The Standard Chartered @ Changi has officially been opened.
The six-storey, 225,000 sqft (20,903 sqm) purpose-built office building houses around 2,000 of Standard Chartered’s non front-line employees in human resources, technology and trade operations.
The design outcome is the result of Woodhead’s Research-Collaborate-Innovate process which began in 2008, when Standard Chartered appointed the Australian integrated design firm for the Singapore Relocation Project.
The interior planning and design standards developed by Woodhead have created a shift in the workplace culture at Standard Chartered, becoming more flexible and collaborative. The Bank has since continued to work with Woodhead to adopt many of the design principles as their new Global Office Workplace Standards.
"As part of the overall Singapore Relocation project, which entails the moving of twelve buildings into two, the team had to accommodate a fluctuating headcount throughout.," says Andrew Carmichael, Woodhead’s regional principal.
Regionally, in parallel with the Singapore work, Woodhead has recently completed a new 100,000 sqft (9,290 sqm) workplace for Standard Chartered in Beijing’s World Financial Centre and is currently designing the East Africa Hub for Standard Chartered in Nairobi, Kenya, another 100,000 sqft of workplace.
Identifying with changing workplace trends, which include the prevalence of communication technology and an increasingly mobile workforce and shared services, Standard Chartered has incorporated the following features to Standard Chartered @ Changi:
- open architecture and layout to promote teamwork
- 30 per cent increase in communal space
- hot-desk system for a mobile workforce
- wireless coverage across all common areas
- digital signage for information sharing e.g. distribution of operational dashboards, company messages, news
- increased audio video and video conferencing facilities to reduce need to travel
- 10,000 sqft (929 sqm) Learning Centre featuring seven bespoke training rooms- recreational lounge
- staff cafeteria and in-house café- open pantry concept
- green features such as waste and water recycling, eco-friendly materials for interior décor and solar panels to generate sufficient power to maintain the building when it is unoccupied
