In 1961, Eero Saarinen’s Thomas J Watson Research Center opened as IBM’s main research campus in the rural setting of Yorktown Heights – about 35 miles north of Manhattan. At this point in tech and computing history, Silicon Valley, as it is known today, did not yet exist, nor did any patch of land signify the singular home of computing innovation. Instead, major computer companies based themselves sporadically around North America, often close to or in established industrial cities. IBM and modernist architecture master Saarinen moved away from the grit of the urban core, designing a campus that was built, quite literally, out of the wooded hills of Westchester County, New York.

Tour the new IBM Research offices

In the years when the Yorktown Heights campus was conceived, IBM assembled a cohort of architects and designers, including, aside from Saarinen, Eliot Noyes, Paul Rand, and Ray and Charles Eames, to shape what would become central to their brand: an inextricable relationship between design and technology. Today, 65 years after its opening, IBM Research creative director Mark Podlaseck describes how these figures helped 'form this consciousness of IBM being a design-centric company'. He describes how the centre 'is connected to this history of modernism', and a 'historical movement of embracing the future in a humanistic way'.

The new Think Lab – designed by Universal Design Studio and Map Project Office in close collaboration with IBM Research – builds on this humanism. Saarinen originally created a place that was, by its very form, embracing. Semi-circular in plan, it spread across hundreds of acres with frontage that was, and still is, fully glazed. Internally, repeating corridors linked office and laboratory spaces, provoking serendipitous meetings. Researchers immersed in focused technical explorations were deliberately given an environment that aided contact – a place where they could meet with both nature and people intuitively.

This human experience extends to the centre’s latest interventions. In its most pragmatic sense, Think Lab is a technology-first project, designed to house the new systems of IBM’s quantum-centric supercomputing architecture – which combines quantum and classical computing. The design, however, forgoes rigidly separating equipment from research spaces and laboratories, instead fusing them into a whole experience.

Within the centre, IBM’s quantum computing systems sit within a holistic environment. As Universal Design Studio’s Satoshi Isono puts it, the idea has been to create an integrated centre that moves away from the ‘showroom’ format. 'We put everything into one space,' Isono says, highlighting an approach that builds on Saarinen’s own original intention for connectedness.

Today, that connection comes through new layers of tactility. The original 1960s campus was imbued with its surrounding texture and topography – its walls made of natural stone collected from its site. 'Materiality is very much aligned with the original architecture,' Isono explains, having undertaken deep research into the original scheme.

'Mark and I made several visits to Yale University, where Saarinen’s archive is kept, to look at material specifications and samples, photography from the time, hand drawings, blueprints, and so on. We weren’t trying to reinstate the space, but we kept existing proven build materials.' Additional materials within the new scheme echo the character found in situ; both past – the natural stone and original concrete – and future – the materials of the machines themselves.

Think Lab is a private space, with visitors only entering by invitation. Yet even as a non-public centre, it is defined by openness and a desire to imprint the fullness of the work it incubates. Isono talks about its immediacy, and how visitors can 'really get in front of the technology.' Podlaseck emphasises the creation of a whole experience, of inviting people to feel the technology, not merely gaze at it.

The space has been designed to engage visually, haptically and even sonically – tailored acoustic design balances the sound mix of both ambient infrastructure and the machines themselves, all while musical notes float through the air, radiating from a spinning analogue record player. Combined, these moves belong to a place designed to communicate technologies that are, to many, difficult to see or grasp. In many ways, Think Lab extends Saarinen’s original intention: to create a place of discovery, of nature, community, and of the sweeping innovation that can exist within both.

universaldesignstudio.com

research.ibm.com

mapprojectoffice.com

London workspace One Triton Square has just been given a refresh by the architecture studio Piercy&Company, bringing the nine-storey 1990s office building into the 21st century through smart internal arrangements and a considered, timber-led materiality. The project is part of the Regents' Place campus and was developed by British Land and Royal London Asset Management (Arup is leading the building's overall reconfiguration). Within this context, Piercy&Company spearheaded the communal areas' transformation, crafting an interior that is not only fit for contemporary purpose, but also exudes a soft, organic minimalism and a welcome balance.

Discover Piercy&Company’s One Triton Square interior

Piercy&Company worked on the full range of common areas within the tower – from the ground-floor entrance lobby to event, collaboration and breakout spaces throughout. Meeting rooms and shared amenity spaces at Levels 1 and 2 and flexible offices and the Triton Lounge and its adjacent terrace at Level 6 were also included.

The vision was for all these areas to adhere to a single vision – one that prioritises innovation and accessibility within a cohesive 'ecosystem of adaptable spaces', the architects explain.

Fiona Neil, director & head of interiors at the London-based practice, explains: ‘Unrecognisable from its previous life as a trading floor, the shared Level 1 now exudes calm and sophistication, becoming an interconnected sequence of spaces that flow in and out of one another, creating pockets of activity alongside places to rest. We took our lead from the rigour of the original building’s design, as well as from scientific work, and juxtaposed this with more playful and softer moments.'

Throughout the building, crisp, clean geometries have been juxtaposed with soft, organic or engineered, tactile materials. Sensory warmth and richness have been at the forefront of the team's surface selection, in order to craft an interior that encourages both concentration and collaboration.

The material strategy is supported by carefully controlled lighting and careful acoustic treatments everywhere. The project features clear wayfinding designed by Frost Collective.

For its efforts, the building has been rated BREEAM Outstanding for its sustainable architecture approach, while art curation by New Public further enhances the interior's layering. Featured pieces include works by artists such as Anicka Yi, Majeda Clarke, Eleanor Lakelin, Richard McVetis, Blast Studios and makers from Cockpit Studios.

Tim Downes, development director at British Land, said: 'Piercy has really delivered on the brief to humanise the interior of a big, intensely engineered building. Many of the occupiers who will take space at One Triton will spend hours performing highly concentrated periods of deep work, and the ability for them to step away from their screens or lab benches into a place of calm tranquillity to recharge and recalibrate has been a big draw. The ambience of the space hits you the moment you walk in.'

piercyandco.com

When American banker John Pierpont Morgan decided to build his company a new Wall Street headquarters more than a century ago, he wanted to create a building that would ‘fall in line with the big modern improvements all around him.’ Though the resulting neoclassical edifice at 23 Wall Street – known as the House of Morgan – was just four storeys, a real estate trade journal called it ‘a rival to the Parthenon'.

This week, 112 years after the financier’s death, a new House of Morgan has sprung up in Manhattan, four miles north at 270 Park Avenue. If 23 Wall Street was Morgan’s Parthenon, this building is his Colossus: designed by Foster + Partners, the JPMorganChase tower rises a quarter-mile over Midtown and will accommodate some 10,000 employees by year’s end.

The $3 billion skyscraper, criss-crossed by a striking structural megaframe, occupies an entire city block and contains 2.5 million gross sq ft of flexible work spaces – including eight state-of-the-art trading floors, boutique wellness facilities and even a Danny Meyer-curated food hall.

‘It's really the workplace of the future, today,’ Norman Foster, founder and executive chairman of Foster + Partners, said during a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday.

Foster + Partners was brought aboard the project in 2018, after winning a competition to create a revamped global headquarters for JPMorganChase, one that would replace an International Style skyscraper designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The site was complicated, due to the complex system of rail lines that run beneath. But Lord Foster – whom David Arena, JPMorganChase’s head of global real estate, cheekily referred to as the project’s ‘Lord and often our saviour’ – designed imaginative structural system consisting of fan-shaped columns and triangular bracing that would anchor the building to bedrock 400ft below, while allowing the skyscraper to sit lightly on the site. In fact, the building hovers 80ft above the ground, creating room for a public plaza and green spaces – according to Foster, two-and-a-half times what is typical for such mammoth buildings.

‘This is a somewhat unusual tower,’ the architect continued. ‘It's different, and it's different for very positive reasons’ – chief among them, sustainability. 270 Park Avenue is the largest all-electric tower in New York City with net zero emissions, according to JPMorganChase. It’s also entirely powered by hydroelectric energy.

The building was also designed with employee wellness in mind, from taller-than-usual ceilings (the building is 60 stories, but is comparable in height to a 100-storey tower, according to Foster), circadian lighting, fresh air (more than double than what is usual) and a host of health-minded amenity spaces like a fitness centre, meditation rooms and even indoor spin studios. New-age guru Deepak Chopra was even brought in as a consultant.

