BEST OFFICE Award 2010

 

"Doing business means networking people. And people network best if they feel completely at home." That is Klaus Hellmann's credo, managing partner of the logistics company Hellmann Logistics Worldwide in Osnabrück. It was according to this principle that the family businessman converted a historic dockyard warehouse into an open office complex with a living room character in 2006. Hellmann had the massive reinforced concrete ceilings and walls in the pre-war warehouse knocked through using high-performance diamond saws. His aim: to overcome everything that creates divides within a company. Would I prefer to sit in an Indian style room with an impressive, hand-carved door today or with my colleagues at a sleek, professional designer desk? Would I prefer to sit in the quiet zone of the library and plan my budgets, or in the "Ship", an office space where paintings of ships adorn the wood-panelled interior walls that resemble those of a merchant clipper? In warehouse 3 of Hellmann's complex, the 160 employees at the company HQ can choose where to work in the many working environments depending on their mood and tasks.

 

 

The Australian property developer Stockland knocked through the ceilings of 8 storeys of an 80's high-rise for his new company HQ. Between the 22nd and 29th floor of the skyscraper in the centre of the Australian economic metropolis, a truly homely workplace was created for around 600 employees. The 8-storeys of free space offer horizontal and vertical visual contact and enable optimal natural lighting. A broad, cantilevered staircase scales staggered plateaus, galleries and overlapping interior storeys out to a kind of interior courtyard in the centre of the high-rise building. Project architect Abbie Galvin drew her inspiration from a children's book. In Enid Blyton's "The Magic Faraway Tree", a different magical scene is played out in every branch and every fork of the tree. At Stockland's, the employees can see what is going on in other parts of the office from all points in their new "Stockhome".

 

By taking the bold step of merging its production and administration space in the Leipzig plant, BMW propelled the world of office work into a new dimension.  The BMW plant in Leipzig is an architectural masterpiece. Designed by the London-based star architect Zaha Hadid, the lightning-shaped building rises up like a wedge between the production centres (body shop, paint shop and final assembly area) while linking them elegantly together. Above the heads of the 650 employees at the plant, automobiles in every stage of production move along almost noiselessly on conveyor belts. The concept aims to keep employees and managers up-to-date by providing them with a glance at the production process. As a result, customers can still order a completely new set of appointments for their cars six days before their vehicles are completed.

All of the employees have identical desks that are grouped around the supervisor’s workstation. Transparent rooms called “Think Tanks” are used for meetings. 

 

 

 

Based in the Upper Franconian town of Rehau, the polymer manufacturer first asked its employees for their suggestions before starting to transform an old porcelain factory into an office building. To this end, the company organised employee workshops, the results of which led to the creation of an office setting that is not only closely linked to the employees’ work processes, but also very pleasing to the eye and almost homely. The features include conference tables that are nine meters long and three meters wide – large enough so that the technicians can spread out their construction plans easily – as well as wall cupboards with drawers in which even large vehicle parts like bumpers can be stored and cabinets whose doors can be converted into pinboards for displaying construction plans, thanks to ultramodern lifting technology. In its planning of the new office, the management of Rehau took great care that the employees would feel themselves at home in the office so that they could fully develop their creativity. Varied room arrangements make possible the intelligent interplay between communication and concentrated work. In the office, project teams consisting of technicians, calculators and logistics specialists are selected according to product groups and customers, and work together at communal desks. 

 

Pictures of BMW AG und Rehau AG + Co:
Copyright Robertino Nikolic for WirtschaftsWoche

 

In 2004, Koelnmesse and WirtschaftsWoche presented one award each in two categories: “large company” and “small or medium-sized enterprise”.

The employees at Universal Studios Networks Germany hold their conferences on a heated deck on top of a renovated old hardware shop in Munich.  The open-plan offices are decorated with props from films. The team comes together every day for lunch in a communal kitchen. To relax, the employees play table football or with a slot-cars racetrack. The company’s management intentionally fosters a relaxed mood in the office. 
“We want our employees to have fun at work,” is the management’s motto. After all, “people who feel good are more creative”. The organisers of the competition looked for office arrangements that were tailored to the prevailing working conditions and the flow of information in the company.