Deswik

Company culture takes center-stage for Deswik’s new Brisbane HQ

A creative workplace design solution that allows the company’s unique culture to truly shine. Workspace innovation and collaboration underpin this inspirational yet functional design.

Deswik is a global consulting and technology company focused on delivering innovative technical solutions to the mining industry. With their head office team relocating to a new tenancy in the Brisbane CBD, Gray Puksand was engaged to design their future 2,660m2 three level open-plan workspace. Deswik saw the move as an opportunity to reimagine how their spaces could better support innovation and collaboration within their growing teams.

Gray Puksand worked closely with Deswik from the outset to understand the company’s unique culture, aspirations and functional requirements. This groundwork was integral to the project’s success.

Design lead, Jaime Muller stated, “there was a balanced need for focused, quiet work and a strong desire for a vibrant, connected culture. The majority of Deswik’s team are software developers and mining engineers. The nature of their work is incredibly complex and individual. While they may come together for team collaboration and product development, the bulk of their work requires quiet and focus. We positioned focused work areas for each of Deswik’s major software lines on the perimeter to promote wellbeing, with access to views and natural light, and removed all visual and acoustic stimulation from these zones. This was balanced with the activation of the core collaboration spaces clustered around the intertenancy stair.”

The inclusion of team sprint spaces, short stand up zones and intimate team pods support focused work zones on all levels. These architectural elements provide greater opportunities for knowledge sharing and idea generation that were limited at the company’s previous office site.

High energy, collaborative functions are clustered around the stair element to activate this connection. This zone has been treated with more visual stimulation than the focused work zones to offer cues for interaction and teamwork. The intertenancy staircase that vertically connects all three levels of the workplace is another significant element of the design.

“Deswik enjoyed an already dynamic and connected culture and splitting the team across three levels when they had been used to one single level was a potential threat to that connectedness. GP knew that the inter-tenancy stair was critical in promoting this connectedness in the vertical.”

Deswik’s genuine commitment to connection and community is further brought to life through a 320m2 dynamic social zone with a functioning bar, games zone, kitchen and dining spaces. This was positioned in the middle level, directly connected to the inter-tenancy stair, allowing teams to travel just one level from below and above to enjoy social or informal team collaboration time.