But for all the innovation, the building is firmly rooted in tradition, according to Foster, just like the 225-year-old company it houses. ‘It doesn't use any of the fashionable computer wizardry to create exotic shapes,’ the architect said. The design team was inspired by both New York City’s grid system – which came of age with JP Morgan himself – and the grandeur of the traditional banking hall.

No greater is this communicated than in 270 Park Avenue’s soaring lobby, clad in travertine and illuminated by hundreds of honeycomb-like LED ceiling lights. Once visitors pass through a security barrier, they ascend a grand stairway towards an airy elevator lobby. The stairway is flanked by two monumental works by Gerhard Richter, Color Chase One and Color Chase Two. At the stair’s summit, near the elevators, is a lounge, carpeted in cream, dotted with club chairs and encircled by a slatted enclosure. At its centre is an American flag that flutters from an unseen breeze, a creation by Foster himself called Wind Dance.

Heritage is communicated on the exterior of the building, too: the muscular braces are clad in bronze. ‘Park Avenue is one of the great urban spaces in the world… The architecture is the celebration of that,’ Foster said. ‘Bronze is timeless in its qualities, in its endurance.’

The project is not without its controversy. In order to make way for the new 270 Park, JPMorganChase needed to demolish Bunshaft and de Blois’ Union Carbide building, a move that drew outcry from architects and preservationists. The company insists that, with its replacement, it’s giving back to the city, to the tune of $42 billion annually to the local economy, 8,000 construction jobs and the public plaza.

For JPMorganChase’s rank-and-file employees, there’s also the question of returning to the office. While many corporations have adapted to hybrid work schedules, JPMorganChase reinstated a full return-to-office mandate, a move that led employees to circulate a petition and for CEO and chairman Jamie Dimon to fire back with expletives. While the new office may offer some of the most attractive worker amenities in the city (‘You're never going to want to even go home, it's so incredible here,’ New York governor Kathy Hochul joked during the ceremony), it remains to be seen if spin classes and gourmet lunches will be enough.

At the building’s opening, though, the message was firm in more ways than one: before the ribbon-cutting, a DJ played an energetic Jackson 5 remix. The tune? ‘I Want You Back’.

Most architecture studios are messy, with plans, maquettes and material samples strewn about as one proposal leads to another. Not Michael K Chen Architecture (MKCA)’s recently expanded New York office. There’s a lounge outfitted with vintage furniture; there’s a stone-topped kitchen counter that doubles as a cocktail bar; and there’s even a lavender accent wall.

‘In our projects, we tend to decorate with stories and relationships,’ Michael K Chen, the firm’s founder, says. ‘A lot of the items in the office are jumping-off points for conversations with our clients and collaborators.’

When it was established in 2011, Chen’s then-small practice occupied a shared Tribeca studio. After a fire destroyed everything in 2017, MKCA moved to the prewar building in NoMad it now calls home. But as the firm’s team – and profile – grew, it was clear its existing space didn’t quite cut it.

‘We needed more room,’ Chen says. Expanding the office ‘gave us the chance to think of the space differently – as much more than an internal-facing studio.’

The solution was to knock down a wall and expand into an adjacent office. The extended studio, which now accommodates nine staff members, unfolds as an especially polished-yet-functional workspace. A meticulously organised resource library and a centralised enfilade of desks give way to a lounge, a semi-enclosed conference room and an open concept kitchen perfect for cocktail parties.

These concentrated vignettes serve as a kind of ‘calling card’, one that fully demonstrates the multivalent practice’s bold-yet-considered use of material, colour and visceral texture. The revamped space also reflects the firm’s guiding tenets of future-facing craft, civic responsibility, site-responsivity and collaboration.

There are nods to MKCA’s past work too. Take a salmon-pink wall, whose hue references a sophisticated loft residence in Manhattan. Shelving towards the rear of the conference room – filled with pristine presentation models, design awards and prototypes – resonates with MKCA’s deft use of layered geometry, as with a floating bookshelf designed for the New Children's Library at Concourse House in the Bronx.

Visitors will doubtless be drawn to the lounge, where shades of orange, yellow and beige collide in an audacious colour palette, via a vintage ‘Lemon Sole’ chair, designed by Kwok Hoi Chan and manufactured by Steiner in 1971, and Chen’s own ‘Sarsen’ sofa and carpet collection developed for New York gallery TRNK.

The walls surrounding this seating set-up are painted in a pale purple tone that helps to unify a curated selection of hung artworks; some by studio members and others by Chen’s contemporaries in New York‘s close-knit architecture and design scene.

‘A friend was here recently and remarked that we didn't have any renderings pinned up on the walls for internal reviews or client presentations,’ Chen says. ‘It never occurred to us to do so.’

Community and collaboration are central to MKCA’s ethos. During the Covid pandemic, Chen helped establish Design Advocates, an initiative that pulls together expertise and resources from various firms to carry out clever solutions-oriented interventions for the wider community.

‘We just wanted to be helpful,’ Chen explains. ‘This wasn't an exercise in business development. It wasn't about trying to collect attention.’

Chen also wants to make the vast knowledge that architects possess more accessible to others. A new book, Making and Meeting, is intended to help bridge that informational gap; especially when it comes to adopting more responsible practices. ‘As architects, we have enormous agency,’ Chen explains. ‘We control the purse strings of a project and make elective decisions all day long but a lot of those strategies and resources are gate-kept.’

Formatted like an ‘anti-monograph cookbook’, as Chen notes, the title breaks down into five actionable chapters – craft, materials, scales, histories, and practices – with MKCA’s projects and collaborative efforts as case studies.

The first chapter articulates the firm’s vision of future craft. ‘There’s a present fascination with craft, which I think is wonderful,’ Chen says. ‘But I think that a lot of the conversation is couched in nostalgia. It's a reaction to the algorithm systems that are in control of our lives that no one has any agency over.’ For Chen, craft is much more of a methodology, a process that entails a fundamental understanding of the lifecycle and labour behind the materials.

In this expanded office, it’s clear that MKCA is not just making more room for its staff, but for ideas, too.

The line between office and domestic space has been blurring for some time – a shift we’re happy to embrace, especially when the domestic side has a mellow mid-century mood. That atmosphere pervades the latest office conversion by Los Angeles-based design and architecture studio 22RE.

Created for local creative agency Day Job, the space is wrapped in warm materials such as cherry wood, terracotta tiles and carpet, tempered by green concrete flooring and stainless steel countertops and hardware – a palette more typically found in residential interiors. 'We tried to make the space feel domestic, almost like an apartment,' says 22RE founder Dean Levin, pointing to the sunken 'piazza' that serves as a dedicated workspace, with custom cherry-wood desks and green leather desk chairs. 'There’s also a living room setting, a dining room setting, and the conference room we thought of as a bedroom,' he continues.

From the outside, the 1,800-square-foot building in the city's Glassell Park neighbourhood – formerly the studio of artist Ed Ruscha – is austere, clad in locally sourced Douglas fir and stucco. Yet inside, the mood lightens. 'It was in poor condition when we first encountered it,' recalls Levin. 'Like a lot of older L.A. buildings, there were multiple extensions and add-ons from different decades – it wasn’t cohesive.' Given carte blanche by Day Job, the studio peeled back the layers and reconfigured the layout to create a greater sense of space – which included the addition of a wall of pivoting timber-framed doors that open out onto a terrace area. They also considered how someone of such creative significance as Ruscha might have occupied the space. 'One of the artworks that was purchased for the office is actually an original Ed Ruscha print. We really wanted to get it back to being a space that inspires creativity.'

22RE is known for referencing the mid-century movements that shaped Los Angeles’ design language – Italian, French and Japanese Modernism – so it’s no surprise that these influences are bound into the renovated interior. 'To me, the best examples of design are mid-century modernists and futurists – the likes of Shiro Kuramata, Gae Aulenti, Pierre Chapo and Schindler,' Levin tells us. In Day Job’s office, there’s a nod to Italian town squares and the playful forms of Soviet modernism in the sunken piazza, while in the kitchen, orange cement tiles are paired with a backsplash by legendary Californian brand Heath Ceramics, founded in 1948. The lighting scheme is another standout – a mid-century design enthusiast’s dream, combining classics by Charlotte Perriand, Sophus Frandsen and Motoko Ishii with contemporary pieces by Anthony Dickens.

Many of the furnishings were designed in-house – from desks and dining sets to the sculptural conference table. 'Custom furniture plays a key role in the ethos of our studio,' says Levin, who worked as an artist before setting up his interior design practice in 2021.

