Creating, sharing and housing knowledge

From the very beginning, co-CEO Nele made it a point to design the interior of the projects herself. For her it has always been the way to be creative and to make each project a unique experience. Today the team consists of the 3 talented and dynamic ladies Hilde, Céleste and Eline who worked for 2 years on the interior design of Loop5.

When you first heard that Upgrade Estate would be launching a third brand Upoffiz with the project on Loop5, what was your first reaction?

We knew pretty quickly that it had to be something different, not an ordinary office building. Upkot and Upliving are very distinct and colorful in terms of look and feel. We developed our own style with Upgrade Estate in the meantime, each time with an angle off. The first question was how we could translate our known look & feel to an office environment that also appealed to other companies. It was new and that’s always exciting. 

What made confidence start to grow?

Every time something was decided, it became clearer that we were going to make it something fun and dynamic anyway. As we took another step, other challenges and doubts arose again. That is peculiar to any creative process. Feedback from others is very important. Hilde: I was most concerned about the decoration of the toilets. Eline: I only had complete confidence when the meeting rooms were ready and could count on the approval of colleagues.

With Upkot and Upliving, you always manage to be surprising with your interior concepts and still maintain the recognisability of the brand. How do you do that?

We started from the architecture. We do that very often. Our first brainstorming starts from the location and how the architecture, shapes, and colors can inspire us. Are they recognisable and in what way are they reflected on the site? For example, the hexagon has become an important basic shape for us. 

The firm nod to nature is present throughout the designs, as is the frequent use of recycled materials. There are plants everywhere, all the furniture is second-hand, the cork wall, our organoid wallpaper made from alpine meadow flowers, the corrugated sheets. The whole upcycling idea is in all our brands. We encouraged our contractors to take the extra step toward sustainability with us. 

We kept in mind that this is a different target audience. At one point we wondered if the orange toilet would not put people off, but we did it anyway. Our meeting rooms are more neutral, less flashy. The focus there is on conversation and subject matter. But it is and always has been an Upgrade Estate brand, so that playfulness is in there anyway. People get to talk about the interior design. We have continued to follow our vision, not without doubts, but because we really believe in it. Now most people think the orange restrooms are cool.

Loop5 is not only extremely large but also a totally new brand. What feeling do you want to arouse in visitors and tenants with the interior concept?

People should feel at home here and be inspired. Staying and working here should also feel natural. That is why we chose a lot of wood, plants, and shades of green. That softness works. 

With Upgrade Estate, we moved to this site at the end of March, but the space and location seem to have been established for longer. That’s what feeling at home means to us. We succeeded in not making a white box and giving the interior a soul from the beginning. People come in and have the feeling of living there. We also have nooks and crannies everywhere where people can meet and connect. That’s kind of important. We have made it something lively and are quite proud of the result. People have to feel like they haven’t seen something like this before and feel good about it at the same time.

Was it immediately clear what direction you wanted to take? And how do you see the forest for the trees when you are faced with such an assignment?

All credit to Hilde Jacobs. She can plan incredibly and keep an overview. So we were able to tackle everything piece by piece. There is that constant question of whether the story is still right. If all three of us couldn’t see it anymore, there was always Nele who could keep an overview with a certain distance and make important decisions.

Sometimes we just had to go back to basics: people should feel at home here. It should be warm and lively. So healthy doubts, taking a step back from time to time, and regularly living through a panic attack—it’s all part of the job. The scale was new, as was the concept itself. But the approach was clear. The form of architecture as a starting point, the clear choice of wood, and combining the playful element with professionalism. A methodology guided us through periods of doubt.

We could also count on our students in numerous executive work, and we became very good at consultation. A lot of consultations, weekly with each other, with contractors, picking up details, anticipating. The fact that we also effectively sat on site for quite a while, that we were able to visit regularly, check things out, and try things out too. Making lots of mock-ups. That is working together.

Daring to step back and question things. I think that is our greatest strength. Letting something lie once in a while also helps during a design process. You can’t control everything. The fact that all three of us were involved in every aspect meant that when we were looking for a solution, there was always someone who said, “Wait a minute, couldn’t we do it better this way?” We are self-critical, but we also learned to listen to other people’s feedback. That could be a project leader, or Nele, whose opinion is golden. When you’re working on something for a long time, you quickly get into tunnel vision.

Flexibility has always been an important factor. With our team, we follow the evolution of the construction process. If something is delayed on the construction, or if something goes wrong or there is a wrong delivery, it often happens that we also have to be flexible, starting to see or tackle things differently and solving problems.

