Optimising The Office

Spaces for collaboration, research and making are key elements of Arup’s new Singapore office at Frasers Tower. Arup has undergone a full transition to activity-based working. HASSELL designed the internally connected two-level space in a way that would support internal and external collaboration while also providing a clear expression of Arup as a forward-looking firm – one that walks the talk on its built-environment solutions, embraces new technologies and cares for the wellbeing of its staff.

CL What was great about working with Arup in this process was that a lot of the criteria that Green Mark had set out were things that Arup were already mindful of. They were already conscious of the importance of these wellness aspects for the workplace.

NY A lot of those points echo what's in the WELL Building Standard. SM Yes, and we do work using the WELL Building Standard. We have two WELL-accredited professionals within the team. There's definitely been a change in thinking for all of us, as professionals. Maybe five years ago, we were focused on things we called ‘sustainability’ – if it's energy-intensive, we reduce it. Now, we’re actually recognising that we increase the use of materials and energy where we have to provide a better framework for people, and be a little bit more people-centric.

TBS Green Mark for Healthier Workplaces is very accessible and quite intuitive, and it's really nudging a cultural change in Singapore about the way companies operate.

AJ Could you describe some of the other design strategies and features of Arup’s Singapore office?

SM We’ve quite deliberately created areas of exposed ceiling. We expose services so that we can walk the talk as engineers, and see what's in those spaces. That was also complimentary to the look and feel that the designers wanted to bring to the space.

TYH In terms of strategies, engaging the future workforce was really important. The younger generation is looking for a different thing and we try to address that by providing a flexible space and also breaking down all the unnecessary silos.

TBS The strategy around the workstations and furniture solutions was carefully thought about. We looked at how to celebrate the materiality as well. One of the most striking things for me is the branding and wayfinding. Collaborating with Foreign Policy on that was incredible. They used a palette of coloured MDF panels to create a variety of graphic representations of various global Arup projects to mark the work zones.

AST Celia and I worked on the selection of consultants for our wayfinding and graphics. Foreign Policy was able to bring fun and quirkiness to the workspace.

Celia Choong (CC) There a few things that we wanted to highlight. One of them was our local expertise and experience. We've been in Singapore for 50 years now, but not everyone will know the extent of projects we have been involved in. So we worked with Foreign Policy and developed a series of wall magnets that you see in the frontof-house area. You can play around with them. They are abstract representations of some of our key projects such as the ArtScience Museum, Singapore Flyer, Singapore Sports Hub, Marina Bay Sands and Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall.

The second thing was bringing some of our core values to bear on our office space. So values like sustainability and human centricity – these were two of Ove Arup’s key tenets and they are still critical to the way we do our work today. The raining poetry at the staircase and some of the poems on the walls were written by Ove Arup himself, and they express those very values.

AJ You mentioned the i | Lab earlier. Is that a feature in every

Arup office?

SM In our major offices, yes. It allows us to give you a 3D visual and aural experience of what it will be like when a train comes through a train station, for example. It allows our clients and members of the design team to experience something in a virtual space long before it’s been constructed. It's also used as a tool for 3D visualisation in terms of building modelling and design.

NY Do you think it's becoming a necessity now for major clients to 3D visualise their projects?

SM We're starting to use the i | Lab’s virtual-reality functions and we’re currently modelling a few projects for that purpose. Certainly, key decision makers get a better appreciation of the end product by being able to use those sorts of tools.

TBS Things like the i | Lab are interesting because they’re about the next generation of talent and providing suitable platforms. The client base is shifting as well. The really innovative people in the design industry are seeing these things and expecting them.

NY Do you think clients might want to retain that 3D immersion experience as a virtual experience of a space, like a form of tourism at a distance?

TBS I hadn't thought about that! For Arup’s Singapore office project, we made use of a robot that Arup has, which can 3D-scan a space. We scanned the floor plate of this building, and it was really effective to use that in a VR model.

SM We have 3D models of other Arup offices within the region and we can do walk-throughs. We used them as we were getting involved in design discussions about this space.

NY I wonder if there's marketing potential for designers and architects.

TBS We've rolled out our global VR kit at HASSELL. Sometimes it’s extremely hard to communicate to stakeholders, so we found a way to make very quick VR models and send a 3D .xe file to stakeholders so they can walk through on their own.

I think the gaming industry has been ahead of us for such a long time. Designers and architects are still catching up with some of these tools. But there's huge potential, particularly for the next generation in terms of the way they work in that cloud-based environment.