Intercede Facility Management Ltd.: Publications

Flavouring The Company Culture

By David Lasker

What a difference five years makes. Back then, says Micheline Bartlett of Intercede Facility Management, corporate clients were conservative. "We struggled to pull them out of their box and push them over the edge with designs that were more creative. Today, there's a trend for clients to want a funkier look that makes a statement. We designers are having more fun."

Especially with a client as sporting as Strateco Strategic Communications Group, which specializes in advertising promotions and events. The 30-person firm's previous digs in the historic Balfour Building in Toronto's garment district had bland white walls, black doors and maple desks. Not only was the space gradually squeezing the growing firm, it clashed with Strateco's corporate culture.

"The old office could have been an accounting office. Except for the artwork, it was vanilla," Bartlett says. "It lacked the requisite pizzazz."

Then Strateco president Greg Masse saw another Intercede project on the premises. Impressed, he hired the designers, giving Bartlett the mandate, she recalls "to create something unique."

Armed with a $40 a square foot budget for the 5,000 sq. ft. project, Bartlett took note of Strateco's informal work style as manifested in the vibrant-hued, cartoon-like artwork and the omnipresent, blaring acid jazz. (The boss bought a jukebox holding 200 CDs, including each worker's five favourite albums.)

Bartlett retained the base-building parquet floors and the high, open, industrial-loft ceiling, painting the ceiling cobalt blue. To play up the bulkiness of the fat structural columns, she clad their bases with silver-painted drywall skirts whose subtle faux finish of vertical stripes looks three-dimensional. The column bases and the barn door that closes the boardroom are trimmed in studded, stainless-steel plates, a material that evokes the machine esthetic of the rag-trade industries originally tenanting the building.

Dropped drywall ceilings in melon colours and organic shapes were added in the reception area and boardroom. The reception area ceiling's segmented rainbow in graduated red, orange and melon shades draws visitors in to the depths of the office. The boardroom features a floating bulkhead with rounded corners and holes for down lights. The bulkhead is (deliberately) misaligned with a corresponding triangular pattern in the centre of the room's carpet. "We didn't want anything straight-lined or rigid; that was the opposite of what Strateco is all about," Bartlett said. "There's so much rhythm and loudness in the space when you walk in. We tried to reflect that visually."

Intercede, founded in 1981, boasts 12 staff members and clients including Rogers Cable TV and Canadian Airlines. The project team comprised Bartlett, Sandra Ho, Lesley Melliship and Kristy Holden; design and construction took 3-1/2 months.

Intercede did more than transform Strateco's physical environment. The central cappuccino bar, with its miniature barndoor pass-through to the boardroom, serves as the company's spiritual hub, hosting staff meetings and informal brain-storming sessions with clients. "We remade the company culture," Bartlett says. "The cappuccino bar changed how they do business."

Sources
Faux finish: Beaux Faux
Laminate: Formica, Pionite
Carpet: Shaw, Peerless
Vinyl base: Johnsonite
Lighting: Eurolite
Workstations: Teknion, Global
Upholstery: Maharam, Teknion
Seating: Arconas, Teknion, Ula International
Reception side table: Space
Woodwork and cabinets: Diamond Bros., RAM Custom Furniture

Above, in the reception area, dropped drywall arcs in melon colours draw visitors in. Base-building columns have faux-metallic skirts and an aluminum base. Below, the cappuccino bar, the hub of the space, connects physically (with a pass through) and visually (with curving shapes) to the boardroom.

The organic shapes of the boardroom's floating ceiling, table and carpet pattern embody Strateco's dynamic corporate culture. The sliding barn door harks back to the building's original, industrial use when Toronto's garment district was in its heyday.

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