Corporate Office Design, Noida: An Automotive Workplace with Staff Dining

Our concept design for the Noida office of an automotive components manufacturer: a ground-floor reception, then one long first floor that runs from the boardroom and leadership cabins, through open-plan workstations and a war room, to a staff dining hall with its own kitchen. The company's products, drawn as line art, are the decoration.

Concept design. The layouts and views below are our own design work, produced by Hagerstone's design team. They are not a record of a completed project, and the client is not identified.

By Dhruv Agarwal · · 6 min read

Ground-floor office reception with a sage-fronted desk, a lit product display wall under the stair and tan lounge armchairs

The brief

A new office in Noida for a manufacturer of automotive components. One building, two levels: a ground-floor arrival with reception, and a single long first floor that had to hold everything else: the boardroom and leadership cabins, the engineering and commercial teams, meeting rooms of several sizes, the IT and power rooms, and a dining hall with its own kitchen.

Two audiences use this office. Customers, OEM buyers and auditors form a view of the company from the reception, the boardroom and what is on the walls. The people who work here need long, productive days, quick daily reviews and a proper lunch. The design gives each audience its own route through the building.

A long floor, planned as a sequence

The first floor is long and narrow, so the plan reads as a journey from one end to the other rather than a ring around a core:

ZoneHoldsWhy here
Arrival (ground floor)Reception desk, waiting lounge, product display, mandir niche by the entranceThe only part a casual visitor sees; the stair takes invited guests up
Leadership endBoardroom behind a cut-off lobby, waiting area, a run of private cabins, conference roomsVisitors reach it from the stair without crossing the work floor
Working floorOpen-plan workstation bays, team cubicles, war room, informal discussion zoneThe middle of the plan, with daylight on both long sides
Support coreServer room, UPS room, record room, pantry, toilets, along a connecting passageGrouped so services run in one spine, not across the floor
Dining endStaff dining hall, servery, kitchen pre-preparation, dish and pot wash, handwashFurthest from the boardroom, beside its own service stair

Three stairs serve the floor: the arrival stair from reception, a central stair in the middle of the plan, and a service stair at the kitchen end. Exit routes for the final layout are set against NBC 2016 Part 4 at the drawing stage.

Making the brand the architecture

The most visible design move is also the cheapest to change. Instead of logos everywhere, line drawings of the company's own products (connectors, switches, instrument clusters and the vehicles they go into) run across the feature walls of the waiting area, the workstation bay, the discussion zone and the dining hall. Real parts sit in lit display niches at reception and on the main office wall.

The rest of the palette is deliberately restrained so those drawings carry the identity:

  • Sage and olive on cabinetry and focal walls
  • Mauve and cappuccino on selected joinery, seating and toilet cubicles
  • Green and grey Kota stone, laid in diagonal stripes on the work floor and dining hall, and as borders that frame the boardroom and reception
  • Black steel and satin metal for trims, rails and the stainless corner guards that protect every column and wall end from trolleys and chairs

The exposed steel roof structure on the first floor is left visible and painted dark, with linear lighting hung below it. That keeps the volume of an industrial building, which suits an engineering company better than a dropped ceiling would. Enclosed rooms get a grid ceiling for acoustics and services.

Related: Kota stone · flooring systems · office lighting design · automotive and engineering

The leadership end

The boardroom is a long room, 9,167 × 4,425 mm on the drawing, with eight chairs a side and one at the head. A backlit panel frames the screen wall, a suspended linear frame lights the table, and a green Kota border sets the table zone into the floor. The glazed side is frosted at eye level; the outer wall has windows.

The cut-off lobby sits between the open office and the boardroom: two doors in series, with access control at the inner one. It stops sound and sightlines carrying into the room, and it costs only a few square metres.

The cabins (3,300 × 2,950 mm and similar on the drawing) each hold a desk, two visitor chairs and a full-length storage credenza, with a pin-up or display panel on the back wall. The fronts are glazed with a frosted band, so the cabins stay part of the floor.

