling.  The glass allows natural light to pass through the offices into the open plan staff zones.

A palette of materials, including anodised aluminium, glass and laminate, provides a modern feel.  Elements of beech veneer are used as feature, these inject a feeling of warmth and acknowledge Weir's heritage and previous surroundings.

Shortly after moving to the new offices, there was a requirement for additional workstations and storage.  With minimal disruption to the Client, the floor plan was effortlessly adjusted to suit.  The modular nature of the partitioning, workstations and storage enclosures allowed these to be manufactured off-site and assembled quickly on-site.

Team