Consulting in colour

When Nantes tech dares to go chromatic

For Delaware, we transformed 400m² into a scalable playground where 39 IT consultants nurture their agility, delivered in just 2 months.

400 m²
2 months
2024

creative_factory

Concept

IT consulting gets a splash of colour in Nantes

Making the space flexible and appealing

Situation

Delaware, an IT consulting firm specialising in ERP ecosystems, runs a growing branch in Nantes. To accommodate 39 consultants across 400 sq m without locking down the floor plate, the Nantes team entrusted Kytom with a turnkey operation delivered in two months, in 2024.

Two decisions shaped the project: oversizing the IT cabling with accessible ceiling cable trays, and rolling out demountable partitions rather than masonry walls, to enable reconfiguration without structural work beyond 39 workstations.

Everything else, colour palette, furniture, lighting, flows from these two bets: a floor plate that reconfigures itself as headcount shifts, in an ERP market where the workplace weighs on recruitment as much as the salary package.

Eight weeks, sixteen trade packages, ventilation to synchronise before partitions

The triangle was tight: eight weeks for audit-design-execution, a framed budget, an HR attractiveness requirement. The critical constraint, identified from the diagnosis stage, concerned ventilation: the synchronisation of electrics, plumbing and suspended ceilings had to be wrapped up before partition installation, on pain of destructive rework.

Across 400 sq m and 39 workstations, every material trade-off weighed on the cost/sq m ratio: over-investing in eco-design was impossible, the furniture would be new, the CSR approach projected rather than certified. The central architectural question was not decorative but structural: how to size a floor plate for growth forecast over three years without triggering heavy refits in 2027.

The answer drove two founding choices: an oversized IT network, redeployable partitions. The rest follows.

Oversized cabling and demountable partitions: two structural bets

First decision: the IT cabling, the backbone of an ERP firm, was sized beyond 2024 needs, with accessible cable trays for maintenance and the addition of workstations without ceiling intervention. In a firm where each consultant deploys simultaneous ERP environments, network headroom is a productivity tool, not a comfort. Second decision: no masonry walls on the floor plate.

All partitions are demountable, allowing the three zones (focus, collaboration, conviviality) to be reconfigured without structural work. The sixteen trade packages were articulated around these two bets: acoustic carpet, variable-temperature lighting, window manifestation, paint, plants, furniture chosen to signpost informal zones. The art direction, inspired by Nordic grammars, treats colour as a way of marking uses, not as décor: each shade flags a work zone.

Coordinating the sixteen trades in eight weeks held on the overall score, not on a star package. Turnkey delivery, floor plate operational the following week.

Deadline met in eight weeks, 95% reusable furniture, floor plate reconfigurable without structural work

The eight-week schedule, audit and design included, was met: the project radar rates management 4/5. The design, rated 5/5, can be read in the demountable bet: when headcount exceeds 39 consultants, reconfiguration is done without removing masonry walls or reworking the network, which a standard fit-out would not allow.

This is the direct payoff of the two structural decisions: the 2024 extra cost for cabling and mobile partitions is amortised from the very first reconfiguration avoided. On materials, the new furniture shows 95% reuse potential at the end of its first cycle, 90% projected recyclability, 90% repairability, 30% recycled components at installation.

On a 2024 project where Kytom’s CSR approach is still taking shape, these ratios set an auditable baseline. For Delaware Nantes, three indicators: eight weeks met, floor plate reconfigurable without structural work, visual identity activated as a recruitment lever in the local ERP market.

400

sq m transformed

months of work

workstations

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