OFFICE DESIGN PERTH

 

The office is no longer a place to do work. It is a demonstration of what the business stands for.

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The corporate office has changed more in the last five years than in the previous fifty. Hybrid working has reshaped how many people are in the building on any given day, how often, and for what. The old model — rows of desks sized to seat every employee five days a week — no longer fits how teams actually operate.

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What has not changed is the importance of the office itself. If anything, it matters more. With fewer days spent in the building, the days people do come in need to be worth the trip. And every time a client, a new hire, a consultant or a partner walks through the front door, the office is doing the work of explaining who the business is and how it operates — usually within the first thirty seconds, often before anyone has said a word.

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EEKOS designs offices across Perth and Western Australia for businesses that have realised the office is now culture, brand and operations rolled into one piece of architecture. We are registered architects and registered builders, which means cost feasibility, constructability and program are part of the design conversation from the start.

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WHAT'S CHANGED

AND WHAT THAT MEANS FOR THE BUILDING

 

A few patterns are now well established in the Perth corporate market:

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• The office can be smaller than it used to be. With three days a week the norm for many businesses, the old desk-per-person model produces too much underused space, too much rent, too much cleaning, too much air-conditioning. A well-designed office for a hybrid team is often twenty to forty per cent smaller than the same business would have leased in 2019.

• But it needs to be better than it used to be. Smaller does not mean lesser. The reduced footprint has to do more work. Every square metre needs to earn its place by supporting either collaboration, focus, hospitality or culture — ideally more than one of those.

• The office is now a recruitment and retention tool. When working from home is an option, the office competes against the kitchen table. The office wins when it offers something the home cannot — better tools, better people, better light, better coffee, better space to think, better space to collaborate, better space to be part of something.

• The office is now a brand asset. Clients, candidates and partners read the office the same way they read a website. A tired fit-out signals a tired business. A thoughtful fit-out signals a business that pays attention to detail in everything it does. This is not vanity — it is direct commercial signalling.

• The office is now a cultural document. It tells your people what you value. Quiet over noise, or noise over quiet. Hierarchy or flat. Formal or relaxed. Generous or careful. Open or private. Every one of those decisions shows up in the plan, the materials, the joinery and the light.

 

A well-designed office answers all of this in three dimensions, in a way that no all-hands email ever will.

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CULTURE IS THE BRIEF

 

The single most important question we ask in the first meeting is not "how many desks do you need" or "what is the budget". It is "what is the culture of the business, and how do you want the office to express it".

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Every client answers this differently. A law firm that prides itself on careful, considered advice is not the same as a tech company that prides itself on fast iteration. A consultancy that runs intensive client workshops is not the same as a back-office finance team that needs deep focus. A creative studio is not the same as a professional services firm. The mistake we see most often is offices that have been designed without that question being asked at all — generic open plan, generic meeting rooms, generic break-out, generic everything. The result is a building that does not feel like anyone in particular, which is the same as not having a culture at all.

 

When the cultural brief is clear, the design follows logically. The right balance of open and cellular. The right level of amenity. The right material palette. The right relationship between front of house and back of house. The right places to gather, the right places to retreat, the right places to host a client.

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THE BALANCE BETWEEN

OPEN-PLAN AND CELLULAR

 

This is one of the most important decisions in any office fit-out, and one of the most commonly mishandled.

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Pure open-plan offices are good for visibility, collaboration and energy. They are bad for focus, confidential conversations and the kind of deep thinking that complex work requires. Pure cellular offices are the opposite — good for focus and privacy, poor for collaboration, energy and the cross-pollination that makes teams more than the sum of their parts.

 

Every business sits somewhere on that spectrum and the right answer depends on the work. The questions we work through with clients include:

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• How much of the work is collaborative versus heads-down?

• How often are confidential conversations needed, and by whom?

• Do client meetings happen in the office, and at what level of formality?

• Is video conferencing a daily activity, an occasional one, or constant?

• Do leaders need private offices for the work they do, or is private space better deployed as bookable focus rooms shared by everyone?

• What is the acoustic environment people need to do their best work?

 

The answers shape the plan. Most well-designed contemporary offices end up as a layered environment — open collaboration zones, partially enclosed team areas, fully enclosed focus rooms and meeting rooms, a hospitality-grade client zone, and quiet rooms or phone booths sprinkled where they are needed. Done well, the layering is invisible. People simply find themselves working in the right space for the task at hand without thinking about it.