Through the furniture, the studio pulls together and expands upon the material palette and design language, such as the circle motif that appears in door cut-outs, skylights and chair backs, adding to the space’s soft, inviting ambience. 'We used wood, fabric, and metal to produce custom door handles, cabinet pulls, and other small pieces that help to elevate the project down to the small details,' Levin adds. 'We enjoy working at the tactile scale, including as many custom and hand-built elements as possible. We want each project to be a distinctly '22RE space.''

Architects Zeller & Moye have crafted an HQ with a collegiate feel, transcending corporate formality with simple materials, flexible workspaces and plenty of spots to break out of the daily grind.

The client was Pradtke, a German IT company based in the town of Bochum, north-west of Düsseldorf. The company specialises in medical software and its brief requested an HQ space that provided its employees with varied ways of day-to-day working. As part of the design process, Christoph Zeller, Ingrid Moye and their team ran several workshops, going as far as mocking up the future space to explore how different teams collaborated and used the available space.

The new offices cover nearly 500 square metres, space enough to incorporate just about every form of work-focused spatial environment, from individual desks, sitting and standing, and team workstations through to ‘spaces that allow for social interaction, communication, spontaneity, creativity, sharing, playfulness as well as meditation, rest, recovery, and even solitude,’ according to the architects.

Central to this flexibility is the company’s insistence that people move around during the working day, rather than stay in one fixed spot. Each of the three key zones has different characteristics, from focused individual work, small groups for project work and brainstorming sessions, and larger breakout spaces that can be used for presentations, briefings and even social events. Those who prefer to stay away from the cut and thrust of the modern office environment are also catered for, with specific area for the more introverted members of the Pradtke team.

The first work zone includes a large open area for group work, alongside acoustically insulated booths for individual working. A kitchen and dining area is flanked by an ‘upholstered felt landscape’, a collection of flexible cushions and bolsters that can be endlessly configured for different uses.

Zone two consists of a large flexible hall for events and classes, complete with custom designed movable furniture, including desks and storage cabinets that double up as seating podiums. This space adjoins and internal garden, filled with big leaf species in planters that double up as seating spaces and quiet spots for ‘creative thinking and contemplation.’ On the floor above there’s a series of more conventional small rooms for undisturbed work.

Zeller & Moye have shaped much of the integral furniture, from the long table in the main space, bisected by a fully-glazed enclosure that creates another sub-division within the space without losing light and connection. In the auditorium, as well as the wheeled tier seating, the architects also designed small metal frame tables with adjustable legs so that they can be used as benches, further transforming the use of the space.

The event space also contains a large foldable wall notched to fit perfectly around the contours of the bench on one side of the room. In addition to the internal garden, plants are used elsewhere as visual barriers and room dividers. Wood, felt and lino have been used throughout to retain the natural feel of the space, in look, feel and even smell.

Christoph Zeller and Ingrid Moye run architectural offices in Mexico City and Berlin, as well as teaching in London. Recent projects include a woodland retreat near Berlin and a sculptural collaboration with the artist Katie Paterson in the expansive grounds of Apple Park, Cupertino.

ZellerMoye.com, @ZellerandMoye

Set in São Paulo's Alameda Gabriel Monteiro da Silva road, this Brazil office is an oasis of greenery, raised above ground and wrapped in glass. Designed by architecture studio Perkins & Will for Gabriel Faria Lima Corporate, the building stands out for its lightness and slim, sophisticated character.

Take a tour of this new Brazil office engulfed in greenery

The office building includes two levels above a permeable ground floor, which fluidly connects the open-plan interior with the planted garden exterior. The two upper floors contain workspaces, flooded with natural light through the large glazed sides, yet protected from overheating by a smart louvre system; this not only helps control the internal temperature and glare, but also becomes an important feature for the façade's identity, the Corten steel brise-soleils bring a rhythm to the exterior skin.

Inside, large, flexible, open-plan areas ensure users get uninterrupted views to the outside when they work. The plot, richly planted in leafy species, filters the city's noise and visual busyness, making the experience of working indoors a serene one.

Alongside the defining Corten steel of the brise-soleils, the material palette is completed by the glass and concrete of the main structure, and the soft stone walls that delineate the perimeter of the site, nodding to the local environment.

'Developing a corporate [space] in such an iconic location is a tremendous opportunity to give new meaning and purpose to a corner lot. Our proposal is to integrate the Jardins neighbourhood into the building, as if the development had always existed,' says Douglas Tolaine, creative leader and design director at Perkins & Will São Paulo. 'We seek to combine the comfort, scale and identity of the surrounding homes with a unique design that values nature in an exuberant and singular symbiosis, meeting the needs of a society in constant evolution.'

perkinswill.com

The Lighthouse mixes brutalist architecture and contemporary notions of flexibility and collaboration to form Los Angeles’ newest creative hub. Set in an existing building, the 1939-designed Venice Post Office, just one block off the famed Venice Beach Boardwalk, the project was conceived to occupy the liminal space between softness and a robust, industrial-style approach; historical preservation and 21st-century innovation and lifestyle.

The Lighthouse: step inside this brutalist LA office

Its author is Warkentin Associates, headed by former Studio Shamshiri designer Nathan Warkentin. 'I was approached by Lighthouse founder Jon Goss to collaborate with him in creating a “campus” for creators with the opportunity to design a whole world from scratch,' he says.

Warkentin drew on the original art deco structure and the building's bones, and looked to the Bauhaus movement to further develop his design. 'Inspired by Bauhaus principles, the architectural design facilitates a fluid integration of analogue and digital environments, enabling frictionless creativity across multiple disciplines,' says Lighthouse co-founder Jon Goss. 'By reimagining a landmark site for a new generation, The Lighthouse establishes a dynamic setting that fosters experimentation, connectivity, and creative expression at every scale.'

Tackling the fairly raw space, the team got to work and designed much of the interiors using custom pieces, mixed with iconic designs by USM, Artek, Vitra, Herman Miller, Tecta, Emeco, and OMK. The designers wanted to craft a workspace that feels real and tangible, bringing in references such as the aesthetics of nineties college radio, Le Corbusier's architecture, Japanese libraries, and Paul Rudolph.

At the same time, The Lighthouse composes the feeling of a hospitality-led environment that blurs the boundaries between work and social areas. A material palette that mixes metals, wood, glass and concrete inspires juxtapositions of crisp and soft areas that create a lively and engaging office setting. A monumental painting, Abbot Kinney and the Story of Venice, created by Edward Biberman in 1941, was brought back to its original lobby location after a stint at LACMA.

Describing the project in a single sentence, Warkentin says it is 'a fluid blend of innovation, collaboration, and production in a space inspired by Bauhaus principles'.

warkentinassociates.com

The era of prescriptive design is over. Fluidity in all shapes and forms seems increasingly the norm across disciplines, touching upon most areas of life. From fashion to travel, and from how we live to where we play, flexibility, adaptability and nuance are increasingly taking over briefs and project descriptions. The societal shake-up that followed the pandemic has had a major effect on this process. In recent years we have seen houses that turn into offices, workspaces that feel like homes, industrial spaces that transform into event or entertainment venues and manufacturing facilities that open up to the public like never before… The list goes on.

Fluid workspaces herald the future of office design

While this spatial mashup might have a seed in fear of commitment or decision fatigue springing from a market offering an ever-wider choice, it is perhaps also rooted in a pushback against the authoritative voice of starchitects and styles of the past century. It also chimes with our efforts to make every inch of space and design gesture work harder than ever before, a drive for efficiency mixed with an expression of frugality in the face of our era’s sustainability (and financial) challenges. It is certainly the sign of a public that knows more and better what it wants and how to get it in every market; a client that is not easily satisfied and demands to be surprised - but not dictated to.

Such is the case in the thinking behind Derwent London’s newest workspace innovation - the launch of a series of club lounges to anchor its 5.5m sq ft portfolio in the capital. While the debate around flexible working and offices that allude to domestic environments rages on, Derwent is disrupting the market by bringing a hospitality element to the mix. Why not create a workplace setting that makes you feel like a member of a private club? ‘Quality workspace now comes from the service, the amenity and the community as well as from the physical aesthetic,’ says the company’s executive director Emily Prideaux.

Meanwhile, Danish fashion brand Rains is bringing its - typically back-of-house - warehouse and distribution facilities to the fore in its new headquarters in Aarhus, taking pride of place alongside all the other departments that make up a successful business. Creative and logistical centres flow into each other, enriching the experience of both sides for the company’s employees.

