Photography by Jovian Lim (courtesy of Wynk Collaborative)
Top image: The theatre adjacent to the pantry is fitted with the purple-shelled seats (reupholstered) that once graced the Capitol Theatre

It always sounds like an impressive success story: a company begins as a small and humble start-up, outgrows its space within a couple of months and starts looking for a new and larger office. It is a story that one company – online grocery service Honestbee, established in Singapore but now also operating in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan – can relate to. Honestbee grew from a small startup consisting of several key team members to over 120 full-time employees in Singapore in the span of only a year.

The company founders enlisted design studio Wynk Collaborative to revamp a large unit in a former industrial warehouse. It has become a vibrant and functional space that embodies the Honestbee brand and symbiotically supports the company’s culture and its young, energetic staff.

The furniture in the pantry, where staff often bring their laptops, is stackable and easily moved around in the case of an event

While the original office was sized at around 2,000 square feet, the new 12,000-square-foot open-plan warehouse setting offered myriad opportunities to house diverse work areas that could facilitate a variety of working styles. Leong Hon Kit and Si Jian Xin, founders of Wynk Collaborative, were mindful of introducing facilities that would ensure the overall office design was conducive to Honestbee’s company culture. As a result, the design of the office interior, while slightly more corporate and structured than its predecessor, aimed to retain much of the entrepreneurial spirit that made the company possible in the first place.

“We didn’t want to just create a series of themed environments; we wanted to communicate Honestbee’s culture and keep the overall design functional – fun but not kitsch,” says Leong.

For the full story, pick up the upcoming issue of Cubes Indesign (#81), which hits stores in August.

Wynk Collaborative
wynkcollaborative.com

An open plaza area behind the reception is an unprogrammed space that can be used for events and town-hall meetings

From the reception area, visitors can glimpse the workspace beyond a display of the co-founder’s toys

A meeting room enclosure within the main workspace references the sawtooth roofs of factory bulidings

A colourful ‘hive’ of cavernous desk booths grants privacy to staff who work with confidential information