ICM Group is owned by the Bertucci family, whose beautiful South Perth house we designed. They loved the contemporary look and feel of their home and approached us to design the new offices and workshop for their family business in Canning Vale as well.

The palette of robust industrial materials was an easy and early choice. We designed a ‘machine’ of a building, encased by the bull-nose form of the roof much the way a car’s engine is contained within its body. The elegant glass and steel facade is the nerve centre of the plan, set at a welcoming angle for visitors and opening into a brightly lit foyer of timber, steel and stone. The ICM Group logo and company colours are integrated large-scale into the facade for maximum visibility in the industrial surroundings. Within, the offices are compartmentalised, with a central open plan space. Personnel are not shut away from each other, however; windows and low partitioning allow for easy communication and collaboration between offices.

The warehouse part of the plan contains the ‘working parts’ of the machine: the equipment and infrastructure of the electrical engineering business. The highly technical fit-out is multi-level and is matched in proportions by the pitch of the roof; at the higher end sit the gantry crane and heavy machinery, and at the lower end the smaller manual processes and storage. We also had the significant advantage of the client’s own electrical engineering team on this project. They fully integrated the latest C-BUS, building management and security technology throughout the site. The building also runs at peak energy efficiency with the use of room sensors, which automatically modulate lighting and mechanical controls as required.