DOLPHIN HOUSE, CARDIFF
Office design

A new serviced office offer in a large Victorian pub conversion in Cardiff city centre - interior design, FF&E, brand identity, signage & wayfinding.

Brief:

• clean, contemporary, industrial, elegant, design-led, aspirational
• sympathetic to the period building
• elevate the interior design to command a higher rental value

Design solution:

We developed a coherent palette of high quality materials & finishes with a refined industrial feel: black & bronze metal, timber, stone, glazed brick tile, glass, antique mirror, in warm natural colours combined with cool greys. We designed a new brand identity for Dolphin House with an elegant joined up serif monogram combined with a modernist typeface. We established the new identity of the building with external signage and internal wayfinding. We also proposed the external decoration scheme that celebrates the inherited period detailing by picking out the decorative mouldings on the upper storeys.

Retaining the newly exposed double height cobblestone wall in the entrance stairwell, we created a statement welcome with oiled oak plank stairs & flooring, black and bronze ironmongery including door handles, stair rails, historical photographic prints of the local area lit with bronze picture lamps and a large feature wall of bronze glazed brick tiles with an illuminated sign. We used a mix of black metal luminaires to create a unified but dynamic lighting scheme, including long suspended rectangular lights in the offices, suspended track lighting in the stairwell to wash the cobblestone wall, gold lined pendants in the kitchens and a staggered array of gold lined cylindrical pendants extending down through the centre of the internal stairwell.

We retained the exposed steel beams throughout and decorated them and the woodwork with a dark grey to contrast with the light grey walls & carpets. Exposed cable trays and air con units keep the ceilings high and the spaces feeling light. The offices themselves are deliberately neutral in palette to allow tenants’ individual branding and culture to shine through, but the communal spaces including WCs, kitchens, entrance and corridors are carefully designed, with high quality finishes and fittings and lift the everyday experience of working here into something special.