Check Out the Colorful & Social Workplace of Combiwerk Delft

A social workplace must be social; that was the point of departure for all the parties involved in the Combiwerk Delft project. Social participation was therefore the main theme in the design and realisation of the building at every level. At the level of design, the team aimed for empowerment by creating a serious and distinguished interior in which the users could take pride. At the level of sustainability, recycling and re-use were pursued wherever possible. All the wooden chairs in the central atrium were bought second-hand and restored by colleagues from the SW company itself. The office furniture throughout the building, including desks, chairs, cabinets and filing drawers, was also purchased second-hand, restored on site and custom-finished in the new colour scheme. The project is a shared office building in Delft that brings together several social enterprises under one roof, and the design treats the act of work as a collective, public activity rather than a private task. The central atrium acts as the social heart, with the restored chairs arranged around a shared table; meeting rooms, phone booths and project rooms branch off from it. The colour palette is deliberately muted and professional, allowing the varied provenance of the reused furniture to read as a story rather than as a compromise. By involving the future users in the restoration of their own furniture, the design turns sustainability into a social process. The result is a workplace that is economically lean, materially honest and socially cohesive, demonstrating that a shared office can be built from recovered objects and collective labour without sacrificing quality or atmosphere.