Photographing a large government department fitout

Designed for a large government department in central Perth, by MODE Design, with fitout works carried out by SHAPE Group, this commercial interior was an absolute pleasure to photograph.

Spread out over four levels the interior design employs the use of colour coding as a way of place making and way finding. A dominant colour family for each level is used to make each floor identifiable and memorable. In navigating the office during the shoot I quickly found myself planning out in terms of “the blue floor” then “the green floor” etc…

With the floor area of each level being very large the predominately open plan areas of cubicles have been punctuated with informal collaboration spaces to provide recognisable points or nodes. This avoids the ‘sea of cubicles’ problem many large offices can suffer from and aids in way finding and building up that navigational memory of a space. The informal collaboration spaces are of varying levels of privacy and size to accommodate different team dynamics and adjacent to these informal collaboration spaces are meeting rooms when greater privacy or audio-visual equipment is needed.

The full height glass partitions of the meeting rooms feature large scale graphic film privacy screening. This is a great alternative to plain frosting and the graphics used have been carefully tied in with the colour coding of each level - featuring images of quintessential Western Australian landscape - varying from forest canopies to a train of camels walking Cable Beach. My favourite is the forest canopy wrapping the “Porongurup” meeting room.

A real visual feast for an interior architecture photographer. Great work by Mode Design and Shape Group.


Furniture and material detail on the blue level.

Smaller collaboration space and enclosed booth on the blue level.

Open collaboration space adjacent large meeting room on the Blue level.

Bold herringbone wall tiling in the staff breakout area. Like a pixelated wave coming towards  you.

Rebated plywood pull detail on the breakout doors. Very nice!

A quiet corner in the larger staff breakout area on the Fuchsia level.

Coloured glass pendant light with herringbone tile background.

Open collaboration space on the Fuscia level.

More private collaboration space on the Fuscia level.

The Porongurup meeting room on the Green level.

Fantastic tree canopy graphic film on the Porongurup meeting room glass partition.

Detail of the glass graphics and acoustic panelling to the Porongurup meeting room.

Viewing out from the Porongurup meeting room back out to the Service Desk.

Large open plan waiting areas adjacent to the main conference rooms.

Multi-panel display in the open plan waiting area.

Staff breakout on the Green level featuring the same bold herringbone tile.

Open collaboration spaces on the Orange level.

Enclosed collaboration booth on the Orange level.

Rock gorge graphic film on the partition of the Karijini meeting room on the Orange level.

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