A Thoughtful Sustainable design consolidation

DS Smith are experts in sustainable packaging solutions and recycling services. It was with this exact brief that the project in Caerphilly began, to consolidate two office locations in Caerphilly into one, re-using and recycling where it was economically and sustainably viable.

The two Caerphilly offices represented different administrative sections of the group, looking after a variety of core functions such as a call centre, administration, and technology support. The integration of the business functions required a careful, consolidated approach to space usage and management, with the design tailored to each team and department, but with sufficient flexibility to allow for future change with minimal interior reconfiguration.

The fit out upgraded finishes throughout, with new lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems. The existing HVAC and infrastructure installation was at the end of its service-able life. With the services, partition and fit out ceilings removed, this allowed a far more substantive floor to ceiling height, exposing, on the 2nd floor, a generous vaulted ceiling. It transformed a low quality, dark, sterile workspace into a space with energy, volume, and life.

Whilst a value driven project, with a focus on sustainable and economic solutions, investment was put into a generous cafe and social space on the Ground Floor, open to the entrance door and stair lobby void, accessed via a new, wider opening, removing the doors, a shared space for visitors and staff to access.

The aesthetic and layout followed a theme driven by the principles of DS Smith products - practical, sustainable, and innovative. The concept developed using industrial materials such as wire mesh to structure and divide space, mixed and blended with planting and greenery, softening the look and feel, bringing a visible sense of wellbeing to the interior.

The result is a transformation. A blend of new and old, using bold colours balanced against a neutral background palette, with extensive planting and greenery, integrating scrum zones, collaborative seating areas and benches, supplemented with focus work booths.

Two offices in one, packaged and up-cycled for a bold new future.