International tyre firm Goodyear Dunlop has opened its new headquarters in Birmingham, bringing its employees and five brands together under one roof.
Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK has moved into a 30,000 sq ft office at Birmingham Business Park where the interiors have been designed and built by national fit out and refurbishment specialist Overbury.
Overbury worked hand-in-hand with the tyre giant to create an inspirational and flexible new office space during the three-month project.
Named GDHQ, the new office has been designed specifically for the company’s needs as a creative and successful sales, marketing and R&D organisation. It houses the firm’s five brands – Goodyear, Dunlop, Fulda, Sava and HiQ.
Michele Clifton, account manager for Birmingham-based Overbury, said: “Goodyear Dunlop’s focus on technological innovation and industry knowledge informed the working brief. Our challenge was to provide inspirational and flexible working environments for its sales and marketing teams, as well as Dunlop’s motorsport research and development teams.”
Joe Huddleston, senior project designer at Overbury, said: “Goodyear Dunlop’s new HQ will be its UK flagship for clients and staff – a comfortable, bright and welcoming home. The key to this project was to design environments that boost collaboration by providing a variety of spaces that are tailored to support different tasks.
“The company is very passionate about ideas sharing and creating a sense of community across Goodyear Dunlop’s the organisation. They embraced our ideas and designs so it was a truly collaborative experience and a pleasure to work together.
“Those visiting are initially greeted with a striking and contemporary reception space, large format digital display representing each of the company’s brands, glazed and illuminated walls and a sculptural reception desk, a dynamic white monolithic form with the Goodyear Dunlop brand, glowing from within the desk’s facade. Flexible working is supported throughout, achieved by standardising desks and equipment. There are also graphic covered locker solutions on each floor and thought provoking artwork.”
Meeting space is designed and tailored to the style of interaction Goodyear Dunlop wants to encourage, individual floors have AV and VC enabled private meeting facilities, one-to-one booths, telephone booths and more freestyle collaboration hubs with flexible furniture solutions and whiteboard walls.
Joe added: “These spaces get staff up and about, selecting facilities and environments to suit each daily task, encouraging movement, efficiency and collaboration.
“Each floor has its own refreshment facility, with the ground floor having a much larger dining and social hub, somewhere for the entire office to congregate. From this ground floor hub, staff can access a wellbeing space for a spot of ping pong, rest and relaxation as the mood suits, and activities are arranged.
“The business suite has digitally bookable meeting rooms as do other meeting spaces across the floors. Additional features in this environment include acoustic treatments, AV enabled collaboration benches and a colour changing lighting system that can be tailored to the brand colour of visiting clients.”
Rachel Ridgill, HR Director for Goodyear Dunlop Tyres UK Limited, said: “We are thrilled with our exciting new headquarters and our associates are enjoying the flexibility the new office space provides them. We have also been impressed with the amount of additional activities that the business park offers to our associates such as wellbeing activities, social gatherings and forum groups.”
