In our Workspace series, BC presents interesting, intelligently designed and unique spaces across Canada. From innovative home offices to out-of-the-box co-working spaces and unconventional setups, like this beauty company that ran out of a rural farm and this carbon bike company. Located in a former auto body shop, we seek to showcase the most exclusive and beautiful spaces across all industries. This month we are profiling the combination, the Toronto office of creative collective Tadiem.
When the pandemic hit, creative collective Tadiem was in the middle of a 16-year lease on a 4,645-square-meter, two-level office space in Toronto’s CBC Building, a block north of Rogers Centre. The collective comprises three divisions:bensimon-byrnean advertising agency, A methoda design agency, and Narrativea communications and public relations agency, with a total of almost 200 team members.
By November 2020, the collective’s executives sat down to think about what their workspace should look like coming out of the pandemic. “We had to figure out a new way of working in person,” says Amin Todai, founder and creative director of OneMethod. After so many months in isolation, they wanted their space to foster collaboration and eliminate siled work.
Tadiem was inspired by their skills-sharing spin-off concept called The Combine, which they launched in 2018. It works like this: About 25 artists, photographers, DJs, and musicians are given access to Tadiem’s workspace for meetings, as well as resources like video and audio. . recording studios, in exchange for 20 hours a year of creative work for the company or another Combine member. Tadiem wanted to channel the collaborative nature of The Combine for its redesign and borrowed the name from its new office, says Sarah Spence, Tadiem’s chief executive.
“We wanted this to be a place where people wanted to come”
The collective redesigned the first floor so that all the staff, previously segmented by agency and department, could work together at hot desks or open tables. They added 10 meeting rooms and turned the office’s 1,500-square-foot mezzanine into a breakout space with small bistro tables and chairs, making it feel like a cafe. “Tons of people eat lunch there,” says Spence. Most of the second floor remained a “multi-use creative space” with meeting rooms, boardrooms, and video and audio recording rooms, where teams can host meetings and events for clients. The basketball court, a legacy of the former OneMethod office in Liberty Village, doubles as a space to accommodate town halls for up to 200 people.
Todai led the design efforts. “I was thinking about urban planning,” he says. “We wanted to create a city that had little ‘neighborhoods.’ The entire space is intentionally designed in a rough, crooked grid, so there are no direct sight lines through the space. You have to walk through the alleys to see everything.” The purpose of this, Todai says, was to create opportunities for workers to be “wowed and inspired” throughout the office. Tadiem intervened architects Lebel and Bouliane and interior designers Solid Creative Design for the renovation, which ran from July to December 2022.
Tadiem insisted that staff members would not be forced to return to the office, even for a minimal number of days. “We wanted this to be a place where people want get to,” says Spence. “We want staff to come in because they want to collaborate with their peers and connect.” Now between 40 and 130 workers walk into the office on any given day.
Here’s a look inside: