The more complicated the job, the greater chance Ensto has of winning it.
The Öpik House, LEED Gold, thirteen stories, is a 17,200 square-meter office showcase in the heart of Ülemiste City, Tallinn, Estonia’s IT district. With this property maximum flexibility was the name of the game.
“We can never predict when our company might centralize even more,” says a key tenant who recently occupied four floors of the new structure, all of them equipped with Ensto Workpoint poles. “And so we needed an extremely flexible workspace.”
The tenant’s offices are outfitted with a total of 150 Ensto Workpoint poles, a configuration which can serve up to 501 workers. The vast majority of posts enable four workspaces with six electrical outlets and two data ports per workspace.
Ensto was up against tough competition to win the tender to supply the posts. Among the competitors were all the usual suspects, but Ensto prevailed because of RAL 7030 and RAL 7024, two tones of gray that it was able to supply its products in.
“As an architect my two primary concerns are quality and availability,” says Mattias Agabus, the building’s lead architect. There was one other bidder who could supply the gray tones, but Ensto won the job thanks to its ability to deliver a high-quality product in the desired color at a competitive price.
Ensto teamwork made it happen. The Ensto organization in three countries came together to get the right product in the right color at the right time. “The RAL 7030 poles were sourced from Finland, the RAL 7024 sockets in France, and the assembly was done in Keila, Estonia,” says Tarmo Roth, Ensto’s Area Sales Manager.
Constant communication between Ensto's sales-, purchasing-, and production departments ensured that the product arrived exactly as the client specified when the client needed it.
“Speaking as an installer, Ensto Workpoint is ready to go,” says Innar Pinn, project manager at Astorfi OÜ. Pinn’s team of 70 installers was responsible for everything electric in the structure. “All you do is put the base plate under the pole and connect it above. It comes assembled so it’s faster and easier to install than the competitors, who ship their products in more pieces.”
In addition to installation, Ensto also made the color choice seem easy. The lead architect was unaware of Ensto’s behind-the-scenes work to deliver the gray tone which would meet his design team’s vision. “I was under the impression that gray was a standard offering,” says Agabus.
So do lead architects really concern themselves with details like electrical posts? “If you’re working only with quality companies you should not see a huge difference in product performance,” says Agabus. “When you know you’re working with quality, you can then concentrate on which design is most appropriate, and what’s the inventory status so that the builder can quickly get them in place.”
Construction will soon begin on the Öpik House’s sister building which will stand by its side.
At this point it’s impossible to say whether Ensto Workpoint poles will fill the sister structure, as well. What is sure is that Ensto people like Tarmo Roth will go the extra mile to make sure architects get the colors they need, without them ever needing to know what’s standard.
Text: Scott Diel
Pictures: Kaupo Kikkas