Balanced Workplace

Studiotrope completed a programming study examining the 550,000 SF Wellington Webb Building, the existing City and County of Denver staff housed there, and the staff at the Denver Post Building – who would ideally relocate prior to the end of their lease – and determined how best to consolidate staff to optimize the real estate within the Webb Building while supporting a hybrid work model.

Then, working closely with the CCD Real Estate group, existing conditions were established, all affected departments at both the Denver Post Building and the Webb Building were surveyed, and the CCD workplace space standards draft was expanded upon to create a basis of design for space types and visual reference tool that could explain and promote the project to City and County staff.

The City hired sDC to design a mechanical & electrical overhaul and a full fixed finish refresh while increasing their workstation density, improving their staff amenity spaces, and course-correcting teams that had become dispersed throughout the facility. We are provided new wellness rooms, a variety of focus rooms, business centers, and full wayfinding & environmental graphic design services. Throughout this project, our Organizational Design studio worked with the client teams to coach them through change management and identify & create collateral curated to their needs.

In order to provide a near-term plan and a long-term master plan, two visions for the Wellington Webb Building were created. The first scheme was a Light Touch Vision which kept the vast majority of walls in place as is, used the existing workstations, and suggested that any new required walls be demountable walls. The schematic light touch plan provided a near-term solution to accommodate all staff that needed to move from the Denver Post Building within the Webb Building. This plan strove to be lower impact on existing staff at the Webb Building while creating a path toward the future vision that the high touch plan shows.

The second proposed scheme showed the High Touch Vision or long-term master plan. All workstations were right-sized to align with the proposed space standards, and more walls and doors were added or demolished. Like the proposed Light Touch scheme, the proposed high touch scheme also accommodated all Denver Post Building staff that needed to move and further consolidated departments onto the same floor. This freed up space for other groups, like the District Attorney’s, so they were able to occupy all of Level 9. It also provided more collaboration areas for all staff to utilize throughout the entire building.

The below images show a restack diagram of the past state vs. desired future state of the Webb Building, followed by a seating scenario which illustrates one possibility of how staff might share a newly consolidated workspace.