This shape-shifting is practical, but fun too. This spring, Italian design giant Molteni&C unveils Palazzo Molteni, its new flagship in Milan that is at once a showroom, event space, brand home and workspace. More of a lifestyle experience than a store, the expansive, seven-storey interior looks and feels like a luxurious urban villa with all the fun and dazzle you would expect. ‘We wanted to create a space that feels like you are stepping inside the home of an art collector,’ the brand’s creative director, Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen explains. If options are what we’re after, it looks like we’ve got them.

Derwent London, the property development firm behind some of the UK capital’s most architecturally ambitious office buildings – including the White Collar Factory, Tea Building and Brunel Building – has spent the past five years designing two club lounges for its portfolio, driven by the intention of making going to work feel like being a member of a private club.

Both DL/78 in Fitzrovia and DL/28 in Old Street – run by ex-Virgin Clubhouse and Soho House alumni – now offer cafés, concierge services and an art collection to boot. And since opening the lounges to all of its tenants, regardless of where their office is, Derwent has seen an increase in occupier retention and attraction, and an uplift in rents. ‘We’re not trying to make a profit from the lounges themselves,’ says Derwent executive director Emily Prideaux. ‘The value for us comes from the additional rent we capture across the rest of the portfolio. We are already seeing occupiers prepared to pay a premium because they know the lounge access will attract and retain talent.’

Explore Derwent London's new lounge offering

At a time when businesses recognise their office space needs to work harder if it is to attract the best employees (thereby boosting productivity), Derwent’s decision to offer tenants 20,000 sq ft of meticulously designed hospitality space and membership perks could open the door to a whole new phase of the great workplace evolution.

It’s not hard to see why Derwent’s lounges are piquing such high levels of interest in an otherwise muted office market. By giving people what they want from a modern workplace – something that goes beyond a tech-enabled, high-quality, flexible space – properties are evolving beyond simply delivering ‘bricks and mortar’ to offer a sense of belonging – an approach that will likely characterise the future of successful workplace design and development.

‘Quality workspace now comes from the service, the amenity and the community as well as from the physical aesthetic,’ says Prideaux. ‘While the two lounges are physical, tangible spaces, the premise behind them was to create a sense of community.’

The workspaces, meeting rooms and call booths are all part of the lounge concept’s draw, but they were never meant to be used in isolation. ‘The lounges are not supposed to be an extension of the office, they are there to complement them,’ says Derwent’s customer engagement manager Ally Barker. ‘The spaces have been designed to promote community and connection through membership, and that message is landing now. We are starting to see more people use them for ad hoc drop-ins, whether that’s popping in for lunch, grabbing a coffee with colleagues or having an informal meeting with a client or contact rather than taking them to a local café. We are also seeing more people sign up to the monthly events programme.’

The look and feel of the club lounges play an integral role in the success of the membership concept. Designed by the firm’s in-house team, in collaboration with London-based studio MSMR Architects, each lounge has its own distinct personality – from the dramatic, cavernous heights of DL/78, which opened in autumn 2021, to the bronze- and green-hued midcentury style of DL/28, which opened last year. The characteristics they share – timber interiors, rich, timeless colour palettes and the warm glow of purposefully low-level lighting – are all part of the overarching promotion of hospitality-led rather than commercial-style space.

'I approached both of the lounges as if they were hotels,’ says Derwent’s interiors manager Rebecca Lesser. ‘I wanted them to feel intimate and give people that sense of going to spend time somewhere special.’ No standard fixtures, fittings or furniture are to be found in either of the spaces, with Lesser and her team hand-picking every last piece with such a commitment to buying vintage that they even had to rescue one delivery of particularly battered chairs from being accidentally thrown into a skip.

This staunch commitment to stylish, sustainable originality has become a
defining characteristic of the Derwent brand, whose 2007 Tea Building pioneered east London’s offices-as-creative-hubs. Now, as offices evolve, landlords are shaking up their offer, competing as brands that tenants will actively choose to be associated with. It’s easy enough to be a faceless builder of space. But a faceless service provider? Not so much.

DL/78 and DL/28’s private event spaces are now available for public hire

derwentlondon.com

msmrarchitects.co.uk

This article appears in the April 2025 issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands from 6 March 2025, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Clockwise Bremen, a co-working space for real estate investor Castelforge, is the first office of its kind to open in the historic Hanseatic city, a major cultural and economic hub of Northern Germany.

It is also a first for its authors, SODA – marking the London-based studio's inaugural scheme to be completed in the country. Founded by Russell Potter and Laura Sanjuan in 2012, SODA works across architecture, interiors, graphic design and branding, with projects ranging from the first permanent outlet for Chai Guys Bakehouse in Portobello Road, London, to the transformation of a former office block in Liverpool into 120 apartments.

Clockwise Bremen: inspired by its location

A warm and welcoming communal workspace for the city’s creatives and start-ups, SODA's design takes its cues from Bremen’s location, on a sand dune on the River Weser. This unique geology inspired the workspace’s reception and café, with a desk and bar featuring layers of hand-applied plaster, and matching walls in corrugated plaster.

‘Our concept draws on the rich history of the surrounding agricultural land of Bremen and the River Weser,' explains Ryan Holland, director at SODA. ‘The reception desk and bar lounge encapsulate this through soft, curved forms made of natural clay plaster, providing an organic and grounded touchpoint for users as a natural gathering point.’

Natural textiles, house plants and colourful artwork add homely touches to the space, which features a ground-floor club area with banquette seating and booths, a coffee spot, and high chairs for quick and informal working.

‘Creating workspaces for multiple smaller companies allows us to weave our design concept more evenly across the whole building, as there is no need to provide a generic space for a large anchor tenant,’ he continues. ‘We enjoyed using natural materials to engender warmth and personality, encouraging tenants away from the home office and into a more sociable environment.’

A key element of this project was adapting the 1980s building to its new use. ‘Working with existing buildings naturally has its challenges when uncovering the bones of the structure, but in this instance, it was the existing circulation that presented the main difficulty,’ says Holland. ‘We introduced a new “meandering” staircase to provide a clear, intuitive route through the floor plates, unifying the communal and tenant spaces and successfully bringing users together to encourage interaction and collaboration.’

The hung steel staircases leads to a variety of different types of workspaces and private areas, arranged in a staggered circular formation around the central core – a shape ‘allowing for push-pull moments to stop and pause that are punctuated with different types of furniture,’ say the architects, who have also stripped back to the precast concrete frame and left it exposed.

Building on the success of Clockwork Bremen, SODA is now working on another project with the same team, in an art deco-inspired tower in the centre of Brussels, and the architects are also looking forward to the opening of MYO King’s Cross this summer. ‘It's a scheme we have been working on for almost three years, featuring a mix of serviced offices, communal amenities, and a dedicated events space in a unique heritage site, which will be great to see in operation,’ concludes Holland.

sodastudio.co.uk

work-clockwise.com

The new Rochester Street Office slots into the Australian neighbourhood of Botany, an industrial fringe nestled on a corner of the bustling Sydney metropolis. The building was designed for Robert Plumb Collective, a group of independent businesses which specialises in construction, landscaping, design and maintenance.

Peak inside Rochester Street Office

Architecture firm Allied_Office worked with the client who had a clear vision in mind; to create a space which felt cohesive within its neighbourhood and was respectful of locals. The result is an architectural nod towards eco-brutalism, and a leafy space for thriving creativity and collaboration.

Directors of Robert Plumb Collective, Bill Clifton and Will Dangar, explained what they had in mind, saying, ‘... We wanted a space that was filled with light and provided a calm environment that makes coming into the office a joy - with a large kitchen where people could have lunch and socialise across the different levels and different arms of the business.'

'Some outdoor space for fresh air and to integrate planting with the built form was essential. We also wanted meeting rooms for privacy, breakout spaces so that people could get away from their desk and a ping pong table for some fun.’

With playful design at the forefront, Allied_Office got to work. The building consists of three stacked volumes made from concrete, beam and slab, a material choice which was easily malleable and accommodated the area's economical parameters.

This brutalist architecture façade frames big glass panes which define the building, allowing for natural lighting, and was a structural backbone for cascading planters that decorate the upper floors.

Dangar Barin Smith took charge of landscaping and wanted to craft a 'modest and rugged' look. Native plants including grasses, groundcover and shrubs alongside Melaleuca sp. and Eucalypt sp. tree specimens. The mix softens the industrial exterior, while adding visually intriguing tactile elements.

Akin Atelier designed the interior landscape for the new office space. Recycled offcut marble was used as flooring, while a timber staircase added an organic softness against the utilitarian exterior. Cubed glass panels create neat divides and privacy without isolating any room.

Second Edition contributed to the lobby, bathrooms, and loose furniture. The spaces showcase recycled waste materials, including terracotta roof tiles, timber, and natural stone.

