Forty-two desks, two floors down

Survey, labels and crates

When an expanding architecture practice in Ghent secured a single open-plan floor to consolidate their team, the primary operational challenge was protecting client deadlines. Moving forty-two workstations, drafting tables, and reference libraries across two floors down to a single unified level required strict coordination. Relocating during normal office hours was out of the question. Co-founder Samir Haddad visited the studio six weeks prior to the move for a comprehensive site survey, recording architectural layouts, measuring doorways and stairwells, and reviewing lift access at both levels.

Three weeks before the scheduled move date, Samir delivered the detailed floor plan. Every functional team within the studio was assigned an identifiable colour zone, and each architect’s desk received an individual destination number. Ten working days prior to moving, Tom Verbeke dispatched reusable grey plastic crates measuring 60 × 40 × 35 cm from our Antwerp depot at Dokweg 12. Each staff member received an average of six crates, allowing the architects to pack their project files, material samples, and personal drafting tools at their own pace over the fortnight leading up to the relocation.

Lift, load and set out

The physical move began precisely at Friday 18:00. Kwame Mensah and our Saturday loading crew arrived on site to protect the building entrances, line the lift interiors, and roll out protective floor runners. Crate dollies were systematically queued and loaded. By Saturday morning at 07:00, the old two-floor studio was completely emptied, and all forty-two crate stacks were arranged in their designated colour zones on the new floor below. Every cable bag, drafting screen, and storage unit bore its corresponding destination label, allowing the staging team to place each item beside its future desk frame without intermediate staging.

Two crew stay until 12:00

On Monday morning at 07:00, two crew members arrived on site to assist arriving staff, help adjust monitor arms, and relocate a handful of archive boxes. By 12:00, their support window concluded as normal business operations were underway. Tom Verbeke scheduled the collection of empty crates over the following three weeks, completing a calm, seamless transition within our 150 km operating zone.