Linehouse defines Shanghai office with "unexpected combinations of materials"
Interior design studio Linehouse has renovated an office in Shanghai using numerous materials and art from a local gallery.
Linehouse refurbished the ground floor of a three-storey building in Shanghai that The Independents global marketing group have occupied in Shanghai for numerous years.
The 374-square-metre space was designed as a communal area for the staff working on the floors above.
It includes a reception area, meeting rooms, pantry and communal eating space as well as a flexible deskspace for twenty people.
Additionally, an art installation area has been integrated, taking advantage of the high lofty ceiling of the space, which will be used for monthly rotational curation.
Linehouse aimed to create a destination by presenting art from a local gallery, which will be rotated monthly, in the space. Combined with numerous materials and abstract furniture pieces, the studio forms what the studio called an "unexpected collection".
"The support of the client to design an office that pairs unexpected combinations of materials was refreshing and a challenge," said Linehouse.
"The result is a space that allows art to breathe and creates a welcoming, natural and open place of work."
The spaces are each defined by different materials. Marine plywood was used for the wall of the reception and pantry area, separating them from the meetings rooms. The same plywood was used for to the workstations located in a sunken seating area.
A circular seating area was wrapped in a metal curtain, with five-meter-high curtains used to divide other spaces.
A customised table, made from different shaped pieces of marble and laminates, is used for meetings and dining.
Other tables in the meeting room features unique surfaces — one being a patchwork of timber textures and the other a gradient of glass transparency, from solid black to transparent.
"The design challenges the traditional notion of an office to promote a healthier and creative mindset to collaboration and communication, with emphasis on openness and autonomy for how staff use and occupy the spaces," Linehouse concluded.
Linehouse is a Hong Kong and Shanghai-based architecture and interior design studio established in 2013 by Alex Mok and Briar Hickling.
The duo won the emerging interior designer of the year category at the 2019 Dezeen Awards.
The studio has also recently designed a greenhouse-informed food market in Shanghai and the facade of a shopping centre in Bangkok.
The photography is by Dirk Weiblen.
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