Roche is a research-intensive international healthcare company offering innovative diagnostic and therapeutic products. In relocating staff to its new Hong Kong workplace, we introduced a new, fully agile working model.
The office is a socially engaging and innovative environment designed and built around the needs of Roche’s people. Cutting-edge technology, flexible working arrangements, and a focus on improving wellbeing raises the bar on what the office of tomorrow can achieve.
Roche wanted to transition from 100% assigned desks to an activity-based, agile workplace. We eased the process by organising visioning workshops to co-create a unique and personalised workplace.
Workshop strategy studies revealed an interest in balancing the need for connection with a technologically-advanced environment. The design empowers staff to achieve Roche’s mission of ‘doing what patients need next’ in an innovative, collaborative environment.
Roche’s vibrant culture thrives on the notion that its whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This inclusive and collaborative mantra helped drive the design concept of a Utopia, where individual employee aspirations create a strong sense of community in every corner of the workplace.
Two social hubs – one at the front-of-house and one more intimate – demonstrate this concept. Behind the entrance, the more public social hub contains an open pantry and flexible seating arrangements for town hall meetings. This hub promotes knowledge-sharing with an incubation centre for external communities to work and collaborate. The second social hub offers a more intimate setting with a café and a separate learning space, which can be reconfigured to support fitness activities.
Roche is recognised in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index as one of the most sustainable healthcare companies in the world, health and wellness were top priorities.
Large windows across the entire floorplan bring in plenty of daylight and views. Air and water quality are regularly monitored to ensure staff are working in the healthiest, most productive conditions. Informed by cognitive science on brain activity, small overhead decorations in the open offices help Roche staff to unplug and feel more mindfully engaged. Plants around the office help clean the air and bring the outside in, including a mini garden adjacent to the front-of-house.
Unassigned desks encourage movement and provide a vast range of choices to staff about how and where to work. Custom-designed inspirational quotes strategically embedded throughout help elevate the user journey.
As one of the most sustainable healthcare companies in the world, Roche’s new workplace puts its values into action with a design that prioritises flexibility and wellbeing.
Completed
2019
Hong Kong
12,400 sq ft
Harold de Puymorin
