Inside Tadiem's Office, Complete With a Bar and Basketball Court

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In our vertical series, cb Offering exciting, smart-designed and one-of-a-kind spaces across Canada. From innovative home offices to out-of-the-box co-working spaces to unconventional setups-Like This Beauty Company Moved Out of a Rural Farmhouse and this carbon-bike company Located in a former auto body shop—we want to showcase the most unique and beautiful locations from across industries. This month we’re profiling alliance, Toronto Office of Creative Collective Tadim,

When the pandemic hit, creative collective Tadym was in the middle of a 16-year lease on a 4,645-square-metre, two-level office space in Toronto’s CBC building, a block north of Rogers Centre. The collective comprises three departments-bensimmon byronan advertising agency, a methoda design agency, and narrativeA communications and PR agency—approximately 200 team members in total.

By November 2020, the collective’s executives sat down to think about what their workspace should look like coming out of the pandemic. “We had to find a new way to work in person,” says Amin Todai, OneMethod’s founder and chief creative officer. After so many months of isolation, they wanted their space to foster collaboration and end the siled work.

Tadim drew inspiration from his offshoot skills-barter concept called The Combination, which he launched in 2018. It works like this: About 25 artists, photographers, DJs and musicians gain access to Tadim’s workspace for meetings, as well as resources such as video and audio. In exchange for 20 hours a year of creative work for a recording studio, company or another Combine member. Tadim wanted to channel the collaborative nature of The Combination for its new design and borrow the name for its new office, says Sarah Spence, CEO of Tadim.

“We wanted this to be a place where people want to come”

The collective redesigned the first floor so that all employees, previously fragmented by agency and department, could work together at hot desks or open tables. They added 10 meeting rooms and converted the office’s 139-square-metre mezzanine level into a lounge space with small bistro tables and chairs, giving it a cafe-like feel. “A lot of people eat lunch there,” says Spence. Much of the second floor remained “multi-purpose creative space” with meeting rooms, boardrooms, and video and audio recording suites, where teams host meetings and programs for customers. The basketball court—a legacy of OneMethod’s old office in Liberty Village—doubles as space to host town halls of up to 200 people.

Todai led the design efforts. “I was thinking about urban planning,” he says. “We wanted to create a city that had very few ‘neighborhoods’.” The entire space is intentionally designed on a rough, skewed grid, so there are no straight lines of sight through the space. You have to walk the alleyways to see everything. The aim, Todai says, was to create opportunities for workers to be “surprised and inspired” throughout the office. Tadim Tapped Architects labels and booleans and interior designer solid design creative Up for renewal, which spanned from July to December 2022.

Tadiem was adamant that the staff members return will not be mandatory In the office, even if only for a few days. “We wanted it to be a place want to come,” Spence says. “We want employees to come because they want to collaborate and connect with peers.” Now, 40 to 130 employees come to the office on any given day.

Here is the inside view:

This front entrance, where the reception desk originally sat, is now a pop-up space for Tadim staff and its artist members to sell products or showcase their art on their behalf. The ground floor space is open to the public. “During a Blue Jays game, there will be thousands of people walking by,” Todai says.

Bevy Cafe on the second floor of Combine's office, which is open to the public — A smaller, second-floor cafe called The Bevy is also open to the public. It is operated by Combine member Phil Song, a muralist and director of a Korean skate-culture agency who previously ran a coffee shop in Toronto’s east end. “It’s an independently run business,” says Todai. “We have a mini ledger for our Combine members, so if they don’t have cash, they can write down how much coffee they bought and then I got settled.”

Large wooden desk in center of combine workspace next to fake plants — Combine’s desks and meeting rooms are on the main floor. This area, known as “The Grove”, is a part of the office with little natural light. To compensate for this, the team added artificial plants and created a ceiling perforated with metal panels. “It brings comfort into the mix,” says Todai.

A phone booth with Gucci wallpaper inside Tandem's office — This phone booth on the main floor next to The Grove is clad in corrugated metal panels. When Todai was researching materials for his own condo, he fell in love with this tiger-face wallpaper from Gucci and brought it into the office. Todai joked, “I didn’t tell the partners we were spending that kind of money.” “But we did it in moderation.”

A worker exiting a phone booth in a large open workspace — The Combine has 12 phone booths where employees can take calls or spend quiet time. Both of these are manufactured by the New York City-based phone-booth company Room. Todai added a shelf inside that flips up to allow staff members to use their laptops while sitting or standing.

The workspace has its own bar called Luigi’s—named after OneMethod copywriter Dario Luigi Petruzzi. “Every Thursday and Friday, he’d go behind the bar in our old office and become our de facto bartender,” Tadoi says. “We wanted to create a dive-bar space that’s unlike what you’d think an agency of our scale would have in its office. It turned out to be a DIY project. Tadoi painted the tile patterns on the floor himself with the help of team members They picked up vintage items such as lighting, artwork and signage from antique shops in Waterloo and Niagara.

A basketball court inside Tadim's Toronto office — In the redesign, Tadoi reimagined the office’s basketball court as a place to host company-wide town halls and TEDx-style talks. Jeff Ray, OneMethod’s executive design director, designed the mural, which was later painted by Combine members.

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Inside Tadiem’s Office, Complete With a Bar and Basketball Court

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