About Cucumber
Our story, team and values
As cool as a . . .
Simon D'Arcy had his light bulb moment about the future of work long before you-know-what.
It was a day like any other, and as he rode the escalator to his Melbourne office tower, he looked up. He was surrounded by people glued to their phones, desperately trying to jam more into their day. Simon's office was a very deliberate five-minute walk from home, but it looked to him like everyone had spent way too long travelling to clock on.
Daily life was mirroring his incessant rotation of Icehouse's seminal cassette "Man Of Colours" all those years before.......play-rewind-repeat. And so on that innocuous day in 2018, Simon set out to find a better way of doing things.
He bought a vacant shop in South Yarra with his mum Sandie, converted it into an office and leased it to a great company of six people, Leedwell.
They were a growing business.
Two months after they moved in, they asked Simon to increase headcount to nine people, as was their right under their lease. Simon and his trades reconfigured the very same space over a weekend.
There was no business disruption, and because the works cost them nothing and the rent stayed the same, Leedwell weren't penalised for growing either.
And with one of its growing list of vacant shops leased, the local community won too.
So Cucumber Offices was born.
Simon spent the next 2 years deconstructing the current process of occupying & owning an office in minute detail. Despite his decades of experience, he assumed nothing and listened.
Like, really listened.
In 2020 he was joined by builder Bernie Fernandez and architect Geoff Skellern, with marketing guru Laura Craig coming aboard in 2021.
Cucumber Offices is the genesis of the South Yarra pilot, the two-year research program, and our team's 100 years in the game.
If you like saving time & money, unforgettable design & having your own office closer to home, one of ours might be for you.
And if you own a vacant property or act for someone that does, we're a one-stop shop that leases offices faster than anyone else in the market.
In a sentence, we are offices made easy. And we've only just begun. 😃
Meet the team
Simon D'Arcy
The founder, interior designer & estate agent.
For 25 years, Simon has created solutions for those that occupy and own offices. Cucumber Offices is his blue-sky thinking for the future of work and cities.
Our values
We create sheer delight
You know the feeling....that utter relief when you find a smarter, easier way of doing things? Imagine commercial property like that.
We live beauty, function & efficiency.
Beauty is personal, but it always looks or feels amazing. Function turns common-sense into reality, And efficiency saves time, money and sweat.
We help humans be humans.
Data and automation creates better outcomes for our staff and customers.
We see what others can't.
It's time to move beyond the buzzwords, groupthink, and status quo.
We have a strong sense of purpose.
We are unique, organised, authentic, obsessed and brave. We know what we stand up for, and always have a red hot crack.
We love and support animals and the arts.
We are nothing without all earth's creatures, great and small. And it's our mission to get right behind an arts sector that truly needs us right now.