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UNICEF ROSA Headquarters, Nepal

INTERIOR DESIGN + BRANDED SPACES + ACTIVATION

Environmental branding for global children’s advocates. 

UNICEF ROSA (Regional Office for South Asia) required an interior design and branded design system to reflect the modern world class organization and its inspiring work culture and ethics while putting children in the spotlight.

With the Convention of the Rights of the Child as the foundation, we aimed to motivate and energize people working in the environment by creating a design intervention with a sense of pride and purpose. 

A Place For Children’s Rights

Having previously worked on multiple communication projects for them, UNICEF approached Lopez Design to design their Regional Office for South Asia in Kathmandu, Nepal. The UNICEF ROSA office at Kathmandu provides training, programs, and support to eight offices in the region and other humanitarian partners such as aiding field workers to carry out their mission to protect and promote children’s rights.

ROSA wanted us to change the internal layouts of their offices to utilize the existing space efficiently and to accommodate increased functions and productivity. The campus renovation included 8 buildings, services, and other functional areas spanning over 22,320 square feet. The brand graphics were to elaborate on a theme focusing on the work ROSA does in the South Asian region with children as the face of the organization.

Designing For People and Place

Our spatial design was a holistic project encompassing environmental branding and graphics. 

The ROSA offices needed to be self-sufficient. This was highlighted significantly in the 40 weeks we worked in Nepal. While the delicious food and weather
gave us little to complain about, our work schedules went for a toss with haphazard strikes, festival holidays, and power cuts. We strove to incorporate sustainable technology by installing solar panels on the roof which were connected to the electric grid. By finding a solution that was the environment and climate-sensitive, critical facilities like ICT equipment, lights, fans, and appliances were powered without interruption.

Cohesive Visual Language 

A sense of pride and ownership was instilled through a welcome degree of order, working comfort, and visual coherence.

As UNICEF works with many different nations, it was imperative to bring a cohesive structure by combining various elements of South Asian culture through textures, colors, and ambiance. In the design of spaces, we maintained this continuity and further infused it through graphic installations. We developed an artistic style of circular brush strokes especially for ROSA that was synchronous with putting children in the spotlight.

United By Design

The Master Installation at the entrance reception represents ROSA’s motto to bring everyone together to fight for children’s rights. The word UNITE appears in 8 different regional languages made in three-dimensional modules alongside images of children superimposed on the map of South Asia.

Sub Master Installations were planned, one in every building. Photographs of children in action express the rights of every child in these lively installations. The composition is a play of words, representative of the actions, written in regional languages.

Meaningful Illustrations

Modular Graphics and communications make links throughout the building. Images of children leave deep impressions on the viewer and are interspersed with UNICEF’s FFL icons. The Article on Conventions of the Rights of the Child on the wall is accompanied by a meaningful description.

The graphics for the cafeteria allowed us to explore a large hand-drawn illustration on the wall. The bountiful tree laden with fruits from all over South Asia embodied abundance and good health.

A Recharged Campus That Reflects South Asia

Since the campus was on an old site, we overcame many construction hitches. Our sleepless nights in Kathmandu and tough climbs to achieve gave us that rush of exhilaration at the peak – the ROSA employees were ecstatic about the new design. We successfully opened up spaces to create an uplifting experience and as a result, people felt great about coming to a positive energy workspace. 

We managed to strike a delicate balance between creating an environment to reflect the philosophy and professionalism of UNICEF and bridging the multicultural ethos of the regions of South Asia. We unified every aspect of the ROSA Campus from parking signage, color schemes to environmental graphics and furniture to make UNICEF ROSA the vibrant space it is today.

Team

Ajay Sharma
Nishita Karun
Mohan Godwal
Sujatha S Kumar
Anwesha Mukherjee
Anthony Lopez

Support

Vijay Soreng
Zeena Lopez

 

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