Afro Asia Building To House The Great Room’s Largest Coworking Space
SINGAPORE – The Great Room is poised to open a 37,000 sq ft flexible workspace at the newly completed Afro Asia Building by October 2021. This not only represents its fifth coworking space here, but also the biggest one, reported The Edge on Friday afternoon (27 August, SGT).
“The opening of The Great Room at Afro-Asia comes at a time when the world is rethinking the concept of the workplace,” said the company’s Co-founder & Chief Executive Jaelle Ang.
The Great Room’s Co-founder Su-Anne Huang agrees. “The role of the office is changing. It is (now) about activity-based working for the different functions, a place of collaboration, decision-making, and the modern agora for learning.”
The Great Room’s flexible workspace is located on the 6th floor up to level 8 of the 19-storey tower. The hospitality-led coworking space operator will also oversee the sky garden on level 5 that can be utilised as an outdoor event space.
The flagship coworking space was designed by Joyce Wang, an award-winning designer based in Hong Kong, with the intention of creating an elegant workspace that is biophilic and human-centric as well.
“This next chapter of our brand is a starting point of a journey towards a more sustainable work environment, as well as our continued evolution in human-centric design in this new era of hybrid working, and individual and corporate wellbeing,” noted Ang.
Apart from using recycled and upcycled materials, the coworking space supports Singaporean craftsmen too. For example, the centrepiece of the Drawing Room at the flexible workspace is a long communal table made Roger&Sons, a Singaporean father-and-son carpenter duo. The table is made from locally-grown mahogany wood, which was selected as it grows fast and Roger&Sons plants a mahogany tree for every tree that they cut down.
In addition, The Great Room hired lighting specialist DJCoalition to design the lighting at the coworking space with a focus on lowering power consumption and increasing efficiency without compromising the ambience.
Meanwhile, the Afro Asia Building is a new redevelopment that was completed in the middle of this year. It boasts superb eco-friendly credentials, namely LEED Platinum and Green Mark Platinum.
