June 22, 2006

Grey work stations, yellow strip lighting and tufted desk trolls –– it doesn’t have to be this way. Henrik Most writes about a government office that has flouted all the conventional and boring norms of interior decoration

Come unprepared and you’re in for a shock. Colours run through the Danish Ministry of Culture like candyfloss, creating small zones and maintaining consistency. Enter any area and you find chairs, desk, carpet, postboxes, wastepaper baskets, lamps, hooks –– even curtains for privacy –– in matching colours. Everything is custom designed to make the long approach to the minister’s door at the end of the interior a journey of excitement. And why shouldn’t a government office look like this one does? Especially an office devoted to culture, which should suggest fun and not formality.

Behind the interior design of this dual-purpose space are two determined women: furniture designer Louise Campbell and product designer Marianne Britt Jorgensen. The 120 square metre secretariat, which is both public space and workplace, emphasises a positive state of mind. A contemporary workplace should promote creativity, diversity and flexibility. It should encourage users to share knowledge and laughter. “We wanted to convey the message that the ministry is modern in outlook and unafraid to try something new,” says Jesper Ronnow Simonsen, head of the secretariat.

In refurbishing the environment leading to the minister’s private office, the designers retained the sense of a linear corridor by using the same blue carpeting found in the rest of this listed building. Work stations line one side of the hallway, each immersed in its own bubblegum-tinted atmosphere and separated from its neighbours by curtains hanging from a metal frame. Staff members also use their frame for displaying art.

“I’m often frustrated by having to use things that don’t appeal to me,” says Campbell. “If my computer mouse were heated, it would feel like a friend and less like an enemy. My fascination with how furniture can affect space and people hopefully shines through in my work.”

And it does. Each hue reflects the type of work performed in a given space and corresponds to a certain state of mind. Ice blue represents the cool, clear and collected mindset of secretaries who work for department heads. Burgundy defines the centre of the storm; it’s in this busy-bee cubicle in which the minister’s secretaries have their daily aerobic sessions, before planning a tight schedule of meetings. The pretty-in-pink zone is reserved for a staff of so-called ‘calendar girls’, whose task is to assist the minister no matter what an unexpected event or emergency, may arise. When they need to release excess tension, there’s a punchball dangling in the pink zone for instant stress relief.

The office is filled with cosy details, such as handstitched fabric lampshades. “It’s in the juxtaposition between the abstract and the concrete that things acquire form,” says Campbell. —Dawn/Observer Service

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