ARCO Head Office

Turning office design on its head

When project management and construction specialists Arco Group wanted to revitalise their Whangārei head office, bespoke Urban Forest and Crown carpet tiles from Advance Flooring became the foundation for something genuinely unexpected.

‘The existing space was no longer working for the Arco culture,’ says designer Sarah Langford from Interior Creative. ‘There was wasted space, poor connectivity and flow, and not enough quiet areas. But it also needed more of a hum.’

Sarah turned the layout on its head, moving offices upstairs and bringing the café and boardroom down to the ground floor. ‘The café is multifunctional – a training space too. The whole thing opens up with big operable walls, so it can become an event space when needed.’

Creating custom colours to fit perfectly with the design palette

When developing her design palette, Sarah selected key finishes early. ‘I looked for a criss-crossing grid pattern that would bring a motif and movement throughout. The Urban Forest and Crown carpet tiles supported that feel, along with the other interior finishes.’

Drawn to what she describes as the ‘organic, scribbled-but-linear’ quality of the tiles, Sarah worked with Advance to develop two custom colours that sat more precisely within her palette.

‘We found a couple that were in the right family, and Advance made mock-ups for the project until we got it right. They also overlaid one on my plan to show how it would read across a larger area, which was really useful, because I was mixing two main patterns through the floor.

‘That mix was about the diversity of nature. I didn’t want it to feel too rigid or too linear. I gave rough outlines of where tiles would land, which areas would go darker, which lighter, and kept it a bit fluid. The darker tiles sit near the collaborative zones, the whiteboard spaces, so there’s a subtle focus shift where people gather.’

Showing what vision and imagination can achieve

Office design defaults to safe too often. Sarah’s Arco fitout is a good reminder that it doesn’t have to. The custom-colour Urban Forest and Crown carpet tiles form the foundation of an interior that’s vibrant, considered and nothing like the ordinary.