The office: music and re-used material inspire interior design
The music company Epidemic Sound got an industrial office space in an old brewery building in central Stockholm and White Arkitekter created the interior design concept, with music and re-used material as inspiration. The style enhances the company’s collective identity and helps to attract new talent.
(Photo: Emil Fagander)
When the music company Epidemic Sound merged its attic loft with the floor below in an old brewery building in central Stockholm, the ambition was to create a non-traditional office environment while preserving the building's industrial character. With that as a basis, White Arkitekter created an interior concept drawing from the authenticity of existing raw space with re-use as a theme. Music permeates Epidemic Sound’s identity and was a source of inspiration for White.
White re-designed the existing floor plan as an environment where employees can collaborate in an open office landscape or choose a quiet room, depending on the mood or task at hand. Plans for the new floor accommodate extra work spaces for the company’s growing staff — and even the ability to convert space for a future expansion. In addition, Epidemic Sound needed separate sound-insulated rooms for meetings, interviews and extra listening booths.
"One of the design challenges was to keep a unified feeling for employees with the additional office floor, preserving its seamless communication. An expansive opening in the floor slab visually connects the two levels while industrial stairs connect them physically. For a loftier feeling, the under ceiling was removed revealing the building’s mechanical systems and reinforcing the industrial nature of the old brewery”, says Karolina Nyström, interior designer at White Arkitekter.
Sheets of plywood, Valchromat (a through-coloured wood fiber panel) and Träullit (a cement-bonded wood wool) recur as the wall-cladding materials and were selected for their robustness, acoustic properties and durability. The colours for the interiors were chosen to complement the character of the existing building, making the obvious choice of leaving the original concrete floor bare and polished.
The majority of non-attached inventory is re-used in the newly formed spaces which provides a cohesive style that further enhances Epidemic Sound’s collective identity.
”We wanted our office to feel like a second living room or our favourite bar — somewhere we would happily stay longer in, socialising with co-workers, listening to music or spontaneously getting on stage”, says Felix Edwards Mannheimer, COO at Epidemic Sound. “I’m convinced that our office plays an important part in our company’s ability to attract the right talent.”
Sergio Guimaraes, White Arkitekter
+46(0)851836588, sergio.guimaraes@white.se
Felix Edwards Mannheimer, Epidemic Sound
+46 (0) 722 515 650, felix@epidemicsound.com
About White Arkitekter:
White Arkitekter was founded by Sidney White in 1951 and is Scandinavia’s leading architectural firm with over 800 employees working in 14 offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK. Our work is research focused and our expertise encompasses architecture, urban design, landscape architecture and interior design.
For nearly two decades, White has invested in establishing a unique research-based department of highly qualified experts in the field of sustainable design. Our founder’s aim was to improve society through architecture and his legacy lives on in our ambition to contribute towards the building of a sustainable world.
About Epidemic Sounds:
Epidemic Sound was founded in 2009 with the sole purpose of creating possibilities and benefits around music in all stages – both for the ones who compose it and the ones who use it. We’ve achieved that by collecting music in an ever-growing library, to which you can subscribe for unlimited use or license tracks per second. Both equal music clearance on all platforms, worldwide in perpetuity. Today we have over 25K high-quality tracks at the tip of your fingers. Go ahead and create!
