Guinness Hermitage

Size: 4,000 sq.ft
Location: Plymouth

Interaction are pleased to announce the completion of the design and fit-out for the new offices of Guinness Hermitage in Plymouth. One of the largest affordable housing and care providers in the country, the Guinness Partnership comprises of three regional housing companies. This project was for the South West division called, the ‘Guinness Hermitage’ which provides services for over 15,000 households from Gloucester to Penzance.

Because of the vast quantity of physical space required for client information, their current office in Plymouth was at capacity; subsequently they acquired a 10 year lease on larger premises in a new building within the same office park. The new 2 floor, 4,000 sq ft space would allow the Guinness Hermitage to increase their levels of staff from 19 to 32 people and keep up with the ever growing storage space requirements.

After putting the job out to tender, Interaction were selected as the successful applicants to provide the commercial design and fit out of the new space. Because of tight control parameters, the job was turned around rapidly, with a time on site lasting just 4 weeks. The Hermitage’s brand was a strong asset and the brand scheme was applied across both floors, giving the open plan office environment a unified and light feeling.

A significant feature of the office interior was its security. With accessible areas for client meetings and talks requiring the ability to be accessed from secure points, the workplace design was complex. Coupled with space requirements for large areas of securely housed files, it was decided to provide a series of Ralex roller storage units, each providing 3Lm of space, which helped to increase capacity to around 14,000,000 cubic litres of space between both floors.

There were several themes featuring throughout the build, the first was a dual purpose use, so that client meetings and business meetings could be held in versatile office space. Another feature was the installation of remote working and conferencing facilities to help the organisation meet its own stringent green criterion.

Click here to see a video of what we did.