Woods Bagot Shanghai Studio

An architectural studio is a place for inventive minds to come together and create. We designed our own Shanghai studio to spur collaboration and showcase its results. The workplace is equipped with tools both pioneering and timeless – virtual reality, 3D printing and flexible pin-up surfaces, video conferencing and soft furniture. The aesthetic is raw and authentic, with the bones of the building available for everyone to see. Like Woods Bagot projects worldwide, the studio prioritizes the human experience, aspiring. Our goal was to make a place that would spur collaboration and showcase design—both as inspiration and a product of the firm. The studio embraces the cultural benefits of the agile (fast changing), collaborative, and diverse (lots of choices of space) workspace to create a sense of community for our staffs and increase their creativity and efficiency. At the entrance is a spacious reception that leads to a studio street. Visitors feel as though they are entering a contemporary hospitality place rather than an office. Throughout the studio ‘street,’ pin-up spaces and shelving showcase drawings and models provoke everyday conversation, collaboration and critique. The studio ‘street’ leads into an equally spacious Bar Area, which can be easily flipped into event space to encourage knowledge sharing. Gone are labelled ‘conference rooms,’ replaced with ‘workshops’ that reinforce the studio’s purpose as a place for making. A mix of materiality from FC sheet flooring to carpet gives the space a compelling edge that is both raw and sophisticated. There is an honesty and beauty to the studio’s raw but comfortable aesthetic. The studio is equipped throughout with innovative technology that enables seamless communications between the firm’s 15 offices worldwide: the “DI Portal” (the internal Instagram), video conferencing in each workshop with suspended microphones that don’t pick up the rustle of paper, VC on all laptops and phones. We place human experience at the centre of our design process in order to deliver engaging, future-oriented projects, it is especially important when those people are our people. Woods Bagot Shanghai studio is a place where East meets West, where cultures merge and sectors blur, reflecting organization’s values and belonging to local culture. The benefits include employee retention (people look forward to coming here); more conversation about the work on display, sparking new ideas; agility; a welcoming space that impresses clients.