TPG Telecom, Melbourne

The Melbourne floor is a working office rather than a showroom, and it is planned that way. Workstations are grouped into neighbourhoods against the core and the window line, with the shared settings placed between them so the walk from a desk to a room, a booth or a bench is short.

The ceiling is left exposed across most of the floor and dropped over the social spaces, which is what actually separates the zones. The furniture follows that split. Under the exposed slab the palette is neutral and hard working. Under the dropped ceilings it warms up: terracotta and navy booths, timber stools, a curved island bench and a pantry in sage green joinery.

Training was the setting that shaped the most product selection. The room is used for sessions of different sizes, so it takes flip top tables on castors with nesting frames rather than fixed tables. One person can fold, wheel and stack them, which is the difference between a room that gets reconfigured and a room that stays in rows.

Enclosed settings are spread across the floor rather than banked in one corner. There are single person pods, two person booths with high backs, small focus rooms with one workpoint each, and meeting rooms from four to twelve seats. Several of the pods carry a First Nations artwork wrap, which the floor also picks up in a mural at the breakout wall.

Storage is personal rather than assigned. Banks of lockers with electronic locks sit at the edges of each neighbourhood, set into timber ends so they read as joinery instead of a wall of metal.