iQmetrix’s Vancouver Office named ‘Gold Workplace’ at IDIBC Awards
SSDG Interiors won a Gold Award in the Workplace category (p. 2) of the 2010 Interior Designers Institute of BC (IDIBC) Awards of Excellence, announced in late September, for their design of our Vancouver office.
iQmetrix President and CEO Christopher Krywulak says SSDG took a consultative approach to conceive the design of our office back in 2010, having meetings with the then small iQmetrix Vancouver staff to determine preferences and to suggest design choices based on those collective preferences.
“The folks at SSDG were really great to work with,” says Krywulak. “I liked the modern, minimalist style they went for with for our office. They brought us some really great ideas and they were as passionate about the project as our staff was.”
“The iQmetrix team was our inspiration -- they had great energy and a desire to create something unique,” says Julie Campbell, the SSDG Designer in charge of the project.
Campbell outlined some of the design cues below:
- “It was important to Christopher that there was a space where everyone felt welcome and encouraged interaction. The positioning of the reception was directly related to this concept.”
- “The entry was planned on an angle with the glowing ‘Q’ leading you towards the heart of the space -- no ‘back of the house’ lunch room for iQ, this lounge like space was placed front and center, welcoming executives, designers, clients and guests, encouraging collaboration and in turn resulting in innovation.”
- “At SSDG, we consider a project successful when the design has a positive impact on the business. For iQmetrix, the space reflects who the people are (collaborative and energetic) and what their software product stands for (innovative and intuitive).”
- SSDG also recognized that iQmetrix is a family run business, that community and environment are important to them. “We presented sustainable materials such as blue stained pine (wood from pine trees devastated by pine beetle infestation) for custom millwork in the entry, reception and entry to the design area. The terrazzo floor contained recycled content, the paint and adhesives were low VOC’s and the overall design took advantage of all the natural light. Light control was also key and we incorporated daylight and occupancy sensors throughout the space.”
As a software company whose mission is to create great experiences for retailers and consumers, iQmetrix takes design concepts seriously. With a keen eye for detail we are constantly working to improve the look and feel of our products. Likewise, we applied this same eye to the design of our head office, with the help of SSDG.
iQmetrix’s Creative Director, Alen Puaca, joined the company shortly after the office redesign. He says a number of elements from the office design inspired graphical elements he later designed for the iQmetrix brand and its virtual spaces.
“I felt SSDG succeeded in the use of minimalist pallette, the juxtaposition of various textures against white, the physical allocation for interactive screens (which is the nature of our XQ business) which all led to the creation of an open, bright, comfortable and social place,” says Puaca.
“Since this is our head office and the majority of our business partners’ first impression would be similar to mine, I felt that we needed to continue with that look and feel through our branding elements, our website, et cetera.”
Puaca says the iQmetrix approach to design, both within our RQ4 Retail Management software and in our in-store solutions for XQ Interactive RetailTM, considers the transition from physical space to virtual space.
“We live in an age where there is a huge shift from physical toward virtual and digital,” he explains. “We carefully plan and create meaningful digital tools that will be an extension of any given physical space -- in our case retail spaces.”
More specifically, Puaca adds, iQmetrix draws on the experiences of the thousands of wireless retailers it serves across North America to make its products better.