Award-winning design studio, Graven, has completed the rebranding of Enterprise North East Trust and design of a £1 million state-of-the-art facility for the Aberdeen-based organisation that delivers Business Gateway services in Grampian and Tayside.
Graven created the brand name ‘Elevator’, and accompanying visual and environmental brand and associated implementation guidelines, for Enterprise North East Trust, which incorporates Aberdeen Centre for Entrepreneurship, The Prince’s Trust Youth Business Scotland programmes and an accelerator programme. The brand name ‘Elevator’ was selected to represent the aspirations, potential and connected, forward-thinking character of the organisation and the people associated with it.
Graven created an exciting, original and flexible working space that is home to 28 Enterprise and Business Gateway staff plus vibrant working areas for accelerator businesses. The facility was originally a typical, bland ‘shoe box’ style office with carpet, ceiling tiles and fluorescent lighting. Graven transformed it into a dynamic interior with a wedge-shaped central structure containing shared meeting spaces and equipment. The carpet was replaced with a mixture of rubber and woven polyester, and ceiling services were revealed to create height and volume.
The materials palette includes folded aluminium cladding and anechoic foam with painted and upholstered seating and storage elements. At one end of the space, a circular mini-amphitheatre provides an exciting, informal space for presentations and meetings.
Flexibility was key in the conception of the accelerator space, with users encouraged to arrange furniture to suit the changing requirements of each team and maximise the wide range of different technologies, types of space and digital tools available.
As an international centre for excellence in entrepreneurship, the facility will be animated by a variety of innovative start-up businesses and will be connected to 55 leading accelerator programmes worldwide.
Ross Hunter, Managing Director of Graven, said: “Elevator was a fantastic project to work on. Many of the people are developing dynamic ideas or supporting highly creative and innovative businesses, and we wanted to create an inspirational and cutting-edge space to support them and give them confidence to aim high. We introduced a stimulating palette of materials and colours to create energy and provided a range of different types of environment. We developed innovative shared areas and created controlled views to give the right balance of privacy and team cohesion.
“The new brand name is simple and relevant and represents the values of the businesses working there – they are energetic, aspirational, creative and determined to succeed.”
Enterprise Chief Executive, Gary McEwan, said: “The vision to create a world class ‘Centre for Entrepreneurship’ came from taking the best ideas from around the globe and creating something unique in Scotland. The vision set, we needed to combine countless important factors to deliver a truly inspiring place that would take the best new entrepreneurs and help them create global businesses.
"Graven blew us away with their enthusiasm and creativity and delivered us a design that surpassed everything seen from Barcelona to Boston to San Francisco. We had ambition and Graven exceeded our ambition and gave us, simply the world class Centre for Entrepreneurship we wanted. Graven was the best decision we made.”
The design was delivered by main contractor Space Solutions.
