YOU push back the large glass doors and step onto the glistening black floor inside an eight-storey office building at 75 High Street.
For a moment, it seems as though you have the wrong address.
You are greeted by a futuristically chic black interior juxtaposed with a stretched white polygon desk, bright white lights and some amorphously shaped objects.
It looks like a designer showroom. In fact, that is a reasonable conclusion as this is an office designed by architect Colin Seah of Ministry of Design fame.
Everyone has heard of boutique hotels, but boutique offices? Get used to the idea as they are starting to hit Singapore.
Behind this concept is serviced office provider apbcOffices chief executive Tony Chen, who believes demand is growing for creatively designed office space among the grey- and black-suited types.
The launch of the $5 million 75 High Street last month marked the first such serviced office concept in the region, said Mr Chen.
‘We’re passionate about coming up with creative concepts of how office space can be. Lifestyle has come in for a lot of sectors – where you stay, where you play, where you eat – so we dare to ask the market, why not where you work?’ said Mr Chen.
He got the idea for this after staying, quite by chance, at a boutique hotel in France that was run by Club Med.
ApbcOffices is a serviced office provider arm of Timothy Holdings and operates 12 offices in three countries in Asia.
Serviced offices are common in the business districts of large cities, providing a furnished office equipped with a wide range of services, including reception services and administrative support for companies that need a temporary location like start-ups, or firms working on a project basis.
While the serviced office space is saturated with many international and regional players in Singapore, including Servcorp and Regus, they tend to stick to conventional designs as businesses tend to be more conservative, Mr Chen said.
‘A lot of people will be surprised when they come up to our doors, because this doesn’t look like a serviced office, but this is the statement we want to make to the market.
‘The office doesn’t have to be conventional, because a lot of people want to work in a creative environment. It is not only more pleasant to work in, but it will also challenge you to come up with new ideas.’
So far, the office building, which opened last month with 44 rooms, has had an initial take-up rate of 35 per cent, with most clients from the IT and education sectors.
Current customers of the serviced office told The Straits Times they were attracted by the image of a youthful and vibrant workplace that it projected.
‘The designer appeal will give our customers and vendors a ‘wow’ feeling about the way we do business, which will set the tone for our products and services,’ said Mr Vincent Chia, regional director for the Asia-Pacific at Wrench Solutions, a software solutions company.
He said the meeting rooms gave the feeling of ‘entertaining in your own home and meeting in a club’.
Dr Elgin Tan, director of programme development and training at Smart Incubator, an education provider, said the location better reflected the company’s image of ’slighty out-of-the-box and a smarter way of thinking’.
The challenge is to make this concept popular among not just the creative folk, but also the mainstream business community.
‘I think creativity is inside a lot of people. They can be lawyers or business people, but a lot of people have this hidden desire for new things,’ Mr Chen said.
The rates are the same for a serviced office space in Raffles Place, and the company charges between $1,500 and $1,800 per work station – essentially, a fully equipped desk space.
The building also has several different-sized meeting rooms with plush interiors on its basement floor which clients can book to talk deals over coffee, cola or wine.
‘Just like travellers, when they go to resorts, they may want to stay in a boutique hotel because it is an experience,’ Mr Chen said. ‘So, not everyone may want to design their own home like a boutique hotel, but they don’t mind spending five days staying in a boutique hotel.’
Mr Chen admitted that it is a risky venture given the way businesses tend to go for the conservative and conventional.
But he believes that as Singapore grows as a cosmopolitan city, it needs an outlet for the creative sector of the business community.
‘The culture in apbcOffices is that we don’t want to be conventional. We want to give this option to the business community of not just working in a conventional environment.’
His next target is to launch a similar concept in Hong Kong.
Source : Straits Times – 7 Dec 2009
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