‘And are there any existing drawings……?’ The one sentence guaranteed to strike fear into the heart, raise eyebrows and force long sighs at the start of any project. It’s the hope that kills you.
Within our team, it inevitably initiates a forage into the local planning portal or a rummage around our own server. With a back-catalogue spanning over 20 years, we have a pretty comprehensive catalogue of sites – and a fantastic filing system of course!
But with the move for more and more clients to re-use or re-purpose their office furniture and fittings, the ‘as built’ drawing is a critical first stage in the process. We are currently working with a major global brand with a high environmental profile. Accurate existing furniture layouts will be critical to the success of the refurbishment process, being a key factor in the process of assessing the condition of the existing products, identifying any items for disposal, and the phasing of the refurbishment works. Existing layouts allow us not only to record the physical items within the office space, but also to understand the requirements of individual teams, identify gaps in the office facilities and understand the existing meeting provisions.
We pride ourselves in the level of detail we can provide to our clients, with fully coded and annotated drawings provided as part of our service, included as part of initial briefing works. We know that accurate existing drawings allow for ongoing decisions around reuse of furniture, IT and AV and potential cost savings to be quickly evaluated.
Moving forward we anticipate a growth in clients looking to re-purpose their existing furniture, with several companies (Coggin SOS, Rype, Sustain) now ready to assist with disposal and re-cycling redundant items.
Our own office showcases recycled furniture from several sources, alongside new key items to support the modern vibe. Our Orangebox high back seating and Frovi collaboration table were sourced from Coggin SOS, our desks were refurbished with new tops by Ben Johnson Interiors, our boardroom suite was donated by a client following an office re-organisation and our vintage coffee tables were sourced from Space in Harrogate.
All we need now is an open cube shelving unit to display our expanding collection of glass fish!