Our Office

Being an architect, designing this office was never a matter of personal preferences for me, as one would typically think it to be. It was, through and through, a matter of usefulness, meaning, and relevance. All at once, I was in the architect’s chair as well as in the client’s shoes. The double perspective, I believe, was necessary to conceptualise a space that broke the barriers of a traditional office interiors, without breaking function.

I’ve designed this office on three pillars:

• Natural light
• Sustainability
• Minimalism

Light is the chief guest in a building; it deserves to be treated with respect. Our south-west corner office on the 6^th floor gets abundant sunlight, so it was critical that I decided what not to do before what I should.

Building on this idea, I envisioned our office spilling with natural light all through the day: the workstations receive the morning light, when our employees are just arriving; the conference room takes the midday/early-afternoon light angling in gently; the master cabin receives the last mile – the setting sun in all its glory – filtering in through sheer blinds to block UV and heat.

Where there is no sunlight, there is sunless illumination through the large windows. It was counterintuitive to “cover up” the fenestrations – only a few blinds for privacy.

To create, to build something, you require material. In my head, the feel of “newness” doesn’t have to remain exclusive to new materials. We have but one planet – and we are her keepers. I wanted to give back in some way, without having to redraft my plans, without hurting another tree for its priceless wood.

So, I decided to reclaim old wood. What you see in our office, everywhere – on the shelves, tables, workstations – is wood salvaged from railway sleepers. Seasoned, weathered, strong beyond the power of time itself. The wood that’s already proven its mettle, the wood that’s supported the weight of countless travellers.

With a little care and one coat of Rubio, the strength of wooden fibres transformed into our shelving. For the tables, I decided to elevate the design quotient with black-toned epoxy. The result was sturdy surfaces with saturated, warm tones that complemented the natural light beautifully, and became the anchoring elements for the other components of my design.

Designing a space, in my opinion, is about harmonising it with its purpose and people. Anything else that’s added is superfluous; redundant. As you go from room to room, you will notice the absence of traditionalised extraneousness.

What you will find is endless storage, open spaces, and a free flow of acoustics camouflaged and made latent, so that they become apparent only when the need arises. This, I believe, is the quintessence of minimalism: removing the surplus without compromise.

Thus, the RSJ Design office was built: not so that we could have a space to work and create, but so that the space would reflect what we can create.