HUB International opens new Stantec-designed headquarters in Toronto

Stantec, a global leader in sustainable design and engineering, collaborated with HUB International (HUB) on interior design services for the leading North American insurance broker. The new Toronto headquarters located in the north end of the city’s Financial District highlights HUB International’s commitment to a city they have called home since 1888.

The 24,000-square-foot space embraces flexibility, shared culture, and the HUB brand, drawing employees back to the office. The fresh design, engaging programmatic spaces and upgraded amenities resulted in increased collaboration and in-office attendance.

“Attracting and retaining top talent is one of our highest priorities at HUB,” said Susan Murphy, president of HUB Ontario. “To do that, it’s important to have a welcoming and modern work environment that gives employees working options while embracing HUB’s culture of collaboration and growth. This new space perfectly accomplishes that.”

An inviting first impression
Creating an open environment starting in the elevator lobby, the design connects the reception and conference pre-function areas to welcome employees and visitors. The café offers comfortable architectural booths under portal arches with light fixtures and abstract Toronto architectural patterns.

Beginning in the elevator lobby, team members and guests immediately step into middle of a dynamic series of spaces comprised of the large work café, lobby, reception, and conference pre-function area. Bright, airy spaces are connected through soft yet distinct architectural elements, natural finishes, bold lighting, and graphic patterns reflecting the Toronto cityscape.

The color palette speaks to HUB’s tailored and energetic work culture. Modern sinuous architectural elements frame the work settings and connect spaces across the floorplate, reflecting their collaborative culture and dynamic brand. Carefully placed regional graphics, rhythmic color feature installations, and abstracted HUB logo moments continue the storytelling journey throughout.

A choice of working environments
Stantec’s team worked closely with HUB to create a unique program that highlighted a wide range of working environments from which employees can choose, ranging from hoteling workstations to enclosed focus rooms to varied collaboration settings to large social spaces for impromptu gatherings. These spaces embody the spectrum of workplace settings, accommodating communal and dynamic, to quiet and solitary—promoting variation and choice as team members return to the office. Altogether, the space houses 140 workstations and 21 offices.

Conference and meeting configurations also range in size and design. They feature open area impromptu collaborative nodes with and high-top tables, enclosed residential-like lounges, dedicated video conferencing rooms with agile furniture, and more traditional meeting rooms with state-of-the-art A/V and acoustics.

“HUB’s new space was designed with a thoughtful focus on the user experience. Our team created an accessible workplace that inspires HUB employees and provides the options and tools they need to be productive,” said Diana Pisone, senior principal for workplace design at Stantec. “We brought together vibrant architecture, crisp finishes, unique work settings, and branded graphics to support the performance and cultural goals they set out to achieve.”

Creating engaging workspaces
Stantec’s workplace designers provide a wide range of solutions including workplace strategy and consulting, master planning, tenant improvements, branding and graphics, ground-up build-to-suit, repositioning, and adaptive reuse. Learn more about how the firm creates high-performance workplaces.

About Stantec
Stantec empowers clients, people, and communities to rise to the world’s greatest challenges at a time when the world faces more unprecedented concerns than ever before.   

We are a global leader in sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting. ​Our professionals deliver the expertise, technology, and innovation communities need to manage aging infrastructure, demographic and population changes, the energy transition, and more. ​

Today’s communities transcend geographic borders. At Stantec, community means everyone with an interest in the work that we do—from our project teams and industry colleagues to our clients and the people our work impacts. The diverse perspectives of our partners and interested parties drive us to think beyond what’s previously been done on critical issues like climate change, digital transformation, and future-proofing our cities and infrastructure.  ​

We are designers, engineers, scientists, project managers, and strategic advisors. We innovate at the intersection of community, creativity, and client relationships to advance communities everywhere, so that together we can redefine what’s possible.​

Stantec trades on the TSX and the NYSE under the symbol STN. 

Media Contact 
Susan Bender              
Stantec Media Relations
Ph: (267) 773-9593
susan.bender@stantec.com