(continued)

Besides wanting the building to stand as a striking corporate identity, the client recognized that good design could contribute to quality of work-life. So in this 24-hour office, accommodating 450 people in shifts, the client requested a design emphasis on the areas that would be used during breaks.

The space created by the glazed area provides spaces for both "hard breaks" (meetings) and "soft breaks," when employees can lounge in comfortable furnishings.

The enthusiastic client also called for a design of "surprise and delight," borrowing a term from the automotive industry to describe the "plethora of gadgets, tactile switches, and soft-damped protuberances that permeate new car interiors."

Evans gladly embraced this approach. "It's a great thing to bring to building," he enthuses, and he has taken it beyond the building's dramatic form. The internal staircase, for example, is a delight of poured concrete and uplit, lozenge-shaped glass treads. A curved aluminum reception desk doubles as a juice and cappuccino bar, effectively mediating between public and private space.

The building includes such novelties as a sliding glass entrance door, which glides automatically and unexpectedly away from the visitor through the field of polished stones nestling by the entrance.

Evans also attended to traditionally neglected areas of office design. For example, the restrooms are all different from one another. This may be a specifier's nightmare, but the client and architect hope this approach will pay dividends in productivity and staff satisfaction.

There's a variety of fixtures and finishes; one mosaic-clad restroom is dubbed "the swimming pool," complete with cast-glass wash basins and electronic taps; another is made entirely of black marble. Specialist fittings such as clear Perspex toilet seats with inlaid telephone handsets add to the innovation.

The Functional Zeppelin

In addition to delighting the workers, the building uses the latest "green" technology to guarantee them a temperate working environment.

"You can't overvalue natural daylight," says Evans, who maintains that the curved facade is not merely for show. As well as allowing light deep into the building, it functions as the key element in a simple ventilation system.

The system draws cool air off the adjoining lake and disperses it through a network of vents running through the floor to the south of the building. A minimum of mechanical cooling provides back up, and the great curved facade sets up an efficient stack ventilation system.

The building also features fritted, transparent solar control blinds and a concrete thermal mass frame that stores heat in winter and "coolth" in summer.

The owner reports unusually low operating costs. This in addition to the relatively low £120 per square foot (£1,300 per square meter) construction cost and the remarkably short 14-month construction time.

Equally important, staff turnover has decreased from a figure above the national average to one less than half that. The Cellular Operations Headquarters has been celebrated in the British press as "the happiest work place in Britain" and has won the FX International Design Award 2000 in the category "best large office."

Its designers refer to Cellular Operations as a "chance meeting between a decorated shed and a dramatic atrium." All the attention to detail has elevated what could easily have been a mundane building into a welcome diversion.

The entire north facade is a glazed protrusion. Photo: John Ian MacLean The Cellular Operations Headquarters has been celebrated in the British press as "the happiest work place in Britain." Photo: Tim Soar Conference room. Photo: Tim Soar The internal staircase is a delight of poured concrete and lozenge-shaped treads. Photo: Tim Soar A reception desk doubles as a juice and cappuccino bar. Photo: Tim Soar The curved aluminum reception desk/juice bar. Photo: Tim Soar The column-free north side of the building enjoys abundant daylight. Photo: Tim Soar With round-the-clock work shifts, the Cellular Operations Headquarters never sleeps. Photo: John Ian MacLean   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.