When Cummins Generator Technologies moved its global headquarters to a new location in Peterborough, they called upon James Cubitt & Partners architects to transform the empty and dated premises into a lively and productive office environment for its employees.
By installing a wide range of Forbo Flooring Systems’ products, James Cubitt & Partners was able to reflect the company’s heritage, whilst producing a thoroughly modern and invigorating working environment for its employees – which helped the project win the 2014 Fly Forbo competition.
Chere Waddington, Interior Design Director at James Cubitt & Partners commented: “The client’s slogan is the ‘Power of One’ and as Cummins is building a stronger, more unified global brand it gave us the direction to create a professional headquarters that provided collaborative working spaces and meeting areas for its customers and global team meetings.
"We wanted to provide its employees with a bright and fun working environment, which expressed the company’s branding and manufacturing heritage, as well as an environment they would respect and feel proud of. We managed to meet this brief by installing a multitude of products from Forbo’s large portfolio in the company’s brand colours and complementing shades.
“To reflect its heritage of one hundred years’ experience in building electrical machines and to create a striking ‘wow’ feature, we created a red ribbon ‘swoosh’ that is present in the reception area, gliding alongside the grey floor covering and wrapping up the wall, behind the desk and along the ceiling. This continual, free-flowing feature depicts the journey or ‘conveyor belt’ of development and progress that the company’s manufacturing process has made over the decades.”
Forbo’s luxurious Westbond carpet tiles in the vibrant Poppy colour shade were used to create the ‘swoosh’ feature, completely contrasting with the rest of the raw, industrial-looking reception area. Here, Forbo’s Allura Flex in a concrete colourway was specified due to its robust and durable nature befitting areas that are prone to heavy and continual foot traffic. Additionally, in order to keep the interior floor coverings clean and dry, Forbo’s Coral and Nuway entrance flooring systems were installed adjacent to the entrance and exits of the building.
“To fuse the industrial elements of the interior design with the more modern working environment, we wanted to create spaces, zones and breakout areas that would be easily identifiable to various departments, as well as assist in way finding. By colour blocking the areas in single patterns we were able to denote and provide character to these areas, as well as being able to motivate and stimulate staff. We also bled them into the curved walkway to make employees aware that there was an evident change of use or area nearby,” commented Chere.
Forbo’s Tessera Alignment and Tessera Alignment Highlight carpet tiles were specified to generate these zones and breakout areas within the headquarters. The Tessera range works seamlessly well when installed along with Allura Flex – which was installed within the office tea points and kitchen areas in the ash oak and concrete colourways to provide employees with a floor covering that was easy to maintain. What’s more, both the Tessera and Allura Flex ranges can be installed using the same tackifier – resulting in less installation time for contractors.
Chere continued: “With a variety of high quality products and the excellent relationship we have with Forbo, its portfolio offered everything we needed to create an engaging aesthetic that’s thoroughly contemporary in its approach, but with a nod to its history. What’s more, by obtaining floor coverings from one supplier it meant that we could save time and money on the project, as well as provide our client with less maintenance in the future.”
Mr Justin McKay, Global Facilities Leader at Cummins Generator Technologies concluded: “Within the design industry trends and technologies are constantly changing however, thanks to James Cubitt & Partners’ interior design incorporating Forbo’s products, I am positive that the workspace will remain looking modern and invigorating for our employees and customers – even in years to come.”