The Best Ideas Are Born in the Kitchen

Our premises cover roughly 420 square metres. The office building itself is divided into three “slices” that form a single whole in the inner structure. And at the heart of the agency, on a fifth of the total floor space, is our large, open and modern kitchen. It is fully equipped, so even ambitious cooks should miss nothing (incidentally, a number of professional chefs have already worked here and produced live streams for a TV show).

Over the years the kitchen has become a central meeting point. It provides the setting for stimulating conversations with clients over lunch between workshops, for the weekly team breakfast, or for a quick chat at the coffee machine. Every time I look from my office into the kitchen and see colleagues chatting, laughing and joking while they cook together, I am delighted. There is something “homely” about it in the best sense. It is a likeable, warm place, even though the architecture is very purist.

We spend most of our conscious lives working. And even though, in the age of the home office, work increasingly takes place within our own four walls, the office should absolutely be a place that people mostly enjoy visiting. More than that: it must never be inferior to home. In that respect we made the right decision six years ago to “waste” a lot of space on a kitchen.

For some, it may be decadent luxury to afford something like this. For us, there is an attitude and a conviction behind it: people can only perform at their best in a creative and pleasant environment. I am convinced that an aesthetic place inspires us, consciously or unconsciously. Our thinking changes in different spaces.

With our architect Axel May (May Architektur in Cologne) we talked a great deal at the time about light, atmosphere and acoustics. What should the sound be like? After all, a great deal of communication here is verbal. How bright does a room need to be? How should colours work? How do we, figuratively speaking, bring warmth into the office? How can it look cool at the same time? We discussed these and many other questions at length among ourselves and, above all, with the architect. He was an important companion for us in all of these matters.

To this day we look forward to the first contact with new clients. When they visit us in the office, they experience not our “team” but our habitus. They enter a transparent, feel-good atmosphere that feels fresh and timeless. In my view, that says more than 1,000 words about our way of working and our methodology.

I can only recommend to all entrepreneurs that they keep engaging with their office: What do I need the office for? What does the office actually have to deliver – today, in five years, in ten years? What do my employees actually want from the office? What are the demands placed on the premises? An intensive examination of these questions brings the most astonishing answers to light.

Most recently, we have even begun advising some clients on design and concept questions for their offices. Of course we are not an architecture firm, but as designers we have great experience in impact and applied design. We are good at making brands recognisable in space. An important point in this context is “finding your way around” larger buildings – keyword: wayfinding system development. Our agency sees itself as a sparring partner that, together with specialists in architecture, lighting and acoustic planning and interior design, can develop individual and effective offices. I believe that close collaboration between these disciplines makes every office better.