M Moser Associates has designed a new office space for Puma located in London. 27,000 sqft, year 2014
This striking new office is an all-in-one solution for Puma, answering their need to bring staff and teams from what once were three widely dispersed sites into a single brand-expressive space in London. M Moser Associates came into the picture soon after Puma’s selection of Sea Containers House as the site of their new UK headquarters. Having previously worked with M Moser on a new office/showroom in Hong Kong, Puma appreciated the team’s deep understanding of their brand and values, which helped every one jump onto the same page quickly. Getting everyone onto the same Puma brand page was especially important as M Moser would build as well as design the new office. Interior design, engineering and space planning would all be integrated under a single umbrella of project responsibility.
Puma’s “Forever Faster” global brand slogan was a conceptual starting point for M Moser’s project team. In the finished office, the motif is expressed throughout its three floors but makes its greatest impact in the main break-out/town hall space on the uppermost floor. Here, in the office’s primary social space for staff, LED slats hung at random heights evoke a sense of dynamism with their black, white, grey and red casings.
Planning for all three floors of the office hinged on a ‘running track’, one of the design’s most evocative features. Marked out in a dark shade of grey, on the first floor it provides a circulation route past the main reception and around the offices six showrooms. During Puma’s frequent “Go Live” product launch events, the track is transformed into a fashion show runway.
On the two upper floors, the track serves as a dynamic intermediate layer between enclosed and open-plan spaces. In the open-plan workspace, bench-style workstations accented in brand colours of black and red are arranged in a crisscross pattern, rather than in the more typical parallel rows. The arrangement enables different team areas to be demarcated without the use of walls, partitions, or anything that might block the path of sunlight in and sightlines out.
As intended, the integrated design and delivery process paid off in a smoothly completed project. The result was a successful headquarters for Puma – faithful to the firm’s global workplace and brand guidelines, but also offering something powerfully new in its interpretation of a brand that is moving “Forever Faste”.
Design: M Moser Associates
Lead Designer: Jose Mercado
Photography: Alex Kendrick