Siam Commercial Bank Learning Academy

Employees are now looking to sixty year careers while the half-life for learned skills continues to become shorter. In the past, employees undertook training to gain skills for a career. Now, the career itself is a journey of learning. To best position themselves around the changing nature of learning, SCB sought to create a unique learning environment to facilitate innovative thinking and market leadership across the business, operations and clients. They recognise that the future of financial services will be disrupted and seek to be in front of these changes by fundamentally transforming their employees and challenging their future readiness.

Through stakeholder interviews and user engagement workshop sessions we developed guiding principles for the learning experience and identified outcomes per zone. The outcome is a strategic concept design over 3000m2 that captures the transformational, aspirational and forward thinking nature of the bank and its care for the future of its employees. A spatial strategy report and concept design including 3D renders, floor plans and look & feel provided a detailed spatial brief ready for design development.

The design strategy for the Learning Academy will allow the Siam Commercial Bank to foster a consistent culture of innovation and learning to ensure they are always at the front of the technology and disruption curve.

Through developing a formal concept based on alchemy, chemistry and molecular structures we were able to respond to not only the banks needs but the vision and experience for the space. For the bank it allowed the learning academy to embody its innovative beginnings, infuse the gold from the brand in its base form, describe the metamorphism into the digital economy, and capture the aspirational nature of SCB goals. As a design typology it was able to be manipulated and hacked to create permutations and combinations that evoke a sense of challenge and excellence in achievement, support divergent thinking through experimentation, demonstrate limitless potential, and represent care through detailed process and delivery.