Related: glass partitions and doors · acoustic design for offices · glass partitions: fire, acoustics and privacy

The working floor

The open-plan bay runs down the middle of the building with daylight from both long sides. Storage units with planters on top form the spine between desk rows, which gives every bank a boundary without a partition. Team cubicles suit managers who need a visitor chair but not a door.

The war room is a small, plain room with whiteboards on both side walls and a screen at the end, for the daily production and quality review. A separate informal discussion zone (7,512 × 4,400 mm), with a sofa, air hockey and foosball, sits between the work floor and the dining end, so noise stays away from the desks.

Related: workstation density · turnkey office fit-out

Staff dining with a kitchen that works

The dining hall fills the far end of the floor: long rows of four-seat tables, the servery at the end wall, and the same Kota stripes and product murals as the office, so it feels like part of the workplace, not a separate canteen.

Behind it, the kitchen is planned as a one-way flow:

  1. Pre-preparation and landing (8,893 × 4,000 mm on the drawing), beside the service stair, so raw material arrives without crossing the dining hall. The drawing allows for a chapati machine and dough kneader.
  2. Cooking and servery, facing the hall.
  3. Dish and pot wash, with a pass-through hatch from the dining side.
  4. A handwash area before the hall, with a long counter of basins.

Related: pantry and cafeteria fit-out · factory canteen and amenity block planning · industrial canteen design for 200 seats

The rooms nobody photographs

A good office plan is also judged by its back-of-house. Here the server room, UPS room and record room sit side by side on the connecting passage (1,325 mm wide on the drawing). They are separate rooms because their needs differ: the server room needs cooling, cable trays and restricted access; the UPS room has its own ventilation and heat load. The pantry and the ladies' and gents' toilets share the same services spine.

Related: server room in an office: what to settle first · server room and data centre MEP

What to settle before construction drawings

  • Headcount per department and growth over the lease, which sets the split between open desks, team cubicles and cabins.
  • Dining sittings and shift timings. A hall sized on total headcount is either half empty or a queue; sittings decide the seat count.
  • The kitchen menu and equipment list, because the chapati line, exhaust and drainage fix the kitchen layout before the hall is drawn.
  • IT and power loads, which size the server and UPS rooms and their cooling.
  • Which product drawings and display parts the company wants shown. The murals are printed late, but their wall positions and lighting are fixed early.
  • Visitor and audit routes, marked on the plan, so the leadership end stays private.

Related: Cat A vs Cat B fit-out · fit-out MEP coordination

Taking it to site

We design and build offices like this one as a single contract, from the concept views to the handover, across Noida and the NCR: office design and build · turnkey office fit-out · office interiors in Noida · more of our designs

Planning a corporate office or a plant office in Noida? Send the floor plan and your headcount. Talk to the design team.

The plan and the palette

One long first floor, read left to right, and the materials it is built from.

Rendered first-floor plan of a long narrow office: cabins along one wall, workstation banks, meeting rooms and a dining hall at one end
The first floor end to end: leadership and meetings, then the workstation bays, then dining and the kitchen.
Material mood board with grey and green stone samples, sage, mauve and taupe laminates and black and satin metal trims
The palette: sage and olive, mauve and cappuccino, green and grey Kota stone, black steel and satin metal.

Arrival: reception and waiting

The route a visitor takes, from the ground-floor desk up the stair to the waiting area outside the boardroom.

Ground-floor reception with a sage-fronted desk, a lit product display wall under the stair and a lounge of tan armchairs
Ground-floor arrival: reception desk, product display under the stair, and a waiting lounge. Indicative viewpoint.
First-floor waiting area with green and beige sofas in front of an olive mural wall of engineering line drawings
First-floor waiting at the top of the stair, outside the boardroom door. Indicative viewpoint.

Boardroom and leadership cabins

The rooms where decisions are made, set behind a cut-off lobby and glazed to the floor so they stay connected to it.

