Client: Three RingsDesign, Inc.
Mission: “Make our office really cool.”
Services: Space planning, design and fabrication of decorative architectural elements and furniture, ‘Cool stuff’ shopping.
After meeting with the whole office, pithing several ideas, and taking notes on all the needs and wants of the staff, we arrived at the “Victorian / Steam Punk Submarine” asthetic that became the theme for this space.
A 3,000 sqft space, now filled with individually customized desks, a pool table with a wall sized ‘world domination' map, a video game room with giant squid pillows, a bar with built-in kegorator, and a secret door to the Captain’s Lounge.
Work Stations: Desks and Screens.
Within the new Three Rings office, there are several work areas separated by complex screens. This screen separates one work area from the Billiard Room, and is shaped like a viewing porthole with underwarter scenes and images that reference Three Rings games.
Other screens are graphic representations of giant mechanical machinery. This area is where the coders and programers sit... in the engine room... so to speak. You may also notice the victorian furniture placed here and there. Each work station area has a few extra victorian chairs and tables placed around for use and to add to the victorian flair.
Each of the 25 employee desks is unique, and was actually either drawn or chosen by the employee who sits there. Everyone at Three Rings was given the opportunity to design their own desk!
We kept this affordable by creating a “template desk” (seen here below) and then exporting that design down into flat PDFs. The designers drew over the top of them in Flash, and sent them back to us. This way we were able to use their vectors in our design to create a unique desk for each employee and keep the desks affordable.
Lights and Fixtures:
This office needed some very special lighting that wasnt going to be easy to find at affordable prices. So we decided to fabricate custom lighting using off the shelf components.
Here is one of the lights we made for hanging around the space. It is made out of a $10 Ikea light, repurposed to fit the design of the space.
We needed another light to go over the card table and one to go over the billiard table. So we fashioned these large 6 shade chandeliers with fancy shades and decorative chain. The chandeliers span almost 5ft wide. Again, they are a collage of off the shelf parts with a custom made body.
Finally, we addressed the overhead florescent lighting that was anything but Victorian Steam Punk. Replacing these lighting fixtures was going to be quite a large expense, so instead, with fire resistant products, we made these light fixture covers that clip onto the underside of the florescent light. They are easily removable and light weight.
Decorations, functional and not
We filled the Three Rings office with decorations, both function and some just for fun. A few even fall in between the two categories, like this world domination wall map.
We adhered the map to a push pin material, so places of interest....or dominated areas, can be easily marked.
The office needed a bike parking area, so we took this opportunity to do more decorative elements, and play down the bike storage....as that wasnt a big victorian submarine thing after all.... So we made the bike storage into the engine room, complete with spinning engine!
In the lounge area we made a custom card table with a felt insert. The felt center flips over to make the table all wood -- for protecting the felt when the table is used for eating.
On the back wall we installed a wall of frames that can double as push pin boards, a mess of faux pipes and levers and even a victorian looking ladder.
The ladder even leads to a faux hatch in the ceiling.
A sign on the ladder reads “BRIDGE-- authorized personnel only”
The Game Room
Being a game company, Three Rings needed a fantastic game room. Working closely with the main Three Rings designers we came up with the ‘Squid Attack Game Room’. A bean bag couch made to look like tentacles takes up the majority of the area. This room also contains a rolling entertainment center that holds a flat screen and game consoles, and a rolling "steam-punk" coffee table.
We had the bean bag couch custom fabricated, which inspired us to then also make bean bag seats and pillows to accompany it and add more movable seating to the area
The Bar
Adjacent from the lounge area sits a large rolling bar with a built in Kegerator. The bar has doors underneath for storage, built in lights above the bar area, and a 6 inch tube on each corner that bubbles constantly with water.
The bar sits in front of custom made shelving with pirate and sea themes decorating the top.
These bookcases that we designed for behind the bar are a great example of how quickly we can work with our workflow. We were literally swapping these vectors back and forth with the client on the same day that we cut the final pieces which we then installed the next day.
The Secret Door
Another challenge given to us by our client was the idea of having a secret door somewhere in the space. We took this challenge with glee and created a second bookcase that matches the first one in design..... only it does a little more...
The bookcase glides open easily to reveal a wonderfully decadent room within.
We make a point of never saying "We don't know how to do that" to a client. Our workflow really lets us make anything, and to do it at a price where anything becomes feasible.
This Secret Room, hidden behind the bookcase is filled with over stuffed couches, custom wall paneling over deep red walls, custom inlayed tables, a globe bar and a closet door in the corner made to look like a “robot closet” (where your robot slave would be kept..... of course).
This whole office space cost about half of what outfitting it with boring but nice used office cubicles would have cost. Think of what we could do for you!
You can always see the most recent updates on all our current projects by visiting our blog at: www.becausewecan.org/blog/