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THE FRONT DOOR

WHAT VISITORS, CLIENTS AND NEW HIRES READ IN THE FIRST THIRTY SECONDS

 

The arrival sequence of an office is the single highest-leverage area in the entire fit-out. It is where every new client, candidate, consultant and partner forms their first impression. Getting it right is design work that pays back in business won.

 

The questions worth thinking about:

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• What do you want a first-time visitor to feel as they step through the front door?

• Is the reception staffed, hosted by a hot-desk arrangement, or self-service via a tablet?

• Where do visitors wait — and is that space designed for them, or is it the leftover bit of corridor?

• Can the visitor see into the working office, or is it screened off?

• How does the visitor experience reflect what the business actually does?

• Is the boardroom or main client meeting space close to the entry, or buried in the back?

• What does the coffee, the light, the seating, the artwork and the joinery say about how the business treats its clients?

 

We design the arrival sequence as a small piece of hospitality architecture. The same principles that make a good restaurant feel right when you walk in — hosted welcome, considered light, comfortable seating, generous gesture, no awkward standing-around — apply directly to a corporate front of house. A client should leave feeling looked after before the meeting has started.

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AMENITY THAT MATCHES THE CULTURE

 

Amenity is the most direct way an office signals what the business values. Every business needs to decide what it offers, at what standard, and why.

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• The tea point or kitchen. Is it a quick coffee station, a proper cafe-grade setup, or a full social hub designed for staff to gather and eat together? The answer says everything about how social the culture is.

• End-of-trip facilities. Showers, bike storage, lockers. Critical for inner-city offices, increasingly expected by younger staff and important for retention.

• Wellness and quiet space. Parents rooms, prayer rooms, quiet rooms, first-aid spaces. A small commitment in floor area, a large commitment in signal.

• Outdoor space. A terrace, a courtyard or even good operable windows to the outside changes how the office feels in a way that internal-only space never can.

• Event and town hall space. The ability to host the whole company for an all-hands, a client launch or a partner event, without renting an external venue.

• Tech and AV. The boring infrastructure that makes hybrid meetings work properly. Most offices underinvest here and pay for it every day.

 

There is no single right answer. The right answer is whatever genuinely supports the culture you are trying to build, delivered to a standard that matches the rest of the business.

 

ADAPTIVE REUSE FOR OFFICES

 

Some of the most distinctive offices in Perth sit inside buildings that were never originally offices. Old warehouses, banks, halls, retail tenancies and heritage buildings. Adaptive reuse is not just a hospitality strategy — it works just as well for corporate fit-outs, and often better, because the building does design work for you. Character, proportion, structure and patina that a generic A-grade tower cannot produce at any price.

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We have worked on a range of adaptive reuse projects — including The Rose Hotel, Freo.Social and Midland Saleyards — and the same approach scales down to a single tenancy in an older Perth building. If the business has a culture that values craft, history and a distinctive sense of place, an adaptive reuse office often does more cultural work than a fit-out in a newer building ever could.

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REGISTERED BUILDERS

AS WELL AS REGISTERED ARCHITECTS

 

For office fit-outs, the budget is usually fixed, the program is usually tight, and the business is paying rent on the space whether or not it is occupied. The cost of getting the design and the build wrong is high.

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Because EEKOS is also a registered builder, the design conversation includes things most architectural practices cannot offer:

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• Early, realistic cost feasibility. A high-level cost range based on the actual space, the actual scope and current trade rates, in the first meeting where possible.

• Direct trade input. Pricing, methodology and lead-time advice from the trades we work with every day on construction projects.

• Constructability built in. Details are designed knowing how they will actually be built, by who, in what sequence and at what price. Fewer RFIs, fewer variations, fewer surprises at lock-up.

• A pathway through to construction if the business wants it. The same team that designed the office can build it, or hand it cleanly to a builder of the business's choice.

 

The pattern we see is that businesses who get a realistic cost picture early make better decisions about scope, lease size and timing — and end up with a better office for the same money than businesses who design first and price last.

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OUR THREE-STEP PROCESS

APPLIED TO OFFICE DESIGN

 

Each step is separately quoted and agreed before the next begins. The business stays in control of cost, scope and direction at every stage.

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STEP ONE

INITIAL PAID SITE MEETING + RETURN BRIEF

 

We meet you at the existing office or proposed tenancy. We walk the space, talk about the business, the culture, the team, the visitors, the way work actually happens, and what is and is not working in the current setup.

