The changes in working habits brought about by digitalization, which the pandemic only hastened, are part of Price f(x)’s identity. The management and employees of Price f(x) use their offices primarily for meetings that stimulate creative dialogue. By their very nature, they are an open space for variable use, not subject to the stereotypes of work cubicles or traditional open space. As such, when it came to their Prague office, the standard cubicle simply wouldn’t do. Price f(x) instead wanted a smart, performative flex space that functioned as a physical corollary to the dynamic digital environment in which its clients work and think on-screen.
Price f(x) initially hired Collcoll in 2016 to design an easily adaptable workplace on a halffloor of an open-plan office building. Combining hot desks, coworking spaces, lounges, and open areas with phone-booth enclosures, offices, and small and large meeting rooms, the initial design responded to the client brief at the time. Two years later, the architects expanded the footprint to occupy the full 9,000-square-foot floor. Then again, at the height of the pandemic in 2020, when the very concept of office space was in free fall, Price f(x) re-engaged Collcoll to expand the core offices and provide an additional floor with maximum flexibility of use.
According to the architects, vertically connecting two floors tends to be problematic if the natural flow of the space is to be maintained. The two floors are tectonically connected by a structure composed of thousands of wooden pixels, which modulates the space around it and becomes its internal landmark. At the core of the structure is a new interior staircase and, for the more adventurous, a slide. Hidden inside the wooden cells are personal lockers, dressing rooms and function rooms, while the individual fragments organically create nooks designed for informal seating and public presentations.
Inspired by the computer game Minecraft, the thousands of wooden cubes conceal utilities and create casual seating areas for this office in Prague. The pixel motif is also written into the universal light grid above the entire space, which functions as a screen that is controlled down to the individual pixels (LEDs). This is also projected onto the bar counter/display, which also functions as a reception desk. The lighting interface is not only a dominant feature of the interior spaces. The luminous ceiling is also projected outwards into the Karlín space, and cannot be missed in the night landscape.
With COVID putting the fundamental viability of large, open-plan offices into question, the need for flexibility was greater than ever. The stainlesssteel tubular slide linking the two floors signals the importance of play in a workplace intended to stimulate creative ideas. This playfulness is reinforced by the reception desk, which not only doubles as a coffee bar but, thanks to a grid of LEDs behind its translucent solid-surfacing face, also functions as an interactive billboard on which pixelated images, including the company logo, appear. Nearby, a gym area equipped with a billiard table and a punching bag offers actual fun and games, further encouragement for informality and interplay.
The spaces function differently from the perspective of employees and visitors and differ in the first experience immediately upon entering. The day can be started with breakfast in the shared professional kitchen, which functions as an open bar. The lower floor is a meeting place, a relaxation area, as well as a conference room. The latter is multifunctional, a meeting room with a table for 50 people, but can be flexibly divided and, thanks to a mobile acoustic partition, can also be a filming studio.
The entire office floor can operate like an open conference hall with pockets of dedicated functional space such as the cafe with its professional kitchen, bar counter and informal seating. Additionally, the room can be divided into smaller units, either hot desk areas or smaller meeting rooms. In addition, presentation rooms are scattered around the floor with a range of uses from video conference rooms to informal open tiered amphitheaters equipped with a retractable screen, so finding a space to suit the meeting format is never a problem.
Spectrum of space
The entire floor can operate in conference room mode with café and dispersal areas. At the same time, the entire floor can be physically (sensually) divided. Transparent walls that can be made opaque, sliding panels that divide the space, as well as the controllable atmosphere of the rooms are used for this purpose. The largest space is a café with a shared kitchen and an interactive bar. It serves as an informal setting with tables, couches, armchairs, bar stools and chairs.
The conference room is equipped with a long table that can be divided into segments. The room itself can be separated by an acoustic sliding partition. The intermediate spaces function as a dispersal area with no prescribed use, with scattered seating and amphitheaters. Corridors are eliminated and replaced with, for example, a pass-through lounge area with a punching bag, pool table and hayracks. The only specific (enclosed) rooms are the focus rooms with capacities ranging from two to sixteen people.
Spectrum of comfort
Furniture has been carefully selected or custom designed. The aim was to create a spectrum of comfort to suit different ways of working. From upholstered armchairs and swing chairs, to tilting plastic chairs in the conference room, office chairs for long sessions, heavy and solid chairs at the café, tables and square cubes within the wooden structure.
