Collaborates with Design Advantage
Milford, MA – Waters Corporation, a public corporation headquartered in Milford, recently embarked on a multiyear, multiphase renovation project for its eight-building, 300,000sf corporate campus. Initially, Waters contracted two separate millwork contractors to develop and install furniture and casework design prototypes for shared print/copy/mail areas, but was unhappy with the results.
Shelves in the two pilot installs were not deep enough to hold oversize mail or toner cartridges, and vertically mounted index labels for mail slots were hard to read. Exposed wood surfaces on the inside of components would break down over time and did not allow for reconfiguration. Perhaps most importantly, a design plan would have to be developed individually, for each room, from scratch with the architect.
Waters chose to collaborate with Design Advantage because of its “design thinking” approach and its comprehensive capabilities that include workspace/workflow analysis, design services, furniture, and installation.
During multiple predesign meetings with Waters managers and its local architect, Design Advantage posed critical questions to managers and to employees about workflow and how they would be utilizing the various task-specific workspaces. Images were taken and samples of what would be stored in each of the areas were cataloged.
After gaining a clear understanding of the functional requirements and workflow that was critical for each space, 2D and 3D color perspective drawings made it easy for Waters to visualize how the design solutions would fit.
