Staff enter the comfort zone in on-site cabins

Sep 10 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

SCRUFFY cabins, chipped coffee cups and sofas with foam hanging out of them are what one normally expects to find in site cabins.

But visitors to the UK-wide projects of _space build, will find an altogether more appealing environment.

The company has invested in a dozen new cabins equipped with good quality, comfortable furniture, fresh coffee machines, water coolers, wall-hung art and roof-mounted wind turbines that supply most of the power.

Each cabin has one interior wall painted in a bold _space colour and _space people working on site have been kitted out with black fleeces carrying the company logo.

The first cabins are now in place at Clowne in Derbyshire, where _space is carrying out a build project for Aldi, and the next batch of 10 cabins is being rolled out around the company’s other site locations across the UK. Chief executive Rob Charlton explains the reasoning behind the shift away from the standard utilitarian site cabins: “As experts in creating spaces in which people can work, learn, live and thrive, we like to practise what we preach, not just on behalf of our clients but for our people, too.

“Just because our people and their visitors are working in the middle of a construction site doesn’t mean they have to forgo a pleasing work environment. There is a mass of evidence of the effect of good design on the wellbeing of the workforce and our offices across the North are deliberately designed to encourage creativity and a good work-life balance.

“The new _space cabins are our way of providing off-site personnel with the same comfortable work environments as their office-based colleagues.”

The company is celebrating its 50th year with a growth plan that has seen it expand outside the North East by opening offices in Leeds and the North West, where it aims to create up to 50 jobs over the next few years. Its offices feature a range of benefits for relaxed working from pool tables and an organic cafe, to art galleries and pilates classes in lunch breaks.

We like to practise what we preach, not just on behalf of our clients but for our people, too