This stage typically includes:

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• A meeting on site with you and the key decision-makers.

• Review of the existing building, services, structure and tenancy conditions.

• Discussion of culture, headcount, hybrid working patterns, growth expectations, visitor frequency and operational needs.

• Early consideration of the open-plan to cellular balance, amenity standard, front of house experience and brand expression.

• Early identification of likely BCA, base-building, make-good, services and access compliance issues.

• A high-level cost feasibility indication drawing on our experience as registered builders.

• A written summary of our understanding of the project.

 

Outcome: A clear return brief and pathway forward. You own this document. You can take it to a landlord, to your board, to multiple builders for pricing, or back to us for Step Two.

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STEP TWO

CONCEPT DESIGN

 

Once the return brief is agreed, we develop the brief into a coherent design response. Test fits, planning options, the feel of the rooms, the front of house experience, the cultural expression.

 

This stage may include:

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• Concept plans and test fits showing how the business can sit in the space.

• Options for the open-plan to cellular balance, calibrated against the brief.

• Material and finishes direction tuned to the building and the brand.

• Front of house, meeting suite, work-zone, amenity and back of house strategy.

• Acoustic and lighting strategy at concept level.

• Updated cost feasibility based on the chosen direction.

• Coordination with base-building, services, building surveying, engineering and other consultants as required.

 

Outcome: A concept design the business believes in, that the space can support, and that has a realistic cost and program attached.

 

STEP THREE

DESIGN, APPROVALS + DOCUMENTATION

 

The scope is tailored to the project. Some businesses need a full documentation and contract administration service through to occupancy. Others need approval drawings and a clean tender set to take to multiple builders.

 

This stage may include:

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• Design development across architecture, interiors, joinery and finishes.

• Coordination with services, AV, IT, acoustics, lighting and structural consultants.

• Building Permit documentation.

• Detailed construction documentation and specifications.

• Tender support, contract administration, inspections and handover, or a clean handover to the builder of the business's choice.

 

Outcome: Documentation tailored to how the business wants to procure the works.

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CHOOSING THE RIGHT BUILDER

FOR AN OFFICE FIT-OUT

 

When EEKOS is the designer rather than the builder, the business has the freedom to shop the design to multiple builders on equal terms. For office fit-outs this is particularly valuable because the differences between builders show up quickly under fit-out conditions.

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• Capacity to deliver to a fixed occupation date. A delayed move-in costs double rent and disrupts the business.

• Fit-out experience. Office fit-outs, especially in occupied buildings, have specific requirements a general commercial builder may not have encountered.

• The supervisor on the ground. Who is running your job day to day? How often will they be on site? Daily presence is the difference between handover on time and handover three weeks late.

• Trade relationships. Joinery, glazing, AV, IT, electrical, partitions, ceilings — fit-outs depend on tight coordination between many trades.

• Communication style. You will be dealing with this builder constantly under pressure. Can you trust them when the program is tight?

 

The three-step pathway gives the business the documents, the cost intelligence and the leverage to make this choice on its terms, before signing.

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OFFICE PROJECT TYPES

WE WORK ON

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• Corporate office fit-outs — new tenancies, refits and relocations.

• Adaptive reuse offices — heritage buildings, warehouses and older tenancies repurposed for contemporary work.

• Headquarters projects — flagship offices for businesses where the building is a primary brand asset.

• Professional services offices — law, accounting, consulting, finance, advisory.

• Creative and tech offices — agencies, studios, software businesses, design practices.

• Hybrid-working refits — reducing or reconfiguring an existing footprint to suit a hybrid team.

• Showroom, gallery and client-facing workplace projects.

 

f you are planning a new office, a relocation, a refit or a smaller footprint suited to hybrid working, the Initial Site Meeting is the lowest-risk way to get a clear, independent read on the project before committing to a lease, a builder, or a documentation package.

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READY TO START?

 

The Initial Site Meeting is where every office project should begin. One meeting, one fee, one document — and a clear picture of what the project actually involves before you commit to anything larger.

 

Book a meeting and Download our free project briefing guides

 

EEKOS — Building. Architecture. Interiors. Placemaking. 951 Beaufort Street, Inglewood WA 6052 • (08) 9271 6091 • www.eekos.com.au Registered Builders and Registered Architects • ABN 77 515 406 945 • ACN 147 020 764