Background
When the pandemic reached its final stages in 2022 the decision to move the spread out PLA functions in India to one big office in Bangalore began to take action. The existing small PLASA (purchase and logistics south east asia) office in Bangalore invited us over to India to create both a new concept and office that would combine everything already well proved and tested in the typical IKEA office with new ways of working in a post-pandemic world. We proved that it’s possible to perform our work from a distance which leads the way of working into a new hybrid model where some work will be done in the office and some may not. To bring people back to the office it’s important to offer something that cannot be found at home. It can be the effect of coming together, higher ergonomic standards or the possibility to work focused. With this in mind we needed to ensure that working in the office gives the co-workers the best tools and options they need to perform in their best possible way. Innovation, togetherness and wellbeing naturally became keywords for the project.
Result
The PLASA office is a color explosion! The concept is unique in the beautiful mixture of Indian patterns, textiles, strong colors and culture together with Scandinavian structure and simplicity along with other important IKEA values like togetherness and modesty. We took what IKEA does best – Scandinavian design and home furnishing feeling and sprinkled some really colorful Indian textiles on top of it which makes the office and its first impression really vibrant.
The overall space is mostly open and the office doesn’t consist of that many fixed walls which makes the space easy to change according to new needs. Usually when designing offices the meeting rooms and walls would be placed in the center of the office to have a core where no natural light reaches but this layout is different. Here the walls and rooms are placed at the end of the space where we have no natural light and the core is open and flowing with natural light. We also have a connection to INKA on the lower floor that we kept transparent to symbolise “one IKEA”.
Flexibility in this new more innovative way of working is key and there’s easy access to collaboration and creation all across the office. Areas that used to be just for drinking coffee or having lunch are now given places to work on your own or in groups. The meetings left the meeting room a long time ago and are now taken both openly or semi-openly. For the meeting rooms we do have, we have kept them much smaller since our meeting culture has changed. We also kept the amount of meeting rooms to a minimum to make room for other areas that better support our needs in the office in a post-pandemic world.