Boardroom with a long table in tan leather chairs, a backlit screen wall, frosted glass partition and windows onto trees
The boardroom, set in a green Kota border and reached through its own lobby. Indicative viewpoint.
Private cabin with a sage desk, tan executive chair, two visitor chairs and a frosted glass door
A leadership cabin: desk, two visitor chairs and a full run of storage. Indicative viewpoint.

The working floor

Open-plan workstations, team cubicles, a war room for the daily review and an informal zone between work and lunch.

Long open-plan office with rows of workstations, planter-topped storage, striped grey and green floor and exposed steel roof
The main workstation bay under the exposed steel roof, with planters on the storage spine. Indicative viewpoint.
Two-person team cubicles with sage panels and visitor chairs below a mural of engine line drawings
Team cubicles for managers who need a visitor chair but not a door. Indicative viewpoint.
War room with a sage table for six, whiteboards on both side walls and a screen on a mauve wall
The war room: whiteboards on two walls, built for the daily review. Indicative viewpoint.
Informal discussion area with an L-shaped sofa, air hockey and foosball tables in front of a mauve mural wall
The informal discussion zone between the work floor and dining. Indicative viewpoint.

Staff dining and kitchen

A dining hall at the far end of the floor, with a kitchen planned around hygiene and a service route of its own.

Long staff dining hall with rows of four-seat tables in mauve and beige chairs under pendant lights and an exposed steel roof
The staff dining hall, with the servery at the far end. Indicative viewpoint.
Stainless steel kitchen pre-preparation area with a chapati machine, dough kneader, worktops and floor drains
Pre-preparation and landing, beside the service stair so deliveries never cross the dining hall. Indicative viewpoint.

Standards referenced

  • NBC 2016, Part 4 — Fire and life safety — means of egress for business occupancy (Bureau of Indian Standards)

Frequently asked

It is designed for two audiences at once. Customers, auditors and OEM buyers judge the company on the reception, the boardroom and the product story on the walls; engineers and staff need long working hours, quick reviews and a proper meal. This design gives the first group a controlled route of reception, waiting, cut-off lobby and boardroom, and gives the second a workstation floor, a war room for daily reviews and a dining hall with its own kitchen.

Use the product rather than the logo. Here, line drawings of the components the company makes run across the feature walls of the workstation bay, waiting area, discussion zone and dining hall, and real parts sit in lit display niches. The palette is kept quiet (sage, mauve, taupe and grey stone) so the drawings carry the identity. It reads as an engineering company's office, not a showroom.

Proportion, light and quiet, more than expensive finishes. This boardroom is a long room (9,167 × 4,425 mm on the drawing) with eight chairs a side and one at the head, a backlit screen wall, a suspended linear light frame over the table, a green stone border in the floor, and daylight from one side. It is reached through its own cut-off lobby rather than straight off the work floor.

A small vestibule between the open office and a room that needs privacy. Two doors in series stop sound and sightlines carrying from the work floor into the boardroom, give visitors somewhere to pause, and allow access control at the inner door. It costs a few square metres and protects the one room where confidential discussions happen.

It can be, if it sits at the far end with its own service route. In this design the dining hall and kitchen occupy one end of the long first floor, with a separate service stair beside the kitchen's pre-preparation and landing area. Deliveries and waste never cross the dining hall or the workstations, and staff walk to lunch without using a lift or leaving the building.

Because they have different needs. The server room needs controlled cooling, cable trays and restricted access; the UPS room holds batteries and power equipment with their own ventilation and heat load. Keeping them in adjacent but separate rooms lets each be ventilated, cooled and maintained properly, and keeps battery maintenance out of the network room.

Yes. We work across Noida and the NCR as a design and build contractor. Send the floor plan, headcount and the rooms you need, and we will prepare a concept like this one, with the plan, mood board and 3D views, before anything is drawn for construction.

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