Hunt Manufacturing Company

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In 1993 Hunt Manufacturing Company decided to consider relocation. After studying their options, including staying put, on September 20, 1994, they signed a lease on their new space at Commerce Square. By late January 1995, they were fully operational in their new offices. This breathtakingly fast but successful move, on budget and on time, was due in great measure to Hunt's clear but nonhierarchical internal organization combined with Space Design's innovative design skills and technical capabilities.

The core values of Hunt Manufacturing gave shape to both the relocation process and the new office design. This meant that job requirements dictated the nature of the space. It also ensured a considerable sharing of the decision-making process by empowering a series of employee teams to develop planning criteria and information on critical areas, including new office and workstation standards as well as adjacencies within the company. This approach is called Design Strategy: a group-oriented process by which management and employees identify goals and objectives for the project. This process helps assure top-down and bottom-up buy-in on changes and office environment needs to support new ways of working. The relocation process not only involved changes, it also involved continuity and reaffirmation, reinforcing the best of the past while implementing new technology and updating procedures.

Hunt Manufacturing and Space Design Incorporated chose to use the relocation to say: "This is Hunt Manufacturing." The design uses a mix of materials and crafts, and suggests quality, continuity, strength and stability. The design goal achieved "quality and character" combined with "value and affordability." Perhaps nothing says "This is Hunt Manufacturing" more eloquently than the "gallery" corridor that makes its way from the reception area to the Chairman's office. Hunt's fine collection of original woodcuts, drawings and engravings ranging from medieval manuscripts to renaissance pieces to early twentieth-century arts and crafts, serves as a reminder that manufacturing literally means "hand-made." It is the subtle but pointed statement of the company philosophy that fueled and permeated this relocation and Space Design: "Individual Initiatives, Corporate Results."