You.i TV, a growing Kanata high-tech company looking to prioritize workplace culture and personnel happiness, needed a bigger office to accommodate their 200+ employees. You.i TV invested significant effort engaging its staff about their needs and vision for their workspace. In conjunction with these findings, RMA+SH architects conducted a feasibility and technical fit study, and interpreted their environment culture to provide a space that would accommodate growth.

Two entrances ease the horizontal circulation by discreetly separating customer and employee access – the latter is close to a bike rack and a multi-functional cafeteria/game/meeting area. A variety of meeting spaces is necessary for a mobile, agile, technology-enabled and highly collaborative workplace.

The playful, bright and airy spaces are creatively and purposefully designed to emphasize view corridors and connectivity. Design elements throughout serve dual functions, such as the hanging red felt screen that separates the lobby from a ground-level work area. The red accent speaks to You.i TV’s branding, while the retractable hanging screen serves to muffle sound.

Typical off-the-shelf materials like common plywood, steel mesh, and polished concrete were mounted in refined settings. Vertical plywood strip screens both delineate and connect spaces on both sides. Elements of branding are subtly incorporated in architectural details, including red diagonal stripes and hexagons. You.i TV’s irregular hexagonal logo is subtly reflected throughout the building, from the soft upwards angle on the wood slats separating a meeting space from the office floor, to the bright red lines above the second-floor boardroom.