Tour Global Protection Corporation’s new home – a colourful feat in safe-sex product making
The gender-inclusive safe-sex products manufacturer has a brand new headquarters in Lynn, Massachusetts, designed by Studio J Jih
Global Protection Corporation, the gender-inclusive safe-sex product manufacturer, now has a new home to show off, along with its decades-long history of innovation in public health, queer advocacy, and education services. The project, comprising all aspects of making, including office, assembly and distribution, is set in the seaside town of Lynn in Massachusetts, north of Boston, and was designed by New York-based Studio J Jih, led by J Roc Jih.
Step inside Global Protection Corporation’s new HQ
The scheme was centred on adaptive reuse, spanning some 45,604 sq ft across two storeys of a former dairy creamery. The top level, which hosts the office and product development spaces, was the biggest challenge, the architects explain, having to balance privacy, warmth and comfort with the creative fluidity that encourages connections and collaboration.
Studio J.Jih employed colour and transparency to navigate the borders between these two atmospheres. A series of gestures, textures and elements, from translucent fabric and draped chainmail to undulating felt partitions, help serve as space dividers – but can also be pulled back or feel permeable enough to promote interaction and views through the workspace.
J Roc Jih says: 'We often see a highly renovated office that is full of design elements referencing the domestic environment, which is often in opposition to adaptability over time. For this project, our strategy became all about diaphanous surfaces that can fit the commercial office in scale, but provide a sense of domesticity through a material softness that scatters and moderates light for the work environment.'
They continue: 'In an incidental, tongue-in-cheek way, the “filters” make reference to the product itself, but it’s really a way of thinking about a condition of translucency overlaid with veils of privacy in the workplace, and how to design for the different types of privacy and collaboration that might be required among co-workers.'
Extending its interventions beyond the workspace interior, the studio also worked on a fun reimagining of the building's primary façade. The architects, working with the need for natural light in the corresponding spaces inside the building, cut out a series of windows in an organic arrangement. The openings vary in size and alignment to create an irregular pattern that draws the eye without detracting from the overall project's elegant simplicity.
On the ground level is Global Protection Corporation's provision for storage, staging, assembly and distribution. The architects conceived the space as a bright and playfully functional working area. 'On the lower level, freed from the lighting requirements of computer screens and glare, we sought to introduce natural beams of light throughout the day, and to reverse the typical lightless conditions warehouse workers face,' says Jih.