‘Considering the myriad of inputs from planners, consultants, and specialist trades, as well as working with two clients at the top of their game, our aim was to condense all this into something effortless and honest.’ Says Allied_Office. ‘Something that felt thoughtful and straightforward, while respectful and confident enough to project the Robert Plumb Collective and the building itself, into the future.’

allied-office.co

This is the BYOK, billed as a ‘distraction-free’ writing device for those who need pure focus in order to channel their productivity as effectively as possible. The procrastinating writer oftens torments themselves with the idea that there’s a simple and effective solution to their woes, usually one that involves buying something – the perfect notebook or pen – or some studious or trivial ritual that helps get the words flowing. It’s an approach that does little more than perpetuate the procrastination and kick the idea of getting something done even further down the road.

BYOK stands for Bring Your Own Keyboard. Detractors and pessimistic scribes will point out that having to find a keyboard is in itself a barrier to entry, there’s no doubting this device’s good intentions. BYOK consists of a simple screen capable of displaying up to six lines of text. To use it, connect your aforementioned favourite keyboard, whether full-size or folding – there are hundreds to choose from – and get typing.

Keyboard connection is via Bluetooth or USB-C, and the onboard batteries only have to power a simple LCD screen giving a maximum usage time of 20 hours. This drops to 5 hours if you’ve got the screen backlit to maximum brightness (there are three settings). At just 16.5 x 8cm, and 1.4cm thick, the BYOK is easily pocketable, making it an instantly usable device to jot down some ideas without the need for a power supply or internet access (and all its accompanying distractions).

With that said, all text can be backed up over WiFi to popular cloud platforms, including Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox, or you can simple sync over USB. Text is rendered in three different font size, and while the 16mb of onboard storage wouldn’t even stretch to a short social video, in the efficient world of text-only operation, it’s more than enough for several epic novels – around 1 million words. These precious pearls of wisdom will also survive the event of a totally dead battery.

BYOK comes in black or white, and the simple rectangular case incorporates a magnet for attachment to commonplace phone stands. The operating system is navigated by three simple buttons on the rear of the case. It’s not all perfect – editors might baulk at the absence of easy cut and paste facilities – but as a way of hitting a word count without falling prey to online diversions it can’t be bettered.

BYOK is available to order from Prelaunch.com

Drama Republic, a leading production company behind hit British TV dramas including One Day and Dr Foster, had been working from a busy and cluttered office in London’s Holborn for years before it decided to turn to RIBA award-winning practice Emil Eve Architects for help with a full refurbishment.

Known for its residential projects, injecting contemporary flair and personality into the capital’s traditional Victorian housing stock, from Newington Green to Clapton, the east London-based architects (whose Highgate House was shortlisted for the RIBA London Awards 2024) were keen to create a welcoming, practical space without the usual corporate trappings of the typical HQ.

The new London offices of Drama Republic

‘We wanted to do something that felt more handcrafted than corporate, so there are natural materials, bespoke joinery, and a calm but colourful palette – lots of the spaces feel more domestic than workplace, but it still delivers everything that the team needs, with plenty of flexibility built in,’ explains Emma Perkin, who co-founded Emil Eve Architects in 2009 with her partner Ross Perkin.

The brief included creating a variety of flexible work areas, from solo workstations for focused tasks to spaces to collaborate and comfortable meeting rooms. All are painted in a midcentury colour scheme of warm greens, blues and oranges, with white walls complementing the natural wood used throughout, which includes sapele joinery and oak herringbone flooring.

‘The standout feature is probably the painted datum joinery running along the perimeter – it's an unusual specification for a workplace but it's very hardworking – deep enough to provide storage and house bulky equipment like the printer, as well as concealing cables and radiators,’ says Emma.

The work of Kent-based Harbour Joinery Workshop (with some pieces made in collaboration with Thomas Collier Studio), the datum joinery is present throughout the spaces, and matched in the welcoming lobby area by a timber structure that doubles up as an elegant divider and shelving, its proportions neatly echoing the building’s original glass partitions.

The interiors feature easily reconfigurable freestanding desks, bespoke meeting and coffee tables and a mix of pendant lights, as well as bright orange textured ceramic tiles in the kitchen area. Many pieces were repurposed to maximise the budget. ‘We reused furniture and features where possible, and where new fittings were added, for instance, the colourful glass lights, we chose things that you might expect to see in a home rather than an office,’ says Emma.

emileve.co.uk

In the world of video game development, Rare is a true veteran. With nearly four decades of history, the Leicestershire-based software company was set up in 1985 by the Stamper Brothers, who had earlier founded Ultimate Play the Game, one of the preeminent game developers of the 8-bit home computer era. 

A subsidiary of Microsoft since 2002, Rare is now an Xbox-only studio, working on titles like Perfect Dark Zero and the swashbuckling online multiplayer game Sea of Thieves (which will become the company’s first PlayStation title this April), as well as the forthcoming Everwild. Late in 2023, the company expanded its development division into a bespoke new building, Barn X, a rare example of a LEED Gold-certified small office building. 

We spoke to studio head Craig Duncan and Sean Hogan, director of sustainability and research at RKD Architects, about the development of this new ultra-sustainable rural outpost. ‘We had to ask ourselves what the workplace of the future would look like,’ says Duncan, ‘especially since game development has changed so much.’ Hogan and his team have a long history of working with Microsoft, helping the American giant reduce the carbon footprint of its extensive global office portfolio. 

A creative campus is a good canvas for an alternative approach. The 1,200 square metre building was designed by RKD alongside London architecture firm LOM with input from Microsoft’s real estate team. Visually, Barn X evokes an agricultural aesthetic, along with a dose of Nordic influence. ‘We’ve focused heavily on natural materials, with timber cladding, clay tiles and clay bricks,’ says Hogan. 

The structure uses mass timber, a form of engineered wood that replaces the structural steel frame as well as interior elements, with exterior cladding in long-lasting New Zealand Accoya hardwood. This has a life of around 60 years, matching the service life of the building itself (which has also been designed with an eye to deconstruction). The all-electric building gets a substantial amount of its energy from the 750 sq m of solar panels installed in a neighbouring field.

The interior layout is intended to be flexible as possible, arranged around a ‘pillar’ of meeting rooms. Natural light is maximised and every desk is ‘just a short walk from nature.’ Development is an energy-intensive business, and an onsite monitory system continuously tracks energy usage. 

Around 85 people work in the new building, giving everyone a generous amount of space – probably more than you’d get in a conventional old school office. ‘It’s an optimum working environment,’ says Duncan. ‘We’ve put a lot of consideration into things like neurodiversity, for example, in the way we have varied and scaled the space.’ 

‘Making games is the forefront of creativity,’ Duncan concludes. ‘It combines art, design and technology. It’s at the cutting edge and it connects people all around the planet. Our challenge was how to make the best environment for work and collaboration. You have to enjoy the place you work in.’ For parent company Microsoft, Barn X is a small but high-profile step on the road to becoming carbon negative by 2030. 

Rare.co.uk

RKD.ie 

Microsoft.com

It’s fitting that Eclat reads more like a home than a standard workspace – located, as it is, in the largely residential suburb of Hawthorn in Melbourne. 'We wanted to use authentic, weighty, textural materials like timber and travertine,' says designer Jesse Hayes, director of Forme, who worked on the interiors. 'We were conscious of not using anything thin or industrial.'

Eclat: a workspace like home

Eclat’s concept is a hospitality infused workspace where culture, lifestyle and business converge. The property has been divided into three hubs: Parlor, a social area and private lounge; Galerie, an event space; and Bureau, a workspace with individual offices. Members also have access to a podcast studio and bookable meeting rooms. 

Inspired by a Nordic-meets-Parisian aesthetic with a muted canvas and herringbone floors, the interiors are pared back with a tight materials palette that includes American oak, buttery tan leathers, beige quartzite and bruise-toned marble. Timber furniture and lime wash wall finishes contribute to a feeling of calm, with atmospheric lighting by South Drawn, and Muuto ‘Strand’ pendant shades emitting a diffused glow.

Overhead lighting was key to the design resolution with a series of custom modular panels constructed and connected as curved, low-profile MDF units overlaid with fabric. Hayes says the floorplan’s biggest success is the hallway, a generous thoroughfare that 'prevents the interiors from feeling like a rabbit warren'.

Banks of glass-walled offices with edge-to-edge glazing line the central spine. Sheers are there for privacy, but most members opt to leave their doors open, leaking sunshine into the corridor and creating a sense of connection. 'It’s one of Eclat’s best features. Space is a luxury and we never want people to feel like they are compressed,' Hayes adds. 

