UK Anti Doping
Kinnarps = 100% Pure Service
Kinnarps has been an existing supplier to national development agency UK Sport for several years and has built its reputation as a supportive, reliable and efficient service provider.
Historically, part of UK Sport’s function was to act as the body responsible for implementing and enforcing a national anti-doping policy. However, following a comprehensive review of the broadening scope of the national anti-doping remit, not only in the run up to the 2012 Olympics, but in view of the ever increasing complexity of chemical performance enhancement detection, the decision was taken to create the stand alone, national anti doping body, UK Anti Doping.
Under an extension of UK Sport’s OGC contract, Kinnarps UK was appointed as the workplace furniture supplier to UK Anti Doping and tasked with creating a working environment for the UK Anti Doping team, which was flexible, professional and evocative of the organisation’s purpose – to create a clean, drug-free sporting environment for athletes.
The new organisation (UK Anti Doping) was to be housed over two floors in their new building. The brief to Kinnarps and the interior designer was to create, within an historic building, a modern, professional workspace for 30 members of staff, but with the flexibility to accommodate up to 50 people and allow for a range of meeting styles, from confidential one-to-one consultations, to full staff conferences.
Kinnarps national key account director, Peter Vince, worked closely with UK Anti Doping’s interior designer and project manager Alphabet Project Solutions and UK Anti Doping staff representatives, collaborating on a complex space planning brief, which evolved through the course of the project. For example, the original plans allowed for two directors’ offices, but as the proposed intelligence gathering remit, and prosecution powers of the new body expanded, so the directors’ accommodation required increased to six offices and even greater consideration of privacy and security was imperative.
Both floors were themed using a monochrome background with accent pieces in UK Anti Doping’s corporate colour, a bright, citrus orange, evocative of zest and good health.
Project Facts
Year: 2010 (original contract 2008)
Client: UK Anti Doping
Location: London
Photographs: David Thrower, Redshift Photography
Two large meeting rooms were created, with a removable dividing wall, to allow either to be configured as a board room, or for the full space to be used for theatre-style, full team meetings. Black, executive seating and white Kite tables were chosen, to accommodate easy reconfiguration for varying meeting styles and convenient storage when not in use. Kinnarps 523 meeting room chairs were also given a special black finished frame to compliment the UK Anti Doping colour scheme.
Workstations incorporated white, laminate finished Series T desks and XD storage, with 6784 chairs upholstered in black. The orange accent colour was incorporated via Z2 desktop screens and matching fabric backs to some of the storage units.
The reception area features a specially designed, curved reception desk and orange Premium Collection soft seating with white coffee tables, while breakout and impromptu meeting areas were given a modern profile with Materia’s innovative Plint stools, upholstered in orange, with white Ava tables.
UK Anti Doping’s project manager, Rob Blyth from Alphabet Project Solutions, was impressed with Kinnarps’s approach to customer service. “We had some very tight deadlines to work to, but Kinnarps made the process painless. I work with contractors all the time and yet I continue to be delighted by Kinnarps’s ‘can do’ attitude.” He explains.
He continues: “Any unexpected snags were dealt with quickly along the way and the helpful attitude is consistent throughout the team. For example, not only are Kinnarps’s fitters incredibly considerate and efficient, but when one of them spotted a gloomy alcove in the UK Anti Doping offices, he took the initiative to fetch and recommend a lamp from the warehouse that was the perfect style and shape to solve the problem.”