AJF Partnership

Splinter Society’s approach to the interiors of AJF Partnership is part of a paradigm shift toward creative workplaces, hopefully making us less stupid.

Splinter Society is the design studio that was given the task of making over the new premises of AJF Partnership in just eight weeks. They have come to be known as a young design team adept at creating impressive interior effects out of relatively meagre means and of working with existing material and infrastructural constraints, which also fits the sustainability statement noted on client AJF Partnership’s website.

In the new offices of AJF Partnership on Level 11, 31 Queen Street, Melbourne, with a jaw-dropping view out across the Yarra River, a design vision was realized from a hybrid concept of lofty warehouse meets quasi-industrial space, with added indoor greenery. It is a workplace for creative types whose job it is to convince us which objects and experiences we should desire as global consumers from different taste communities. It is a place where creative, marketable ideas need to be produced, developed and stored for possible repackaging. There is even the almost imperceptible rumble of the plant room in the background to offer the diffuse aural sense of concepts being constructed. Before the upgrade, this level was entirely occupied by a plant room, meaning that a considerable part of Splinter Society’s design task was directed at dampening this rumble, as well as dealing with the existing carpet and ceiling panels.

Stairs lead from the large open-plan lower floor to a more intimate mezzanine level.

Stairs lead from the large open-plan lower floor to a more intimate mezzanine level.

Image: Ellen Dewar

On entering, rather than being met by the standard reception desk greeting, you encounter a large log (yes, the kind that once stood in a forest), horizontally suspended and now sprouting sturdy indoor plants and a curtain of hanging vines. Beyond the foliage can be seen lines of desks and workers – this is the accounts and finance section and, before long, someone will emerge out of the forest to offer directions. The visual metaphors are mixing already, because below the log there stands a marble bench, or perhaps it is an altar to the art of brand commun-ication, and its plinth is composed of clusters of white pipes. Further clusters of purposeful-looking black PVC pipes divide the desks beyond, carrying electrical and communications cables down from the ceiling. They are not there just for the sake of appearance, but perform a task. An additional sculptural flourish is created out of an array of thin black bands. Pipes, plants and bands create a cross-fertilization of visual cues that speak of verdant biotechnological-cum-industrial prowess, or maybe it’s just an implicit message about sustainable productivity? What is it that we are doing when our work is to produce ideas or concepts for consumption?

In her provocatively titled book Stupidity, Avital Ronell describes her concern that work makes people stupid, depriving them of essential types of non-production, meditation and play. She argues that “it becomes ethically necessary to find a way rigorously to affirm nonworking, to subsidize rest, laziness, lolling around.” And yet, even ethics requires an effort. The genre of work she is referring to is that brand of alienated labour that reduces the worker to a mere cog in the larger machinery of what is to be produced, stockpiled, marketed and then made obsolete so that the next best thing can be made. Presumably the factory worker or unskilled manual labourer, and especially the sweatshop worker sewing our branded jeans in the developing world best fits this picture today. But the work of immaterial, creative labour that takes place in an advertising and communications firm, or in a design studio, incorporates play into its everyday tasks, making them seem less onerous and presumably making us, the creative labourers, less stupid?

The kitchen pod is like a cafe, complete with blackboard wall.

The kitchen pod is like a cafe, complete with blackboard wall.

Image: Ellen Dewar

Almost immediately on entering AJF Partnership the casualization of the workplace is impressed upon the client or visitor. There are soft bench seats extended along the periphery of windows, offering the democracy of a view to all employees. There are communal tables around which to gather to informally discuss the latest brand pitch, to sip lattes or share some wine at after-hours presentations. Importantly, there is a full-scale espresso machine to be discovered in the kitchen pod, which looks more like your funky local cafe including the requisite blackboard wall. There is even a table soccer game under the stairs.

Curiously, and this is something that took the partners of Splinter Society, Asha Nicholas and Chris Stanley, by surprise, the creatives decided that they wanted to be located not in the lofty volume of the new office where finance and accounts are now found, but in the hothouse intimacy of the mezzanine level. Here, they are divided two by two amid triangular screens that are resolutely not walls, but furniture partitions, pin-up boards, as well as triangles of glass upon which flashes of inspiration can be whiteboard-scribbled. When we visit the office, all their necks are craned forward and faces aglow with the luminescence of computer screens. Downstairs the casual areas are also in good use, giving the sense that the office can be occupied in a diversity of ways.

Triangular joinery units are carefully positioned between the desks in the creative area upstairs.

Triangular joinery units are carefully positioned between the desks in the creative area upstairs.

Image: Ellen Dewar

If repetitive and menial labour makes us stupid, tasks that become habitual, however interesting in the first instance, can likewise turn us into drones with rigidified opinions. The conceit of the casual-ization of the workplace – Google’s office interiors can be considered exemplary here – is that if we allow play, flexibility and a more informal approach into the workplace then productivity can be maintained, even improved. Because I want to refrain from working too hard on a serious question here, I’ll resist asking whether this ploy to design more pleasant places in which we can undertake our material and immaterial labour also makes us more compliant and amenable and less critical workers. What we do know is that work is dominating more of our lives, so we can at least applaud attempts to make the workplace a more comfortable habitat.

Products and materials

Walls
Lexan Thermoclick panel. Viridian mirror; Laminated structural timber beams.
Windows
Hunter Douglas holland blinds.
Doors
Aluminium-framed glass doors; Ply-faced solid core painted doors; Viridian mirror-faced solid core doors.
Flooring
Existing carpet; polished concrete.
Furniture
Custom joinery, desks, reception desk, board table cafe tables and chairs; Clients’ own desk chairs, board chairs, meeting tables; Materials include Forbo Marmoleum; factory-sprayed HDPE pipes; marble from Amalgamated Stone; construction-grade ply; laminated structural beams; Warwick Fabrics; Autex acoustic panels; Laminex laminate and clear powdercoated steel.
Lighting
Largely custom fabricated by Studio Italia.
Kitchen
Laminate surfaces from Laminex.

Credits

Project
AJF Partnership
Design practice
Splinter Society Architecture
Melbourne, Vic, Australia
Consultants
Builder ICMG Melbourne
Landscaping Splinter Society Architecture
Lighting Splinter Society ArchitectureStudio Italia
Services engineer Meinhardt Group
Structural engineer Trevor Huggard and Associates
Site Details
Location Melbourne,  Vic,  Australia
Site type Urban
Project Details
Status Built
Design, documentation 1 months
Construction 3 months
Category Interiors
Type Workplace
Client
Client name AJF Partnership
Website http://www.ajfpartnership.com.au/

Source

Project

Published online: 1 Dec 2010
Words: Hélène Frichot
Images: Ellen Dewar

Issue

Artichoke, December 2010

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