As workplace design specialists, Concept CI wanted their new Sydney headquarters to deliver an agile working environment for their team and serve as a practical case study of their craft, reflecting the way one workspace can be calibrated to seamlessly house diverse modes of work. Four hero Klaro Industrial Design pieces significantly shape the outcome. Collectively, they offer practical appeal by allowing employees to effortlessly switch from one mode of working to another, while customised finishes and detailing integrate them into Concept CI’s design vision.
Klaro Industrial Design specialises in workplace furniture with an emphasis on sustainable materiality. Elevating Australian design, seventy percent of products are locally made. Their in-house team brings together the practices of sculpture, industrial design and environmental engineering to deliver hard-working pieces that promote ease in commercial settings.
For their Sydney headquarters, Concept CI sought an inspiring studio space that would meet the shifting needs of its team throughout the day. An initial consultation and strategy session, run by Concept CI workplace strategist Ivy Li, helped define the specific working requirements of Concept CI’s team and the basis for the design. As Concept CI design associate Samvit Bhanot describes, “Different workplace typologies were intentionally integrated in response to insights identified through an internal workplace strategy session, ensuring each team was supported with settings tailored to their ways of working.”
Furniture was key to creating the medley of settings identified in the workplace strategy session, broadening the work typologies available to employees. Concept CI collaborated with the Klaro team to identify which Klaro products could support these ways of working, and to determine how Klaro’s off-the-shelf systems could be tailored through custom detailing and dimensions that complement the overall design vision.
Four Klaro products work to define the purpose of each of the studio’s spaces and maintain versatility at an individual employee level. The COLUMN h/a CLOVER is a height-adjustable team-creator that combines three to four workstations into one circular configuration. With a central planter and sit-to-stand functionality, it allows team members to alter their workstation to their preferred height, while maintaining a circular formation that is conductive to collaboration. For Concept CI, Klaro’s CLOVER was specified with Laminex’s Outback Clay tops, Paperbark powder-coated bases and a TRAX_Lite softwiring system with matching cable management socks.
An ergonomic hero of the project, COLUMN h/a is a height-adjustable workstation that can be specified as a single desk or to cluster up to eight employees, while retaining individual sit-to-stand adaptability. As such, it lends itself to becoming an employee’s home base, where they can tailor the workstation to fit their needs and settle into deep thinking. For Concept CI’s headquarters, COLUMN h/a was finished with 25mm Laminex Moleskin Flint tops and matching square ABS edging, alongside Dulux Paperbark powder-coated bases.
Locally manufactured to order with customisable arm lengths, FATI hanging cachepots were installed to provide gentle visual thresholds between the workstations and social kitchen zone. Finished in Dulux Paperbark powder coat, they are affixed to the ceiling, merging into the architecture while saving floor space. As a result, cascading Pothos leaves provide an uplifting green veil.
Taking cues from hospitality design, the kitchen’s materiality makes it a drawcard for informal meetings. Here, the CONUS h/a, height-adjustable table adds an additional layer of flexibility to the shared zone, supporting brief standing discussions as well as seated meetings and dining. Its refined lines complement the kitchen island’s natural stone benchtop. Uniting it within the material palette, the CONUS h/a has been customised with a 25mm Laminex Platypus Flint top and a Dulux Hammersley Brown powder-coated base. Each Klaro product contributes to the interior tone, mediating the studio’s spaces between focus and collaboration, while the targeted customisation fuses them into Concept CI’s visual language without losing Klaro’s signature forms.
The collaboration demonstrates that beyond functional capability to support a flexible workplace, Klaro’s pieces have a chameleon-like quality where customisation allows them to elevate diverse design visions. As Bhanot reflects, “Together, the pieces create a workplace that is both functional and expressive.”
Photography by: Antonella Santos
Klaro Industrial Design
klarodesign.com.au
