During the gala award ceremony, held on 17 June 2021 at Žofín Palace in Prague, prizes were presented for a total of ten competition categories. The purpose of the competition is to acknowledge companies that strive to actively adapt their spaces to their employees, and also to motivate other employers to prioritise this viewpoint.
“Looking back I’m glad that we made zero compromises in our new offices. This award is the culmination of a project that has taken eight years to complete – but also one that gives me a lot of energy through our people’s satisfaction. Aimtec’s founders have our enormous thanks for their faith in the project, and so do the architects, who made friends with our whole company during their work,” says Andrea Chejlavová, Aimtec Chief Facility Officer, who supervised the entire project.
In this year’s Office of the Year competition, the organisers emphasised the importance of the work environment during this time when employees are gradually returning to the office. According to the jurors, the following will influence what offices will look like in the future: “As a result of Covid-19, we are seeing more use of mobile soundproofed workplaces for one or more workers, as well as more intensive dividing up of whole offices into smaller units,” juror Jaroslav Vendl has noted for the news site E15.
Aimtec moved into its new offices across from Pilsner Urquell on 1 January 2020. The firm’s two floors and terrace in the modern Hamburk Business Center complex, as well as the location itself, were strategically chosen so as to keep the Aimtec headquarters in the city centre and ease employees’ commute to work. The interior design was provided by a duo of architects, Jiří Zábran and Markéta Škopková from PRO-STORY s.r.o. Their office design factored in the need for cross-team cooperation and the logic of the activity-based office.