Wonderful architecture and its need for great data and narrative design.

We chat about our work with Bloomberg and other clients who have combined spatial design requirements with data and narrative design to great effect.

The work we get to do at Territory is often more varied than you might imagine. The film work and getting to create futuristic data displays will often get the attention but its other data work that we’ve done for brands and organisations that we’ve completed over the years that I’ve been thinking on more lately. Some time ago we recognised that one of our core skills is telling stories using data, tech and interfaces. Now this could be for film directors and Hollywood productions but that skillset can also be applied to the real physical world too.

One case in point being the brilliant Bloomberg offices in London. I’d been an admirer of the brand for some time, not because I’m a financial geek (I secretly am a little) but because they appeared to be a brand that had great design taste. Their design presence and confidence is clear to see through there multitude of touchpoints and marketing and felt like a company I wanted to work with. 

Digital inspired by architecture

We got the chance, and were briefed to create a number of data visualisations and animations to populate there fancy new Foster and Partners offices in London. I suspect it would have been all too easy to have gone all out with the technical details as sometimes seen in our film work, but once you step into the building and see the space it’s obvious that a far more restrained and confident design aesthetic and approach is required. The work needed to be quietly confident within the serene modern environment as you could feel the thoughtful nature of the building needed a careful approach, and throwing in any old data animations would have really jarred.

We have similar considerations when designing for a film. We can’t design the screens in isolation. We have to be mindful of the built environment we’re designing within. Does it feel like it’s part of the same world building language as everything else? Do we truly believe this graphical interface is part of the sci-fi environment, building or vehicle? The Bloomberg space had us asking the same questions. Not only how do we express the data clearly and usefully for the audience working in the offices, but is it in harmony with the emotional sense the building has for its occupants.

Adaptive Environments

With everything going on in the world right now I’ve started wondering how data and environment might evolve as our needs for a working environment might change again. The sense of a flexible working space means that we might need our offices to be adaptable and evolving. Screens, data installations and environmental design in general can now be dynamic and updatable with technology improvements constant. My suspicion is that environmental data can help be used to facilitate data with an ever evolving and moving workforce who expect flexible working conditions. A building often feels alive, its occupants a constantly evolving system that can be reflected back for the purpose of a collective awareness. Mental health, collective purpose, cultural movements both internally and externally can be displayed and influenced by everyone in the space. I think architects have always celebrated the ability for a building to heighten an experience for someone and meshing this with data and story telling can only make this richer and more rewarding for everyone in it. Not only that but it may be able to help us connect with other distributed team members as and when we can all have that choice . I wonder whether this time of being away from communal physical place helps us understand whats missing in digital spaces?

David Sheldon-Hicks

Territory Studio