INTERIOR FEATURE
AIG HEAD OFFICE
INTERIOR DESIGN: TETRIS | PHOTOGRAPHY: ELSA YOUNG
AIG is a leading international insurance company, with offices in over 100 countries. Tetris’ s brief for AIG’ s new South African offices was to create a working environment that follows the international corporate standards for the company.
Site and Fit Out The site consists of 4,600m ² split over 1st and 2nd floor in a 5-floor building. The building was in use during the entire fit-out, with site access limited to one fire escape route – rubble was removed on a weekly basis. Noisy work was limited to certain times only due to considerations for the activities of other tenants in the building. Existing access flooring was modified to suit the client’ s acoustic requirements. Loads on the existing access flooring presented some challenges with regard to the UPS, server room, CRAC HVAC units and racks etc and the Tétris team worked closely with consultants to overcome the limitations of the building’ s slab. Creative solutions and out of the box thinking were required. For example, Rivonia Road was closed one Saturday morning to get cranes onto site.
Design Concept AIG is an international client with international standards, which requires a lot of work to meet their requirements. Engineers, consultants and suppliers were required to comply with strict specifications and international standards.
Tetris designed the workplace with their new global standards in mind, making the new offices part of their global real estate strategy. The Tetris team worked closely with AIG’ s global corporate real estate strategy, transactions & projects team.
The client wanted a new way of working- namely Neighbourhood Working. This is a concept where each employee can sit anywhere within their departmental neighbourhood, but not in other neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods are linked by collaborative spaces with screens and plug and play functionality. In the open plan workspace, there is a 10m long whiteboard: a collaborative working white wall used for brainstorming.
The client wanted smaller, private meeting rooms, which offset the open plan seating. Various collaboration areas with incorporated technology were created to meet that brief.
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