All bureau suites come furnished in three sizes with Forme-designed desks, chairs and bookshelves, but there are ‘add ons’ available should members need to expand their amenities. 'We’ve designed a “kit of parts” so that everything can be streamlined rather than mumbo jumbo,' Hayes explains of the furniture that will eventually be available for the public to purchase. 

One of Eclat’s biggest accomplishments is its tech integration. All of the furniture has a cable management system so integrated that it’s almost invisible. There are 65-inch Samsung art frames available for Zoom calls, stadium speakers and intuitive digital whiteboards. Hayes, who has also worked as a software engineer, has developed an app that permits members to contact the concierge, invite guests and order directly to their desks. The company’s long-term plan is to open Eclat in other Australian cities, each with their local spin. 

eclat.com 

Since 2017, Norwegian manufacturer reMarkable has made modest but impressive inroads into practical, sustainable technology. The company’s reMarkable 2 tablet is one of our firm favourites, an e-ink device that really does remove distractions and streamline your writing style.

reMarkable’s headquarters: a space for focus and collaboration

When it came to shaping the firm’s new office in Oslo’s Majorstuen neighbourhood, it was important to convey a sense of calming, analogue warmth. ‘We drew inspiration from what we know best: starting with a blank sheet of paper,’ says Magnus Haug Wanberg, founder and executive chairman of reMarkable. ‘We wanted to create a unique space for collaborative and individual focus – where better thinking always takes centre stage.’

Created with Oslo-based Grape Architects, the new workspace is an interior refurb across eight floors of an existing office building, totalling over 19,000 sq m. That means plenty of space for break-out areas, special ‘focus zones’ and even an area inspired by a Japanese Zen garden.

The principal space is dubbed the ‘campus library’, a multipurpose communal area with room for up to 550 people set beneath 7m ceilings, art installations, reading nooks, and lamplit desks. A spiral staircase leads up to a gallery, all set beneath a vaulted ceiling.

Certain design elements recur, such as the rounded arches that lead from one area into another, enhancing a sense of discovery, mystery and privacy. In total, the new offices have space for up to 1,000 employees, with dedicated breakout rooms on each floor as well as workshop and conference facilities.

On the eighth floor, there’s a 215 sq m communal roof garden, all part of an approach that aims to find a sweet spot for every employee. ‘Some people gravitate toward open spaces, while others prefer more private settings,’ says reMarkable’s CEO, Phil Hess. ‘We’re committed to inclusivity and strive to ensure that our campus caters to the needs of all our employees.’

This extends to a weekly ‘Zen’ session, a completely meeting-free morning, with a dedicated ‘Zen Garden’ space, a place where conventional monitors are banished (but not, of course, reMarkable’s own paper-like tablets) and the carpet patterns evoke raked sand. 

Scattered throughout the building are a series of ‘Rooms to Think’, evoking spaces such as a train compartment, a beach, a cabin, and even outer space. ‘Just as we offer products free from distractions to enable true focus, our headquarters is designed to do the same,’ says Hess.

reMarkable.com

Grape.No

Edelman, the global communications firm, has unveiled its new London headquarters, courtesy of architecture practice Gensler. The space, designed with a creative practice in mind, is set in Francis House, within a 1900s warehouse, and brings together its industrial rawness and open spaces with colour accents, warmth and flexibility that befits the 21st century. 

Edelman office: a contemporary warehouse reinvention 

Working with the existing building as much as possible, and bearing in mind the environmental benefits of retrofitting, the team retained original features and the structure's spirit; but they also added options for customisation where needed, to future-proof their design. 

'From the moment we walked into the empty warehouse building, we knew it was the perfect blank canvas to bring to life the vision we had for a post-pandemic workplace. We wanted to create a space of various zones and ambiences to reflect the full breadth of needs of our employees and clients,' said Ruth Warder, CEO Edelman UK & Ireland & Brand Chair EMEA.

'We worked with Gensler to create an environment that truly fosters collaboration and creativity. Its flexibility allows us to embrace the diversity of work and thinking we have, and want more of, within our agency. From attic bars to expandable boardrooms, we believe it’s a space that’s truly inclusive of the broad spectrum of work and culture have at Edelman.'

In terms of furniture, the space features a mix of pieces from the firm’s previous workplace as well as ten per cent reupholstered vintage furniture. In total, there are more than 700 seats, of 24 different typologies, to cater to the various needs of employees and guests. 

Carlos Posada, workplace leader and principal at Gensler, said: 'We are delighted to have partnered with Edelman to co-create their new London headquarters. As creative companies worldwide seek to redefine the purpose of their offices, Francis House is the destination that embodies all the attributes of a workplace of the future – ushering in a new era which brings employees and clients together in a collaborative and sustainable environment that celebrates individuality and culture-building.'

Gensler's interior fit out was carried out in a scheme commissioned by Derwent London, and adapted by Squires and Partners.

gensler.com

In the decade or so since Robert Cheng founded Brewin Design Office in Singapore, the Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard alum has become something of the architect of choice for elegant, thoughtful spaces – whether a cloistered library for a private collection of rare medieval books, a modern public lobby, or a luxury boutique hotel. 

A Hong Kong family headquarters by Brewin Design Office

His latest project – a sleek new 8,000 sq ft HQ for a family office on the 11th floor of the Hong Kong Club Building – is no exception. 

The client’s brief began with a space that reflected the values and culture of the founding generation, but which would leave room for the next generation to evolve, especially as the business segues into investments and private equity.

For Cheng, this required the insertion of boardrooms, sound-proofed meeting rooms and a trading floor in a way that balanced a familial mood with buttoned down professionalism. It certainly helped that the bones of the building – designed by the Australian architect Harry Siedler in the early 1980s – provided him with a vast, blank canvas formed by a column-free interior and mullion-free windows that open out to bracing views over Victoria Harbour and the Cenotaph. 

Inspiration for the visual cues came from various sources, not least the elongated planed lines of Siedler’s modernist granite facade; and subliminal nods to the family’s original shipping business by way of midnight-blue lacquered walls, curves that echo the lines of ship hulls, long torpedo-shaped ceiling coves, and, in the boardroom, a customised walnut table in the shape of an anchor. 

Elsewhere, floors of dark-stained French oak and walls clad in American walnut are paired with bespoke furniture and classic pieces, among them, a ‘Marquesa’ bench by Oscar Niemeyer, and a ‘Croisillon’ lamp by Jean-Michel Frank. 

For Cheng, designing family offices offers the opportunity to step away from the strictures of a standard workplace. ‘We have the leeway of making it a little more exciting, and being able to customise explicitly to the private owner’s requirements. Often, this allows for a larger front-of-house space as we’ve done here, as compared to a more traditional office, which typically would have more back-of-house spaces.’  

If nothing else, these are busy times, the architect now skidding between working with David Chipperfield on a hotel in Nanjing, and another hotel in Kyoto with Kengo Kuma. 

brewindesignoffice.com

The complex, mixed-use project that is Morgan North sits in Midtown Manhattan – a part of town that is always in flux. Though demand for office space is changing, taller towers continue to pop up, replacing old structures and filling every last plot of land. It’s predicted that New York’s iconic skyline will be unrecognisable by 2030. And yet, rather than constantly building anew, a handful of developers have set their sights on transforming existing buildings, creating state-of-the-art facilities that meet new workplace standards while also preserving original characteristics.

Morgan North: a USPS distribution hub reimagined

Case in point: this 197,000 sq m facility fashioned out of a former USPS (US postal service) distribution hub first erected in 1933. Situated near Hudson Yards and The Highline, between 29th Street and 30th Street, the six- to ten-storey full-city block monolith sits in a neighbourhood slated for significant redevelopment. Penn Station's transportation hub will be entirely revitalised in the next few years and everything around it will follow suit. Morgan North is leading the charge. 

Tishman Speyer, the building’s owner, worked closely with Shimoda Design Group and Montroy DeMarco Architecture to outfit a wide array of flexible office floor set-ups primarily tailored for creative businesses. With an existing art deco lobby carefully restored and two more added, employers and their employees can access their units at different entry points. Oversized Douglas fir planks imbue these stark industrial spaces with warmth. New elevators and glazing provide a fresh look and feel. Skylights were introduced to bring in much-needed natural light. 

While ground-level retail spaces intermix with a few USPS loading docks still in operation, a 0.8-hectare rooftop garden is the icing on the cake. This large-scale amenity reflects the developer’s stated desire to bolster occupant health and wellbeing, but also a large push toward resourceful, biophilic design.

