Deloitte, Basel

New Ways of Working

Deloitte AG has completed a change of location within Basel. This is because the previous property became too small. The opportunity was taken to modernise the working environment. Innovative office space with many places to retreat offers flexible use for around 120 employees and customers.

Building owner:

Deloitte AG

Our services:

General contracting

Integrated services

Deloitte provides integrated audit, strategic, risk, tax and legal advisory services to organisations worldwide. The company combines experience from different disciplines as well as different industries and helps its clientele to assert themselves all over the world. More than 2,000 people already work for Deloitte Switzerland in Zurich, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Berne, as well as in the new headquarters in Basel, from where mainly clients in the life science and healthcare sectors are served.

Innovative office spaces

Deloitte AG gave up its previous property because the rental space in Basel had become too small and moved into the new Meret Oppenheim high-rise developed by the architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron directly at Basel station. Modern and innovative office space was built on one floor with about 1500 m2 with flexible use for about 120 employees and customers.
The area is divided into a customer and work zone and strictly separated from lock entrance. The customer area is defined by a reception, various meeting rooms that can be used multifunctionally, a waiting area, a preparation kitchen, customer toilets and a back office including a copy point. The work zone is organised by open offices, partner offices and multifunctional meeting rooms as well as smaller retreats, the so-called focus booth. The kitchenette and informal open-plan work areas complement the room programme.
There is also a roof terrace on this floor, which can be used by both staff and customers.

Flexibility and a healthy working atmosphere

The concept of the building includes modern workplaces that on the one hand take into account the development and working methods of the company and on the other hand create a healthy working atmosphere that motivates the employees and promotes creativity. The flexibility of the rooms is very important. Rooms can be connected together and thus enlarged. In addition, however, the use of these rooms can be changed completely.

Impressions

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«The flexibility of the rooms is very important.»

Fredi Lengen

Director Workplace Services & Real Estate
Deloitte AG

Mr Lengen, what was the aim of the conversion and expansion?

We wanted to use the move to accommodate the "new ways of working". The new office space should offer a modern and efficient working environment.

What makes the interior work so exceptional?

The combination of different concepts is special, so that employees can choose the appropriate environment depending on the current task, e.g. classic desks, soft seating, ad hoc meeting areas, focus rooms, telephone booths, brainstorm-ing corners and much more. We attach great importance to high-quality materials and products. At the same time, the available IT equipment was upgraded: larger screens at the workplace, state-of-the-art AV/VC installations in the meeting rooms, project rooms and partner offices.
We also paid a lot of attention to the break areas. The office space offers a cafeteria as well as a large terrace.

Where were there special challenges in the planning and realisation?

The particular challenge in the planning was the large number of supports in the free floor plan. Due to the number of workstations to be fulfilled and the position of the supports, the dimensions of the desks had to be modified to meet the Swiss workstation requirement.
Another challenge in planning and later in execution was the low raised floor height, in which sanitary pipes and con-vectors had to be accommodated and sanitary cells positioned as close as possible to the cores.
The noise schedule imposed by SBB and SRF, respectively, placed massive demands on the execution planning, but did not significantly restrict the execution itself. Despite the many interruptions, Glaeser Projekt AG was able to im-plement and hand over the project according to schedule.

How would you describe the cooperation?

The close cooperation with Deloitte as the client, Glaeser Projekt AG as the executing company and EBIC (Emch+Berger ImmoConsult AG) as the client's representative account for the success. The tight schedule would not have been possible without the short decision-making channels regarding cost and design decisions. The cooperation with the two partner companies Glaeser Projekt AG and EBIC was fun, which was certainly one of the key success factors.