CREATIVE HAVEN

Business meetings are infinitely more enjoyable now that greenery has been invited into this workplace.

- Elizabeth Wilson

There are countless studies on the positive effects of greening our workplaces. The presence of plants can help to clean the air, lift the mood, boost concentration and even assist with productivity. They also just look great.

All of these benefits have flowed from the transformation of this courtyard at the offices of See-Saw Films, an internationally renowned film and television production company (award-winning movies Lion and The King’s Speech are among its credits). The small but busy company operates from an old terrace house in the inner-Sydney suburb of Paddington. Like many creative workplaces, it’s a non-corporate environment and refurbishing the courtyard garden was seen as an important part of fostering a pleasant, buzzy work culture.

The brief to Rebecca Colechin, lead designer at Garden Life, was to create a lovely, leaf-filled space that could be used for multiple purposes. It also had to be low maintenance and easy to keep clean. “On a day-to-day basis it’s a break-out space for the 10 or so staff where they can hold team meetings around the ‘round table’,” says Rebecca. “It also had to accommodate evening gatherings and events.”