Special Group

Surry Hills

Special Group is an independent creative advertising agency, and Etic designed their new Sydney office inside a converted industrial warehouse in Surry Hills. The brief asked for a workplace for 90 staff with limited intervention and as much retention of the existing fabric as possible. The strategy treats the raw shell as the project's primary material. Exposed concrete, original brickwork, steel framed windows and existing services are held as they are, and a tight palette of cork, stone, timber and leather is introduced against them. A green stone kitchen anchors the central social space and operates as the agency's gravitational point. The result is a working creative agency that holds its energy without resorting to the usual visual shorthand of exposed brick, neon and ping pong tables.

Construction by Clutch.