Shaping company culture through a collaborative workplace design

North River Midstream was created when three companies merged assets to form a new energy company. They asked us to design and develop a new collaborative workplace environment spanning over two and half floors in Banker’s Hall, in downtown Calgary. This was the first time the entire company would come together under one roof, a pinnacle milestone towards establishing their corporate culture.

Our biggest challenge was to define a workplace to support the new organization, where a company culture had yet to be established. Also, North River Midstream wanted a warm, welcoming and casual space, in contrast with the traditional, corporate office tower image of Banker’s Hall.

Through an immersive visioning session, we worked with images and themes to establish a common design language, centred around natural materials, welcoming, open spaces, and a casual atmosphere.

To help foster the newly forming company culture and gain buy-in to their new working environment, we hosted an employee engagement event at our Calgary office with over 150 North River staff to share their new workplace solutions. Here employees got the chance to engage with each other and bond over the vision for their new home away from home —building a culture based on openness, trust and teamwork.

Their new workplace supports multiple working styles offering employees choice over how and where they work. Focus zones on the perimeter support quiet working with a variety of collaboration spaces around the interior enabling teamwork, such as a large community café and games area for group activities and/or independent working.

The employee experience is further enhanced through the casual character of the space using polished concrete floors, open ceilings, colourful graffiti style graphics and a timber frame construction – all of which help to define the social spaces throughout.

We are proud to have been part of North River Midstream’s cultural journey and to have provided them with a home from which their corporate culture has successfully developed.

We continue to work with North River Midstream, recently completing the design of another half floor for their new space. We’re also in the process of developing the company’s resilient workplace strategy, exploring the concepts of digital equity and resiliency, so the staff can be ready to head back to the office in a post-COVID world.