As office life and the development landscape as we know it continues to shift post-pandemic, one global architecture firm is investing in a key strategic hire to oversee interior transformations that adapt to the new hybrid working lifestyles seen across the UK and Europe.
CallisonRTKL (CRTKL), the global architecture, planning and design practice, has ended the year on a high by appointing award-winning interiors specialist, Stuart Oldridge as a Principal.
Stuart Oldridge, who joins from TTSP where he was Projects Director, is most known for his work on London’s sharpest building, The Scalpel, for client SAP. He brings nearly 30 years’ worth of experience to the practice having shaped workspaces for companies such as Deutsche Bank, Aviva, Net-a-Porter and several other well-known technology companies across the UK and Europe. During his career, he has built strong relationships with the biggest names in corporate office space to interpret their working ethos and how that gets translated into their working spaces.
Complementing the firm’s existing leadership team, Stuart’s expertise will also be integral to the firm’s holistic approach to interiors across all mixed-use development projects. Many investors and developers are now seeking to generate value by creating blended use buildings or repositioning, recycling and refurbishing existing stock to meet the requirements of a post-pandemic world.
With workplace high on the agenda as companies look at how best to rebuild their spaces in order to bring back human connections and collaboration, while at the same time attracting and retaining the best talent; Stuart’s wealth of knowledge and expertise will be key to build on clients’ cultural values, designing premium spaces that instil a cultural identity for staff and a sense of belonging.
At CRTKL, Stuart will be working closely with the firm’s EMEA leadership team led by Principal Todd Lundgren, to oversee the practice’s London workplace portfolio and grow its regional presence in Manchester and other cities. With the transformation of the architectural firm’s own London office into a living lab, Stuart will work holistically with the rest of the team to test fit new workplace strategies and technologies to inform new hybrid ways of working.
Todd Lundgren, CRTKL Principal, comments: “With the work environment continuously evolving, Stuart’s appointment will help us navigate the changing ways in which our clients want to design spaces for working.
“Stuart’s strong creative interiors focus along with his expertise across a myriad of other practices from residential to retail will bolster that forward thinking to create hybrid environments and build on the premium offering with both commercial architecture and designing for human experience in mind.”
Stuart Oldridge, Principal CRTKL, comments: “CRTKL’s holistic approach resonates with the times we find ourselves in and my own design philosophy of informality. We have seen the demise of the commodity office and today there is no one size fits all approach. Companies need to go back to basics and ask how they get the best out of their people from the spaces they work in. Informality will be favoured, with casual kitchens, social hubs and outdoor spaces for employees to connect, catch-up, and meaningfully engage with one another.
“We have seen the move away from having swings and slides in offices – a disruptive move in the workplace market made by the knee jerk reaction of Silicon Valley firms to their ‘we’re not corporate’ ethos. Everyone is growing up. We’re beginning to think about space that is more welcoming, offers choice and places that are flexible enough they allow our diversity of talent to come out and benefit our organisations.
“This exciting next step in my career, will focus on seamless collaboration with designers from other disciplines, to reflect the hybrid way we work and live, as the boundaries between residential, hospitality and the workplace intertwine.
“Employees expect more as behaviours and mind-sets have changed forever, so workplace interiors must reflect this. Driven by sustainability, design will focus on repositioning, recycling and refurbishing office space towards a more service-orientated offering, with human connection at its heart. The result will be a more authentic workspace that attracts and retains talent in the new hybrid model.”