Shoppers to the village of St. Jacobs may still be finding their way inside the former Riverworks building, but it doesn’t take them long to realize they are in the wrong place.
That’s because Quarry Integrated Communications, an internationally known advertising firm with famous clients such as FedEx and Research in Motion, have made the former shopping centre their home.
The building, which has undergone extensive renovations since the beginning of the year, has been designed with the comfort of Quarry’s 90 employees — or “team members,” as the company terms them — in mind.
President Ken Whyte said that communications is really a team-oriented business, with a continuing need for colleagues to collaborate, and bounce ideas off one another.
The Riverworks building has provided the perfect environment to do just that.
In Quarry’s former building in Kitchener, various employees were scattered on the first, third and seventh floors of an office building, making it difficult for those collaborative conversations to take place.
Now, with an open, fluid space, Whyte said he has already noticed a lot more employees gathering together, sharing ideas about their projects.
“What we’re seeing with this building is that it is helping as a workplace to support our own culture,” said Whyte.
The building, which is alongside the Conestogo River, provides a perfect backdrop for the creative minds at work. Extra windows alongside the river were installed, to bring in more natural light than most offices enjoy.
The stairway to the second floor is enclosed in glass, and cantilevers out over the river. Two chairs are situated on the stairs, to give employees a spot to sit and enjoy the view.
In addition, meeting rooms are scattered throughout the building, all with a different feel and flavour, and all named after famous and not-so-famous inventors — everyone from Thomas Edison to Hiram Moore, who designed the first threshing machine.
Open beams, high ceilings and original brickwork show through, and area paired with contemporary furniture, concrete floors, and glass doorways to the meeting rooms and offices.
“We tried to achieve that feeling of energy, of something fun and new,” said Whyte. “We wanted to retain that feeling of commerce and add in our own culture. What we’ve created is an environment that feels very innovative, and makes you feel jazzed when you come to work.”
Amenities such as showers, a rooftop patio, ping-pong table and Einstein’s Bistro, a café for employees and clients, add to the energy and excitement found in the building.
It’s all part of the philosophy that happy employees are creative employees, and are much more likely to create good work.
Quarry Integrated Communications works with clients around the world, helping them create a brand that stays in the memory of consumers. That means looking at everything from a client’s website and its navigability, to how print and television ads help a company create an image or presence that isn’t forgotten.
That’s why teams are required to work on particular projects, with each person bringing something different to the table, striving to be as innovative as possible for their clients.
That spirit of innovation will continue to be at work at the new St. Jacobs location, said Whyte, who noted that the company will be helping Christie Digital test out its new microtiles, a means of showing multiple high-resolution images to clients simultaneously.
And, through new communications links and the wireless system installed in the Riverworks building, employees at Quarry will be able to improve communication with their clients, whether they are in the north end of Waterloo like RIM, or in India.
Whyte said that Quarry hopes to show what can be accomplished with a building like the Riverworks building, and inspire other companies to do the same.
“We have melded commerce and creativity to build a whole new centre of innovation. Others could do the same.”