Four countries working together to create Okta’s new Parisian office

With the client based in San Francisco, the architect and the MEP engineers in London, the sustainability team in Australia, and the office in Paris – it truly was an international project. Alongside the physical delivery of the space, we obtained the necessary permits from the French authorities – and ensured what the client in the US wanted was accurately understood and executed by all trades and authorities in France.

Under the scope of work for the space, we created an open office area, a boardroom for up to 10 people, and six smaller meeting rooms. Communal spaces include a canteen/pantry, dining areas and a social-gaming space named ‘The Okta Vault’ where employees can host special events, informal gatherings, or play video games and babyfoot (foosball).

From the very beginning, Okta was clear on the refurbishment budget and timescales. Therefore, to ensure complete transparency and clear communication, we had weekly all-hands meetings and produced a regular procurement log, weekly schedule update and three-week lookahead.

As a multilingual company, Agilité acted as the translation go-between for Okta when the client was dealing with the landlord and the tower’s maintenance company, as well as Okta’s own French subcontractors, to ensure their delivery ran smoothly. We also accepted the client’s shipments from the US and stored them at our Paris office until needed for installation

Agilité managed everything involved in getting the space ‘work ready’ – except for furniture installation and network and audio/visual technology. And, due to challenges with procurement across our sector (due to pandemic-related supply chain issues, trade between Britain/the EU due to Brexit and the war in Ukraine) we knew which items would be challenging to obtain, and carefully managed the supply chain subcontractors and the supply chain in order to ensure we had what we needed on time.

We reused the existing ceiling and carpets, but when it came to construction waste, we collated and audited all output and sent 87% of everything we removed from the site for recycling.