For Parallel 45 Design Group, the best testament to their recent project with Marks & Clerk is that the employees like their new office space so much, they’re returning to work voluntarily for more than the required two days a week.
“We’re most proud that we’re hearing people are liking it and are coming back to the office. That was the goal — to make people really comfortable at the office,” says Robin Peixoto, a principal at Parallel 45 Design.
The project involved designing a whole new office space for Marks & Clerk, an international intellectual property law boutique with patent and trademark agents, lawyers and paralegals and administrative staff among their employee audience. The company opened its first Canadian office in Ottawa more than 100 years ago and had most recently housed its local offices in an office on Kent Street in the capital city’s centre.
“We were moving out of a very traditional, old-school legal office space and it was the kind of design that didn’t age super well,” says James Baker, office managing partner at Marks & Clerk. “It was leased at a time when law firms had closed offices and staff sat in cubicles with limited natural light. We were also very paper heavy, we had a massive file room to accommodate this, and everyone came in five days a week, so dedicated desks and offices were a necessity. Today our teams work remotely two to four days a week and our office is paperless, with all work created and stored in the cloud. So when we designed the new space, we got rid of our file room, which had to be 1,500 square feet of space and we also reduced the number of offices and desks to reflect the current needs of our business and practice.”
Marks & Clerk found a hidden gem on the third floor of World Exchange Plaza, a shiny new space with lots of large windows and natural light for everyone, and the tallest ceilings in the whole 20-storey complex. Conveniently located in downtown Ottawa, World Exchange Plaza offers Marks & Clerk’s employees access to exclusive tenant only amenity spaces, a recently redesigned food court and beautiful outdoor plaza.
Parallel 45’s work was designed to facilitate collaborative work for the Marks & Clerk team in a modern and welcoming environment with technology and amenities to support hot desking and hybrid working. The 40-person boardroom they used to have is now a thing of the past. The new space has 24 desks, some closed offices, a medium size boardroom and smaller meeting room, and a flex space called The Hub, which is a combination of dining and flex workspace, that can accommodate larger meetings, and where the team can socialize.
Despite having fewer formal desks than staff, “everyone could work from there if they wanted to,” Peixoto says.
The company also wanted an open space, but with noise-reduction elements, more natural light, higher ceilings and bigger windows, soft seating areas and plants, to help make its employees feel as comfortable at the office as they do at home. Creating and providing a space where the health and well-being of the staff and professionals was paramount in the design.
“The goal was to move out of the existing space, moving to a hybrid work environment, because not everybody’s in the office every day, five days a week,” Peixoto says. “And just to make it a little bit more of a timeless, up-to-date office space where everyone could come and work at different times and share some spaces and work collaboratively with each other.”
For the couple of times a year when the firm might want to gather all employees in one place, it can use The Hub, which it already recently tested during an office “town hall” and it worked well. But World Exchange Plaza also has extra boardrooms available exclusively for tenants to use as part of the building’s new amenity offering.
“We call it The Commons,” says Stephanie Thompson, director of leasing at QuadReal Property Group (QuadReal), which manages World Exchange Plaza. “It’s around 8,000 square feet of brand-new, thoughtfully curated amenity space. We have this great breakout lounge area, which is like a co-working space, but for tenants only. There are three boardrooms — two 12-person boardrooms and a larger one that will accommodate about 30 people. It also features overflow seating as well. There’s a gym in The Commons, too, which is self-serve and also offers classes. The space was thoughtfully designed for tenants based on market trends and tenant needs we have been seeing over the past several years.”
In a coincidence, Parallel 45 designed the World Exchange’s The Commons space as well.
Andrée Lafrance, director of human resources at Marks & Clerk, says her colleagues like the new space a lot, and that they like The Hub space best of all.
“It’s large; it’s bright; it’s got a lot of plants,” Lafrance says. “We have trees coming out of everywhere. The couches have plugs in them so people can go work in there if there’s not enough room in the office. It’s just a very nice, clean space. Everyone just feels good. And the word most often used to describe the space is ‘fancy’.”
The new office also has a locker-room area so employees can leave a certain number of personal things at the office, under lock and key.
Throughout the project, Lafrance says QuadReal was pleasant and easy to work with.
“On the building side, the onboarding went really well,” Lafrance says. “QuadReal was extremely co-operative in making sure the security people were informed and that our card access and everything worked out. Here, I feel everybody’s very responsive, and they hear us. So to me, that’s a big plus.”
Baker agrees. “Everyone has a smile on their face. Whether it’s in the parking garage or at security, it’s just been a real pleasure.”
This article first appeared in the September 2025 special “Best Offices Ottawa” issue of the Ottawa Business Journal. That publication is available in its digital edition below.
