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Architects: Facet Studio
- Area: 150 m²
- Year: 2012
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Photographs:Andrew Chung
Text description provided by the architects. An office which controls the light with different height of walls.
This office space is located within a warehouse of a East/ West directional rectangle. Although there is no window at all on South/ West facades, series of large windows dominate the North/ East facades, and fill the space with sun throughout the day even when it is at the centre of the city. We can generalise the works within an office into 5 activities:
- To absorb new ideas
- To research for methods in order to realise the ideas
- To document the knowledge into writings or drawings
- To archive the complete work
- Of course, it is part of the job for staff members to relax
Therefore the question for us is, would it provide more comfort for people working here if we relate their working patterns with the benefits of this natural phenomenon? The quantity and quality of natural light required for the 5 activities differ - productivity of 1. and 5. is generally higher when the staff member is in a more relaxed state, whereas productivity for 2. and 4. is comparatively independent of the changes in natural phenomenon; 3. is somewhere in-between, it is also a connection point between the 2 groups of activities. By going through the activities in turn, ideas start to take forms and become real.
There we located “2+4”, “3” and “1+5” in order from South to North. Furthermore we have controlled the quantity and quality of natural light by changing the height and extent of the walls surrounding those activities.
By matching different working activities with different quantity and quality of natural light, people alternate between states of “relaxed” and “concentrate”, hence activate their brain. We believe in the importance of adequate natural light for different psychological state to enhance work performance, especially for people in the creative field.