Betclic

Located in the heart of one of Malta’s bustling towns, Sliema, the offices were large but in need of an upgrade. Upgrades are quite different to having a clean slate to work with. It means as architects we need to work around existing infrastructure – lighting, power and network supplies, doors and access points. It means you don’t have the luxury of designing entirely the way you envision the space, but must adapt your creativity to work in harmony with what is already there. A challenge, but not impossible.

With a staff complement of 180 people, from different countries spread across multiple departments and on three levels, another challenge was working around them so that the offices could continue to operate with minimal impact from our work. A solution to this was to treat each floor separately and work our way through them till all three would be completed.

Just under 200 people. From creative to support teams and admin to finance departments, you have to consider how these people need to interact, how their workday flows – what motivates them or even hinders them from doing what they do best. Our starting point is always the people. It’s from them that you understand a company’s internal synergy, which provides the inspiration for design and function.

We also had to consider a relatively tight budget and how we could maximise what we wanted to achieve within it.

As this wasn’t a new build, we spent a huge amount of time mapping out the existing infrastructure. Every light, every plug, every telephone or network connection, marked, mapped and drawn with precise detail.

With this data in hand, we closed our books and let our imagination, experience and creative expertise take over.

During our initial discovery phase, where we sit with our client and various members of their team to understand their history, day-to-day operations and ambitions for the future, one particular statement from the COO Julien Brun stood out.

‘Sport is in our DNA.’

A statement that ignited the design and concept journey. How do you translate a brand that lives and breathes sports into physical space? Is it just through a couple of prints? Or is it more than that?

Considering the challenges we faced; offices that needed to continue functioning, specific budgets to stay within and an infrastructure which could not be rethought.  

The answer was to break it down into the basics of what sport is at its core.

Teams. Shared ambitions. A winning spirit. Passion. Incredible skill. Determination. Space to think. Space to train. Space to teambuild. And a leader deciding the strategy. 

The management team felt that the brand had entered a new stage. One where its leadership was more visible. Its success more obvious. Its energy more tangible and palpable. Having been in the building for 10 years already, space has a natural way of evolving into tiredness if it’s not maintained or kept up to date. And that in turn can feed into a brand. What we ascertained is that there was a new energy in play. And our role was to capture the brand’s new ambition and inject the space with its dynamic. Betclic deserved space that was as energised as its vision.

When it came to the spatial planning we knew we didn’t want walls to close the teams in and with the limitations on natural light in the building, not closing off rooms made the most sense. It was important to bring more modern design concepts into the space as well such as noise reduction, privacy for teams that required it and biophilic design. The latter is something we would say is in our brands DNA, the joy and positive impact that nature brings into space is indisputable.

Ever conscious of the budget, we turned the standard process of office design, where the budget is spread equally across each sqm – on its head. We wanted flow, we wanted paths. We wanted to define the indefinable – the space we decided to call – ‘the inbetween’. A natural pathway that not just moved people through the office, but guided them through the brand’s DNA. This became the heart of our design ambition.

We came across this fantastic interior detailing company called StudioLuca when looking for partners to team up with. Their creativity matched perfectly with our vision and together we worked on how the DNA could be visible in every turn. StudioLuca do not just deliver concepts, they deliver the goods as well taking the idea from its formation to fruition. 

This wasn’t just about wall prints or stickers, it was every aspect of sport in physical form. 

The ‘in-between’ as we called it became the pathway running through the body of the brand and floors.

Why have room dividers when you can have a custom laser cut piece that takes the pattern of a net when hit by a ball? Why have a logo on a wall, when each letter of that logo could be printed on table tennis bats? Why have sports photos on the wall when your team scarves branded with Betclic colours could be hung from the walls? Prints of a deck of cards on the walls or interactive artwork where you become the King or Queen of Diamonds, with just a simple cleverly positioned mirror. Why divide space with basic lockers, when those lockers and closets could take on the names and numbers of sporting heroes? Why not choose your own poker hand with a ‘spin the wheel’ feature to help keep your mind on the game?

Working together we brought a series of fresh interpretations of what sport is all about to the playing field, with an incredibly strong connection between games and the brand. 

One of the most iconic creations was a DNA strand made up of small foosball players. It’s incredibly intricate, interesting and a talking piece for staff and visitors alike.

Touches of green foliage, the incorporation of wood, selective choices of furniture and a play on the brand colours finished the space beautifully.

A must for this client was the creation of a flexible space where the company could once again hold internal events. We brought in stackable furniture to help them create a space that could be designed by them depending on the event they were planning. Little details like the provision of trollies to help move furniture more easily might be overlooked, but not by our team. Space has to be functional. Used. Enjoyed. So you have to provide your clients with the tools to make that happen.

Great architectural projects are not dissimilar to team based sports. You need a team to work together to win. 

Several companies worked together on this project, each bringing their own expertise, suppliers, contractors and sub project managers to the table. This included IB Projects who handled the quality assurance and M&E and Galea Curmi on engineering, to Gaston on the Fire Safety side and overall project management by iManage. Our team were the liaison for all parties, acting as a central point of contact and, where needed, making key decisions. Ongoing communication meant we never lost sight of the end game and worked together to achieve what at the time felt like an overwhelming task.

The ambition was to start and finish each floor within a 12 week timeframe, with staff moving to other floors while we worked. Due to working around existing infrastructure and very strict guidance from the fire and safety team, it was a huge task to oversee, but everyone involved worked round the clock to make it happen. This is not to mention the limitations set by Covid on how many people could be on site at any one time, or people in quarantine and having to clean and disinfect after all works were completed. 

At times budgets were stretched to the max or had to be shifted to new requests, so we had to forgo some features we originally wanted to include. But this can happen on any project, especially ones where we have to respect so many pre existing engineering limitations. 

There is a relationship between great design and team sports. Leading the team of specialists to deliver this project proved that.

A business has a lifecycle. A team has its highs and lows.

But with the right people, led by the right company and with the right strategy and vision – everyone wins.