Was sustainability also considered in the interior designs on this project?

We started with the goal of using 75 percent non-virgin material. This made us stop and think about each item. Is it non-virgin? If not, can we effectively follow that path and is it sufficiently sustainable? It’s a balancing act between the stated goal and what is possible, a very nice exercise that we now do automatically.

There has been a strong commitment to finding secondhand design items. We’ve been involved with overstocks, discards after bankruptcies, and similar sources for a long time. For example, our carpets contain recycled fibers. All the wood on the site is CLT (cross-laminated timber) and FSC approved. Whenever we considered new materials, we looked for more sustainable options. We always aimed to be that little bit more sustainable. We also considered ease of use and material sustainability in our choices.

How do you find these things?

We skimmed the internet daily. On this project, we got to know many parties willing to cooperate further. For example, last year we were contacted by a company that saw we were working on an office project and offered us desk tops. It’s about establishing and maintaining lasting contacts.

If I am not mistaken, among other things, you guys have covered an entire 12 m² wall with used corks. How many corks are on that wall and how do you get such a large number?

We collected 58,000 corks from friends, family, collectors, in bars, online via Facebook and Hoppler, at baby showers, over a very long period of time. We have since built up a reserve stock. Many people responded to our calls to donate corks. People who have vases full of corks. Unbelievable. To this day, I still sometimes get corks in my mailbox. No idea who deposited them there.

Were you also involved in designing the experience outside between the buildings?

Our role in the exterior environment was rather secondary and advisory. It was mainly the landscape and garden architectural firm BASTA that looked into this, directed by Nele. Outside is actually an extension of inside. There is plenty of room for relaxation with the trampolines, the slide, the ping pong table. There are plenty of seating areas for connecting, as well as for meeting or working outside, if someone wishes. There is a grandstand with a stage. Summer is going to be so much fun. Then again, we are more closely involved in decisions about the loose furniture, picnic tables and ashtrays, but equally about the kind of pebbles to provide along the buildings.

So there is a story behind every interior element. What’s the funniest anecdote you’ve experienced during the Loop5 process?

We experience so much here. The best and funniest moments usually happened on a Friday. Often we were all so tired that we started mumbling all kinds of things to each other. A few weeks ago, it happened that we said three words to each other and didn’t understand each other anymore. We were so tired. That really didn’t make any sense. And the nice thing about that was that we were still functioning at a basic level.

Instead of taking our fatigue out on each other, we just started laughing about it. We’re in this together and we’re going at it this way. If one of the three of us is struggling, the other spontaneously begins to help. We no longer have secrets from each other, know each other inside out. The way we work together is really intense. We can say to each other that it’s not going. Then it doesn’t go and that’s ok.

You also did the complete layout of the floor of Upgrade Estate. How nice is it to now work daily in an environment you created yourself?

Great! Very cozy. We think our floor is really successful. Okay, we designed it ourselves, but we already feel incredibly at home. Especially the great flexibility to work where you want and be back among our colleagues after seeing this all come to life. We are less concerned with the fact that we designed it than seeing how much people are enjoying it.

We have known Upoffiz and the buildings mostly as a site and have really missed the contact with our colleagues. It’s a super fun team and the fact that we can now have lunch together with everyone again for a long time. Surely we have missed that the past few years. The whole company has been looking forward to this move and this location. Every day you can sit next to a different colleague now. That was much less the case before.

What is the best thing about your job?

The flexibility and variety. Our days never look the same or go completely as planned. We actually get to do a lot. The day at your desk then turns out to be a day when you don’t see your desk and vice versa. All of us here, I think, have had our moments of stress and panic. Fortunately, never all together.

The greatest thing about our job is the creativity and the fact that we make things. We are there from the first draft. The process takes a long time, but it is very nice to see the result in the end.

All three of us have very different talents that we get to use. Who does what is determined by each person’s interest and talents. That works really well. We don’t have to talk about that. We feel that well from each other.

3 power ladies with a lot of talent. Your mark has been made and the tone has been set for future projects. The bar is extremely high: how are you ever going to top this?

Every project is unique and we learn from every project. What doesn’t work, goes away. Things that work, we want to keep. Above all, we want to create the right atmosphere tailored to the project.

We don’t have to outdo ourselves every time, because every project has its own story. Projects are never the same, each has its own identity. Of course, there are things that are standard. We keep those. But everything besides that that makes a site unique, we just take a fresh look at it each time.

We want to keep surprising people in each building of ours they enter. It’s recognisable, yet always a bit of a surprise. Making people wonder, that’s finally what we strive for when we start a new project.