As companies across the UK and Europe look for a new way to retain talent and create more engaging workspaces for their employees post pandemic, one global architecture firm is making further investments to oversee interior transformations.
To further bolster its design-led team of workplace interiors specialists, global architecture, planning and design practice CallisonRTKL (CRTKL) has appointed senior interior designer, Mark Klos to help oversee the changing landscape of office environments as an Associate Principal.
Mark Klos brings over 20 years’ experience in concept driven commercial workplace design and strategy, valuing people, art and the built environment – garnering numerous design awards and publications. He created the interior of the 30th floor of the iconic Walkie Talkie building in London for an American finance firm and has managed commercial workspace for Cisco, Ericsson and Maersk. Mark will be working alongside award-winning principal Stuart Oldridge to transform the firm’s own London office into a Living lab to test new workplace strategies and technologies.
Mark’s rich background across a number of multi-discipline spaces including workspace, hospitality, airports, residential, and art galleries will complement CRTKL’s existing leadership team and its holistic approach to interiors across 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.
Mark Klos, Associate Principal CRTKL, comments: “I have diverse experience across varied design typologies, which can positively inform the workplaces we design. We are creating spaces for a workforce with evolving needs and expectations so we have to be meticulous and innovative in our approach, utilising cross-discipline experience to ensure that occupier needs are met both now and in the future.
“Culture and community are key for the success of offices going forward. They should be dynamic and interesting, to draw staff back and give them pride of place while reinforcing the culture and mission statement of the firm. Office space needs to support employees, nurture them and inspire them.”
From a punching bag room for an aggressive sales team, interactive art installations for stressed finance workers, and a digital wall that when not displaying project spreadsheets offered calming live video footage of whales swimming near the client site, Mark has designed innovative spaces for firms looking for that edge to win over their teams.
Mark adds: “With natural elements being key to wellbeing at work, we will be leveraging technology to ignite flexible working areas where the walls can become forests to create a serene space or looking at how destination design can change the setting of a reception area, depending on who walks in. I am looking forward to working with CRTKL to raise the bar in office design schemes and blur the lines between workplace, hospitality and home.”
Mark will work closely with the CRTKL team on its new Living Lab at the London office, creating a range of different physical spaces and settings enabled by an integrated blend of screens, furniture, finishes, lighting, audio visual and natural elements. The Living Lab will record the evolving patterns and uses for the built environment driven by social, technological and commercial demands.
Stuart Oldridge, Principal at CRTKL, comments: “With the work environment continuously evolving, Mark’s appointment will help us navigate the changing ways in which our clients want to design their spaces. The workplace has begun to reflect other elements of the built environment, shifting corporate spaces away from rows of desks into a place to offer social interaction for both staff and clients. Our job as designers will be to define three types of space – public, invited and private – looking at how those thresholds can be defined and shifted depending on the user.
“Mark’s creative expertise across a myriad of other practices from hospitality to residential will bolster our thinking to create sustainable, hybrid environments and build on our offering with both commercial architecture and designing for human experience in mind.”