Used to represent sound visually, dots gather, disperse and change in scale to suggest vibration, frequency and movement. This became a thread throughout the building, appearing in imagery, installations and 40-metre soundwave graphics running through the core atriums on every floor. At this scale, the graphics do more than create impact. They lead people through the space, connecting different floors and experiences through a recognisable visual language.

The technology itself provided another source of inspiration. At reception, the desk incorporates an enlarged print of the company’s best-selling chip. Something normally hidden inside everyday technology was brought into view at architectural scale, making the connection to what the business actually does from the moment people arrive.

Elsewhere, we looked at spaces that could work harder. Staircases are usually somewhere to pass through on the way to somewhere else. Here, they became opportunities to pause.

Installations explored the physical effects of sound and vibration, drawing on ideas such as water responding to the pulse of a speaker. Different materials, heights and structures were used to interpret those movements in three dimensions, while Key Clamp structures gave the interventions a deliberately engineered quality. The result was a series of unexpected moments that reveal themselves as people move between floors.

That thinking extended beyond the science of sound into the culture surrounding it.

A Guitar Hall of Fame celebrated significant milestones for the business, with guitars representing models containing the company’s technology that had sold more than one million units. But the guitars weren’t treated as untouchable exhibits. Employees could take them down, bring them into the Jam Room and actually play them. A commercial milestone became something people could see, understand and participate in.

Across the workplace, these ideas work at very different scales, from the detail of a chip to a 40-metre soundwave, from individual dots to large installations spanning transitional spaces. What connects them is a direct relationship to the company, its technology and the people behind it.

The result is a workplace that makes the organisation’s world tangible. Sound becomes something people can see, move through and interact with, while technology that would normally remain hidden becomes part of the everyday experience of the building.