For Pacific Brands Underwear Group’s new Burwood HQ, designed by Valmont, integrating the company’s business philosophy into the space was crucial. It needed to improve creative capacity, while also nodding to the brand’s history.
Originally based in a large Wentworthville warehouse, Pacific Brands Underwear Group (PBUG) brief for the new Burwood office called for a space that “retained strong links to the PBUG history,” says Mardi Christian, Interior Designer at Valmont, as well as being conducive to creativity.
“The brief dictated the new fit out should give a firm nod to their former workplace with a refined industrial look, while enhancing the ability to create, to think outside the square and to innovate,” notes Christian. “The fit out also needed to support their LEAN business methodology, providing PBUG with an environment that encouraged interaction and collaboration.”
To achieve this, Valmont’s design incorporated an exposed ceiling and polished concrete, to provide an industrial feel and to reference PBUG’s former warehouse base. Display cases “showcasing some of PBUG’s archive of brand development, using advertisements through the years” further incorporates a sense of history, as does the iconic stitch detail at the heart of PBUG’s pieces that is woven throughout the fit out, featuring in floor paint and glass graphics.
Along with nodding to the past, the design needed to cater to flexibility. Fabric samples and garments come in continuously, and are “constantly on rotation because of the seasonality of the ranges”. A neutral palette was chosen so as “to showcase (and not clash with) fabric samples and garments”, says Christian.
Naturally, a company housing Bonds, Berlei, Jockey and Baby Bonds, storage is important. “The requirements for all the brands included not only large amounts of hanging space, but also storage of smaller items such as fabric swatches, buttons and an array of elastics in numerous colours and sizes. We also needed to accommodate for the storage and display of all current and past season items,” says Christian. This is where the rolling storage from CSM became the perfect solution.
The office floor provides endless storage options for samples and fabrics, with peg boards, retail racking, docking stations and a seamstress storage facility all custom-made and cut to PBUG’s specifications by CSM. Height-adjustable workstations are also integrated to make tasks such as measuring, pattern-making, garment modification and fabric testing much easier.
Because CSM offers products “that allowed for complete customisation” and enabled the designers to offer their client products that “were not only flexible to their ever changing storage requirements but also incredibly durable”, it was an ideal supplier-designer fit. “The team at CSM were great to work with,” says Christian, “and both Valmont and PBUG were more than happy with all the finished products.
Valmont
valmont.com.au
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