Bourne Leisure, the UK's leading leisure and holiday organisation has two fantastic brands - Haven Holidays and Warner Hotels. Their mission is to give their guests a great time with memories that last a lifetime. Their HQ in Hemel accommodates 950 employees, who in turn support their wider team of over 16,500 across their holiday parks and hotels. The office environments were in need of a refresh, and the brief was to reinforce the brands' mission and values, creating workspaces that capture the energy and spirit of their parks and hotels. So Woodhouse were commissioned to refurbish the workspace into a place that helped employees feel closer to the experiences they are creating for their guests, as well as encouraging even greater collaboration across teams.
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We undertook a remodel of their existing spaces to create better collaboration areas for both small and large groups of people, including a new townhall breakout area in the south wing, as a central hub for informal meetings, as well as company-wide meetings and social events. We also added a number of different sized meeeting rooms, including meeting pods and a large flexible boardroom that can be split into a training space when needed.
Their Haven brand culture is described as a 'breath of fresh air' which inspired the design of the space, along with cues from the coastal locations of the Haven holiday parks - for example the dunes and boardwalks of Norfolk beaches. We have created a bright and airy interior through the use of light coloured timber, natural finishes and a muted colour palette in meeting rooms and the office areas, with brighter splashes of colour in the townhall area to give more of a fun 'beach vibe'.
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Keeping sustainability in mind, we worked with the client team to incorporate some of their existing furniture into the new space, requiring creativity to reuse furniture whilst maintaining the new vision.
Another challenge was constructing whilst the building was occupied. The north wing was completed first, which the client then occupied whilst works to the south wing and central lift core took place. However with collaboration and communication between us, it was managed effectively and the process was smooth from start to finish.
Bourne Leisure now have a beautiful and refreshed new space that truly breathes holiday vibes, and serves as a great cultural hub in which their employees feel invested in, having been given a great range of space typologies including a new collaboration zone.
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