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“We work late hours,” says Azhar Siddiqui, general manager of Magna. “We’re here till 9pm on a regular day. Otherwise, when we have big projects, we can be up until 2 or 3 am. So the office is very night-friendly; the ambience is very relaxing if we have to work late.”

We got that feeling when we walked in to the Magna offices. While the reception area is an almost typically funky agency effort, other parts of the space have a classy cigar-lounge feel to them, or are pure industrial chic, and the remainder is white airy office space. While this sounds like a hard mix to pull off, it works for Magna Communications Architects, the media buying, planning and consulting arm of MCN.

The company was launched almost four years ago, and Siddiqui says he wanted the brand to portray a boutique offering, so the look and feel of the offices had to match that. “We’re a media agency, but we didn’t want to be perceived as the typical agency with cubicles,” he says. “We can be creative and funky too.”

The two dozen or so employees work in an office lined with brick walls and what looks like dark red velvet Chinese lettering, but is in fact just random lines. The ceiling was left in its raw industrial state, and the floor is a dark grey concrete. At the centre of the office is the main meeting room, lined with brick walls and a big round table that looks like it should be used by Arthurian Knights. At the outskirts of the office space are employee desk clusters, pristine and white complete with blooming vegetation. Plenty of sunlight streams in through the windows, which offer a view of the Emirates Golf Course.

The space was designed by Alfred Johnson from Imagination interior design agency. “We like it because the way the space is used is unique,” says Siddiqui. “Everyone has access to daylight, and the conference room is in the centre and lined with glass, so it’s all open. We only use it 20 percent of the time, so why waste the best part of the office? It’s all very transparent and not tucked away. When clients sit in the meeting room, they get a feel for the agency.”

The Magna offices are also fully equipped with dimmer lights, as Siddiqui confesses he does not like bright lights. “Day or night, the environment adapts to the design,” he says. Just what you need when you’re facing a long night of creative graft.

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