Min­istry of Design for Leo Burnett

Per­spect­ive, Pen­cils and Personality

Words: Michael Barrett

Later on I felt bet­ter about being lost – well, after I vis­ited Wiki­pe­dia, and dis­covered that Treng­ganu Street is some­times referred to as “the Pic­ca­dilly of Chinese Singa­pore”. Didn’t feel much bet­ter about run­ning late, though. Noth­ing worse than being late for a meet­ing, being on the right street, but being unable to find the door you’re look­ing for.

Meet & greet: Vis­it­ors are greeted by Leo Burnett’s brand icons as they enter the office lobby – a por­trait of Leo Bur­nett painted from floor to ceil­ing and a sculp­tural Leo Bur­nett pencil.

The per­son I was try­ing to meet at the time was Colin Seah, the cre­at­ive dir­ector at Min­istry of Design. I did even­tu­ally get to his office; the sho­p­h­ouse door­way was tucked away behind the stalls lin­ing the road. Up the stairs and in, and once I nav­ig­ated my way past what appeared to be a door with no vis­ible hard­ware, I met Seah him­self. But that was two years ago.

I liked his work then, like it equally as much now, if not more. His hos­pit­al­ity design work at Sho-U and the Royal China (images here) are inspired arrange­ments of space and col­our. Seah is US-trained, and cut his teeth work­ing with the likes of Rem Kool­haas, Daniel Libe­s­kind and RL Binder.He’s done offices, vil­las, shops and apart­ments. Noth­ing is ever the same. One of his latest cre­ations is an office fit-out for Leo Bur­nett, a 1280 m2 fit-out for the advert­ising agency.

Cre­at­ive own­er­ship: The Red Apple has played an integ­ral part in Leo Burnett’s his­tory and brand­ing. A fea­ture wall dis­play­ing the staff’s indi­vidu­al­ized red apples expresses their artistic sensibilities.

Apple fea­ture wall elevation.

White hanging chairs are a fea­ture of the social areas.

Recep­tion elevation.

Min­istry of Design describes the three envir­on­ments it cre­ated at Leo Bur­nett simply: “Space to Impress, Space to Inter­act and Space to Cre­ate”. Most ad agen­cies need a space to blow pro­spect­ive cli­ents out of the water – a place to nego­ti­ate from a pos­i­tion of strength, per­haps, or to show off awards and what not. In Leo Burnett’s ‘Space to Impress’, vis­it­ors are met with a lar­ger than life graffiti-style por­trait of the man him­self, a 3m-high mural painted on the floor, walls, win­dows and ceil­ing of the main entry foyer. In the words of MOD: "A cool-white counter sculp­ture anchors the recep­tion area, while embed­ded multi-media screens exhib­it­ing past work."

Recep­tion with embed­ded media screens.

A full wall-sized pro­jec­tion can­vas and a wheel­bar­row worth of trophies dom­in­ate the chill out space.

Min­istry of Design says the "Space to Inter­act’ offers a vari­ety of ways to meet and exchange ideas"

"A wall-sized pro­jec­tion can­vas and a wheel­bar­row worth of trophies dom­in­ate this zone; more formal meet­ing spaces are char­ac­ter­ised by an air of mys­tery as they sit behind a muted jet black cor­ridor. From this cor­ridor, portholes allow peek-a-boo glimpses into the activ­ity within. In the 'Space to Cre­ate', a series of open planned desks unite the office into a single cre­at­ive organ­ism. The over­all ener­getic vibe is reflec­ted in the design of the cus­tom­ized ply­wood tables. Colored a vari­ety of shades, the tab­letops take on a checkered and play­ful qual­ity. Hot desks for group meet­ings and dis­cus­sions also line the peri­meter of this vast open plan. Gen­er­ous out­door deck areas provide an alfresco altern­at­ive from the sun-dappled interi­ors. Min­istry of Design has also integ­rated a 15m-long ana­morphic art fea­ture that cap­tures the aspir­a­tions of Leo Bur­nett towards every higher cre­at­ive achievement."

Leo Bur­nett work room.

The office fea­tures open seat­ing for 112 staff, Recep­tion, Lobby, Bar, 4 Meet­ing Rooms, 4 Meet­ing Pods, 6 Hot­desks, 1 Pres­id­ent Room, Print Pro­duc­tion Room, HR & Fin­ance Room, Patio

Hot­desk elevation.

The more formal meet­ing spaces are char­ac­ter­ized by an air of mys­tery as they sit behind a muted jet black cor­ridor. From this cor­ridor, portholes allow peek-a-boo glimpses into the activ­ity within.

Green on black – portholes offer glimpses into bright green meet­ing rooms.

Formal meet­ing room in a retina-burning green.

Porthole view.

Black tun­nel elevation.

Black tun­nel elev­a­tion 2.

Ana­morphic art.

Ana­morphic Art The cre­at­ive teams within the agency strive for a 7+ internal rat­ing for their pro­jects: the 7+ ana­morphic art painted in the patio reminds all of this benchmark.

A mat­ter of per­spect­ive; envir­on­mental art with a per­suas­ive function.

A mat­ter of per­spect­ive; envir­on­mental art with a function.

Lay­out plan.

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