BYRÅN 1&2
LOCATION
HALMSTAD, SWEDEN
STATUS
COMPLETED
YEAR
1999
SIZE
800 m2
PROGRAM
AD AGENCY
PHOTO
LEO GULLBRING
The departure point of the project was a redesigning parts of the town market hall in Halmstad. The aim was to transform certain unused areas in the market hall to mixed commercial space: two shops on the ground floor and an ad agency on the first floor. The facade material brick, the interior surfaces is covered with light-coloured masonry and the roof with arched planks and characteristic construction elements of iron with a red-lead coating. The client wanted the furnishings in the ad agency to be visible from the main street, giving the building a certain image.
Another goal was to achieve an apparent expansion of the space within, by creating a sense of ready communication between the agency and the town outside. The open office landscape of the agency facilitiated a three-dimensional treatment of the volume, as though to do away with the borders between activities out in the street and those in the ad agency. Activities or functions of various types within - such as implied by the conference room, the staff room, the bathroom, the coat room, the copying room, the reception, and the space where the server is kept - serve as communicative elements.
The nature and placement of these elements is aimed at facilitating communication in three dimensions, as though equating activities at the ad agency with urban life generally. The location of the elements in question and of the furniture found there, created an environment of creative chaos, one that stimulates, inspires and motivates those engaged in the agency's activities.