Islands of Refuge

On call center floors at Shaw Tower staff breakout areas are energetic colour pops -- it's all about the Shaw culture. These little islands are fun indulgences of colour and materials. From accross a floor of work stations, staff are sure see the self-contained breakout/coffee/cubby areas. Each had a different colour scheme that correlated from floor to floor.

Creating a Design Vocabulary

The Shaw Tower design language evolved from a broad concept to a selection of forms, materials, colours, and details. Thanks to a brilliant couple of lead designers on this project the concept informing our direction was very strong from the begining yet each of us were able to explore new facets of that idea. When a certain design or detail resonated with the team it became part of the design language. It's what we in the industry call "process" and it's probably the most exciting part of design for me - translating a concept and a program into a 'design vocabulary'.
In this illustration a recurring element, the staff break-out area, had many interpretations before the final solution.

Design to Reality

As part of the greater design, these elevator lobbies were treated as colour-saturated expressions of the concept. Each floor had a different colour story and its own variation on the carpet design serving also as way-finding. The custom wool carpets were close to my heart. I actually specified the colour design for each 2" x 2" square.