The client need
Two suites, one company, and furniture that did not match
Tata & Howard had signed for two suites in Marlborough, Massachusetts and had an office full of furniture that did not match. Desks from different eras, finishes that had drifted apart over years of one-off purchases, and very little that would carry into a new space cleanly.
The new floors had to hold more than 30 workstations, a run of private offices for management and staff, conference and training rooms, reception, break and kitchen space, file storage, a server room, and room to add people later. Two suites, two floor plates, one company that needed to read as one company on both.
We started where these projects always start. Not with a catalog. With the drawings.
COI's approach
Planning both floors in 2D
The architectural drawings came to us first. From those we built a furniture floor plan for the third-floor suite and the fourth-floor suite.
Three holds the open workstation bank, private offices along the perimeter wall, a production area, reception, the executive conference room, break room, and file storage. Four holds the second cluster of private offices, an open area, the large conference room, and training seating.
A furniture plan does work an architectural drawing does not. It settles:
- ›How many workstations actually fit in the open area, and how much aisle is left between them
- ›Whether each private office takes a desk and a guest chair, or a desk and nothing else
- ›How many people a conference room seats once the table and the chairs are real products with real dimensions
- ›Where power has to land before the systems furniture goes in
- ›What the install crew needs for access, staging, and sequence
Settling those on paper is what keeps them from becoming change orders during install.
Rendered before anything was ordered
Both floors went into 3D next.
These renderings are not sales pictures. They are the same plan viewed with the furniture in place, so the client can judge scale and sightlines while everything is still free to move. Tata & Howard could see how deep the workstation bank read from the elevator lobby, how the long conference table sat in the glass room on four, how the training tables lined up, and where the warm finishes landed against the gray.
A change at this stage costs a conversation. The same change after delivery costs freight.
Furniture strategy
Specified across lines, not out of one catalog
With the plan approved, we specified across our lines rather than out of one catalog.
- ›Powered workstations with integrated storage across both open areas
- ›Desks and guest seating for the private offices
- ›A long woodgrain conference table with black executive seating for the glass-enclosed room
- ›Training room tables and seating
- ›Reception furniture and shared collaboration areas
Open-line specification earns its keep on a project with this much variety. A systems workstation, a 20-foot conference table, a stacking training chair, and a reception desk rarely come from the same manufacturer at the right price and the right lead time. We are not obligated to pretend they do.
Reception, signage, and the arrival
The entrance carries the brand. Branded graphics went onto the entrance glass. Behind the reception desk, the Tata & Howard logo is mounted on acrylic above a preserved-moss feature wall set in hexagon panels.
The desk itself pairs a woodgrain base with a white transaction surface and a glass counter. Wood, white, moss, and the navy accent wall do the work. Nothing else in that room needs to.
Execution and project control
Install, and what happened to the old furniture
COI handled procurement, delivery coordination, and installation on both floors.
We also walked the existing furniture before the move and sorted it three ways: what relocates, what gets reused elsewhere, and what leaves. That inventory is the step most furniture quotes skip, and it is usually where a relocation budget quietly goes wrong. Anything that leaves a COI project goes through our Day 2 program for resale, donation, or recycling rather than a dumpster.
Installation photos run from staged systems components on a bare floor through to finished floors ready for people.
Outcome
What the finished floors hold
Two floors that read as one office. Thirty-one workstations, private offices for management and staff, conference and training rooms sized to the meetings they actually hold, and a reception that says who the company is before anyone speaks.
One team carried it from architectural drawing to move-in. Space planning, 3D visualization, furniture, project management, and installation through a single point of contact.