'Living roof technology and the transformative effect of Morgan North-like landscapes demonstrate exponential economic and micro and macro environmental benefits for cities’ unused existing and new roofs,' says Hank White, principal of HMWhite, the landscape architecture firm responsible for the design of this space, the largest garden of its kind in New York City. 

'It is encouraging to witness how the adaptation of landscapes and “green” technologies’ integration into built environments are gaining momentum as a universally accepted mandate. Applying the natural world's functional properties as the prevailing “go-to” informant to building solutions will bring us closer to a planet-healing bio-urbanism future.'

Encircling a sizable indoor rooftop event pavilion, the undulating landscape features meandering pathways, intimate seating, lawns for group activities, sports fields, and enhanced views. Every area was thought through to balance collaborative work, recreation, and quiet inspiration. There’s even a vegetable garden. While coniferous hedgerows protect against strong winds during colder months, a meticulously placed canopy of trees shields against harsh sun rays in summer.

'Office-building outdoor rooftop amenities typically prioritise a variety of uses that rely on large assembly areas. Landscape is used as an accessory and “enhancing” punctuation. Alternatively, Morgan North’s rooftop is experienced as a series of complementary plant communities out of which a mix of social gathering areas are carved. Regional landscape types are used as a micro-climatic mitigating strategy to improve human comfort levels and extend seasonal usage,' White adds. The garden was imagined as a microcosm Northeastern woodland.

Layering this landscape was challenging but working with the 90-year-old building’s solid structure simplified the process. 'The number of trees, their sizes, and the soil volumes required to sustain them involved constant negotiations throughout the design process,' White concludes. 'The project’s economic feasibility required the reconciliation between creating a bold landscape vision within the building’s existing conditions and complying with its historic landmark status.' If all of this can be addressed, why aren’t more city roofs turned into parks?

shimodadesign.com 

hmwhitesa.com 

montroydemarco.com

morgannorth.com

'We’ve been into Hans Hollein for about a year and a half,' says Julio Kowalenko, of the recent fascination with Austrian post-modernist architect he has shared with Rodrigo Armas, partner and co-founder of Atelier Caracas. As Kowalenko continues, it’s clear that when he says ‘into’ he means ‘really into’. Since 2015, this refreshingly boyish (but not boisterous) architect duo have been working at their joint studio in the complex and multilayered Venezuelan capital that gave them its name. 

A Caracas banking office by Hans Hollein reimagined

Tackling tough surroundings in which to do a tough job has informed their architectural research and references. At times these become obsessive, says Kawalenko: 'We became fixated on Hollein’s early work, on the Retti candle shop in particular.' How and why this small, Viennese shop interior designed in 1966 influenced the complete refit of corporate offices atop a twenty story tower in Caracas’ financial district in 2023, helps explain the process and vision of this up-and-coming, young pair. 

'We thought, wow, these [Hollein’s projects] are tiny, but they were so, so good,' continues Kowalenko, making his appreciation of the Austrian architect’s mania for, often very symbolic, detailing. Referring to another of Hollein’s smaller commercial projects, his brilliant 1979 travel agency interior, again in Vienna, Kowalenko illustrates how the relationship between the parameters of scale and vision can be blurred. 'Although as a young graduate architect the impulse might drive you to design an opera house,' he explains, 'in reality, you’ll be lucky to design a shoe shop.' 

With a compact, self-contained sphere of potential intervention, something that characterises most of Atelier Caracas’ briefs, the ability to maximise architectural expression through every element is pivotal. 'In Venezuela we have this attitude: fuck the world, I want to be a power ranger not an architect!' laughs Kawalenko alluding to the playful rigour that both they and Hollein share.  

In his 1968 manifesto, Hollein called for an ‘absolute architecture’, one which represents a 'ritualistic expression of pure elemental will and of sublime purposelessness.' For Kolawenko and Armas this offers up a radical practicality, and Hans Hollein is the toolbox which helps them construct this encapsulated vision. 

The material choices also express this inventive streak and this project, the reception lobby of a high status financial services company, the architects wanted to emit a feeling of luxury in an unorthodox way. 'Stainless steel has been a fantastic material for us,' says Armas, 'and so has Continental rubber tubing made for pumping up tyres.'

Yes, the impact might feel at times industrial, but every element, from the steel and glass security entrance to the leather-covered, cigar-like benches, is a one-off for this project. At once artisanal and slick; 'We were thinking of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.' 

A sublime bunker of sorts, this is space where Atelier Caracas has been allowed to run free with their own flair for obsessive precision. 'What is luxury?' Kawalenko asks himself. 'Luxury is the perfection of detail.'

ateliercaracas.com

Amid the vibrant cultural scene of Berlin, advertising agency M&C Saatchi has unveiled its new office space, dominated by raw simplicity and vibrant design. 

Local interior design studio Llot Llov was enlisted to renovate three floors with the building on Brunnenstrasse, by ‘neo-brutalist’ architect Arno Brandlhuber, injecting colour into the 30 sq m of office space, while harmoniously blending with the brutalist architecture setting.

M&C Saatchi Berlin office interior

Upon entering, you are met with raw concrete walls – a fitting canvas for creativity – and an adaptable layout. Plywood panels and iron-pipe stair railings contrast with glass surfaces and translucent polycarbonate panels that emphasise a minimalist design approach.

The three floors feature ceilings reaching up to 7.5m in height, adding grandeur to the space, while each level has a different function – ‘Workshop’, ‘Gallery’, and ‘Club – catering to employees and clients.

On the first floor, the open ‘Workshop’ office space is divided by the use of glass walls, which keeps a sense of fluidity, and a screen of hanging plants, ensuring a balance between collaboration and privacy.

On the ground level, the open framework of the ‘Gallery’ space showcases exhibitions in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery. The pared-back surroundings act as a canvas for creative work, while an 8.m light fixture radiates an ambient glow.

Descending into the basement, the ‘Club’ has an atmosphere of community and relaxation. The space is full of texture and sheens, adorned with black fixtures. The kitchen counter and mirrored disco ball are a playful touch, while grey accents accentuate the room's depth. The room's focal point is a radiant yellow table that compensates for the absence of natural light. 

Llot Llov’s renovations unveiled an area of graffiti, previously hidden behind boarding, which was welcomed into the design, and reflects the building's artistic character. The industrial interior theme comes with bold highlights of colour, while the windows, with oiled oak elements, overlook the vibrant streets of Berlin.

llotllov.com

‘Art connects,’ says Debra Lehman Smith. ‘Placing art in the workplace creates unique narratives which enable organisations to articulate their individual culture. Art fosters conversation and connection vital to creating engaging and productive office environments.’ The US-based designer and founding partner at Lehman Smith McLeish (LSM), a Washington DC-based practice with a particular specialty of effortlessly and coherently blending art and architecture in its projects, has worked on numerous workspace projects that make the most of the creative power of the arts since the studio’s foundation in 1991.  

Debra Lehman Smith on the relationship between art and architecture

LSM’s newest completions include the headquarters of a leading aerospace and defence company in the Washington DC metropolitan area. Covering some 22 acres, the scheme is reached via a scenic drive, culminating to the sense of arrival created by the Modified Social Bench #48, a site-specific installation piece by Jeppe Hein that is nestled in the lawn in front of the main entrance. More art, by Alicja Kwade (a specially commissioned item), Tacita Dean, and Sarah Morris (a relocated and reinterpreted work), greets visitors on the ground level and its six-storey tall atrium. The building’s strong grid-based geometry is offset by the mesmerising art as much as the green nature outside, composing a peaceful environment for employees and guests inside and out. 

Lehman Smith’s gentle weaving of art and architecture materialises in almost all her works, found across the US and Europe. For this client, LSM developed the headquarters’ architecture, campus and site layout, interiors, and art. Other examples include two London schemes: Milbank London’s 100 Liverpool Street office, which features space-specific pieces by Jeppe Hein, Idris Khan, and Paul Morrison; and the 100 Bishopsgate headquarters of law firm Paul Hastings, where sleek, mirrored and metal surfaces are fully in sync with the atrium’s moving piece Gravity by Dan Chadwick, among other works. 

