The building covers 4,300m 2 over three floors, with basement
parking, and a customer-facing ground floor with business lounge
and reception, as well as a staff restaurant. Other features include
a demonstration room for training and product showcases.
“Oracle wanted to create an innovative space for their
employees, modernising the workplace and the manner in which
their teams’ collaborated, so as to ensure they continued to thrive
in a highly-competitive marketplace. Hence a major focus to
create an engaging workplace that not only attracts, but retains,
talented individuals,” Swiegers emphasises.
Trend Group worked closely with Oracle to ensure that a local
artistic and cultural flair was incorporated into the interior design
of the new building. “The fit-out had to create a sense of culture
among the staff in the workspace, embedding the brand, and
contextualising the company’s identity in the space in order to
allow employees to be flexible in the way they wished to work,”
Swiegers stresses. Global desk utilisation studies carried out
by Oracle were used in this regard to ensure the operational
requirements were met.
Hence, the project presented a complex scope, even though it
comprised of a relatively small floor plan. Apart from the client’s
Oracle SA
own global design standards, strict requirements in terms of
acoustics, lighting and the efficiency of the overall building
performance had to be taken into account.
Key to the success of the project was to understand
Oracle’s requirements from the get-go, which then allowed
Trend Group to manage its client’s expectations throughout
the entire process, from foundations to final finishing touches.
In terms of localisation, Oracle’s corporate colour palette
was used for the main visual identity, with the colours of the
South African flag introduced to contextualise the project in its
African setting.
Oracle itself has global agreements with an array of suppliers
that it deploys on all of its projects, which meant that many
elements were sourced internationally and locally from a range
of suppliers namely; Steelcase, Herman Miller, Boss Design,
Orange Box, Humanscale, Sinuous Lines Design, M and F and
Corporate Connection.
Bolon, a Swedish leader in woven vinyl flooring with all
the requisite environmental credibility, was employed for the
restaurant flooring, consisting of tiles made from commercial-
grade recycled PVC, ideal for high-traffic areas.
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