The designer believes that planning any related art in parallel to the spatial design in each of the studio’s projects is paramount for the success of the final result – art should always be an integral part of the design solution. ‘Our process approaches design with art in mind. In working with passionate clients, art consultants, and leading artists, we are able to shape unique spaces for our clients by placing exceptional works of art in dialogue with excellent architecture,’ she says. ‘We generally find the most success when true collaboration occurs. When all parties involved are working together and challenging one another, both architect and artist are encouraged to strive for and produce their best work.’  

lsm.com

Giant Ventures, the global venture capital firm with a base in London's Holland Park, has just unveiled its new office design, courtesy of Minimat Designs – the interior architecture and design studio of British Nigerian artist and designer Mimi Shodeinde. The space, set in a restored former pottery studio, feels a world away from the corporate environment, and is centred on warmth, craft, heritage and 21st-century sophistication. 

Giant Ventures office by Miminat Designs: a haven of workspace warmth

The interior aims to 'embody the firm’s progressive vision', the design team writes. For this reason, the space balances elegance and functionality, and is bathed in natural light and clad in sustainable materials such as wood, jute and stone – which is no surprise, given Giant Ventures founders’ interests and specialties (Tommy Stadlen is a bestselling author on climate change and entrepreneur and Cameron Mclain, a former musician and angel investor). 

Reusing an existing building and opting for surfaces and furnishings that highlight a an environmentally friendly approach were key in the design. These gestures were matched by a further array of luxurious materials, such as velvet, glass, and brass, elevating the space with gentle touches of opulence. 

The result is an interior in rich, chocolate, and nature-inspired tones, filled with detail accents and art. 'It was a total pleasure to work with a client such as Giant who were so trusting in our vision, and to create this unique space for them, guided by the brand’s sustainable vision. We’re so happy to see the space come to life with natural and tactile materials throughout,' says Shodeinde. 

miminat.com 

MetroEighteen, a leading audio-visual and lighting systems specialist based in Los Angeles was after a new home – a headquarters that would act as offices, but also a showroom and staging warehouse where it could show off and dazzle its clients with innovative displays. Enter Holm Studio, the local architecture practice led by Ehran Holm, who proposed the redesign of the company's space into a domestic interior that is warm enough to feel like a home but at the same time rough and flexible so it can adapt to different set-ups and project needs. 

MetroEighteen by Holm Studio: a warehouse interior with a domestic twist

Holm Studio composed an interior out of vintage and found objects, which are highlighted in different moods by colourful lighting – both ambient and spotlights, created by Sean O’Connor Lighting. It all sits in a raw, almost industrial environment that has been polished just enough to maintain a balance of warmth and refinement. 'This collection plays well in LA, a city that’s entrenched in the production and consumption of music and entertainment. The office also showcases the founder’s collection of music and video memorabilia compiled over many decades,' the studio writes. 

A simple, white-painted façade features large glass shopfront-style windows which hint at the amazing lighting and colour displays inside. It also ensures ample natural light flows inside – illuminating the textures and architectural features in the space, such as the exposed roof rafters and layered brick and plaster. Furniture is by Janelle Lee. 

'A sense of humour and whimsy,' were also important in the interior composition and overall feel. 'For example, speaker cones double as candy dishes; restored BMX bikes, radio station stickers, movie projectors, and turntable cabinets contrast with the muted backdrop,' the team explained. 

metroeighteen.com 

In West Germany's Reichshof region, the headquarters of Schwalbe, the well-known bicycle-tyre manufacturer, is a business home where technology and innovation meet flexibility, workspace wellness and contemporary, sustainable architecture. Titled Schwalbe Hybrid Building, the project (whose shell and core were designed by architect Ralf Janz) features interiors by London-based Archiproba Studios, headed by architect Tamara Muradova, and implemented over three years during the pandemic. 

Schwalbe office building by Archiproba: a sustainable workspace

'Schwalbe, the leading bicycle-tyre manufacturer, owes its success to the uncompromising quality, continuous innovation and new technologies, and pushing for more environmentally aware production,' the architects write, explaining their approach. 

The HQ was born to reflect these values, and the project had the 'ambitious goal to create a responsible building for the future'.

As a result, the team at Archiproba placed sustainability at the heart of their approach, using 98 per cent recyclable project materials, while 100 per cent of the concrete and steel in the building can also be recycled in the future. 

An air heat pump helps control energy spend, while, making the most of the region's regular heavy rainfalls, rainwater is collected to irrigate the roof gardens and green walls and for use in the bathrooms. Meanwhile, the planted rooftop produces fresh fruit and vegetables, which are then used in the canteen.  

Both client and architect put environmental and social responsibility at the heart of their work. Following those principles, Archiproba created a design that can be adaptable, resilient and as future-proofed as possible in order to achieve longevity and be flexible to absorb any upcoming needs by the bike company. 

Spanning three floors of workspace and a generous ground-floor reception, the project blends desk areas with meeting rooms and bicycle workshops. Careful lighting and material choices throughout ensure each space is fit for its purpose. 

At the very top, a bridge connects the new building, with the company's old base next door. 'The bridge became a “common room” where the employees from both buildings can meet halfway to play a ping-pong match or host a casual meeting. The fully glazed side of the bridge allows more daylight and provides an additional outdoor environment for lunch breaks. For quicker access, the bridge can be crossed with a scooter,' the architects explain. 

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Annabelle Selldorf has designed the new David Zwirner office in New York. The architecture studio and gallerist share a fruitful, long standing relationship - they've collaborated on several schemes in the past, including the 2013 David Zwirner 20th Street. This project outlined the consolidation of several of the gallery's departments in a single, streamlined space. Selldorf Architects obliged, transforming two levels of a historic warehouse building in Chelsea into a minimalist architecture haven bringing together their client's research, exhibition design, artist liaison, publishing, marketing, IT, human resources, registrar, and online sales departments. 

David Zwirner office: functionality meets minimalism

'The new headquarters was an opportunity to respond to the needs of a post-pandemic professional reality. Many people grew accustomed to working at home and not commuting daily, so it is essential that our workspaces are appealing and comfortable places where people will want to spend time at the office on a regular schedule. This includes providing informal areas for socialising, as well as private and collaborative workspace. Access to natural light and fresh air, outdoor space and nature are also essential elements that contribute to an overall sense of positive wellbeing to make people enthusiastic about coming to the office,' says Selldorf. 

The client's needs were at the heart of the design development - and this naturally included both the overall business and employee requirements. 'I really wanted a central office and headquarters here in Chelsea in New York, so when 520 West 20th Street opened we took 36,000 sq ft over three floors. The building is perfectly situated between our 20th Street galleries and our 19th Street galleries,' says Zwirner. 

He continues: 'Collaborative working spaces, where teams could meet to discuss projects and forthcoming exhibitions, was a major focus for the offices. So together, with Annabelle Selldorf, we created state of the art conference spaces and lounge working areas. The space is also very bright and airy and a key attribute of the headquarters is the 200 ft long terrace, which has been utilised all summer by the staff.'

The space appears serene and flowing, featuring clean surfaces, transparencies and neutral colour tones. However, don't let the calm atmosphere trick you; this is a hard-working interior, comprising 36,000 sf of 'a uniquely flexible workspace environment.' Exposed brick walls meet warm natural pine bookcases, modular Vitra office furniture, and open workstations. And while ensuring there's adaptability built into the layout and furnishings, the pared down decor underlines the unified approach throughout - whichever the configuration. 

Selldorf explains: 'Material selection always comes a little later in the design process for us even though it is often the first thing that most people perceive. We began with the plan, laying out the organisation of each floor with open and closed work areas and other specific program requirements. The space had very nice original brick perimeter walls that made sense to keep exposed in many places.'

'From there, we wanted to build up a palette that was generally neutral in tone but had strong punctuation points of warm color and natural material – in particular the pine bookcases and stairs. We had used pine in the elevator cab of the David Zwirner 20th Street Gallery so it was a subtle reference to that as well. The white and grey for the workstations and soft seating create a generally calm backdrop to the varied activity of the workday.'

selldorf.com 

This multifunctional, transformable office space occupies a unit in a commercial building in Kyoto, Japan. Designed by Naoshi Kondo Studio, the L-shaped interior has been carefully crafted to cover three completely different uses, a photography studio, a workspace, and a conference room.

The transformable office: watch the film

The device: a moving reception room

Tying all this together is the project’s central device, a moving reception room that also doubles up as the conference area. Lined with a rich dark blue carpet, light blue walls and arched doorways, the ‘room’ is a lightweight frame that can be shifted along two axes. Statement pieces of furniture give the room a strong geometric feel. 

The main entrance wall to the unit is glazed, and with the reception space in its ‘parked’ position, this reveals and displays the colourful space to the world as a kind of vitrine, advertising the client’s business. Step inside, and the doorways lead through to the rest of the space.

In reception mode, the area around the corner can be set up as an extension of the office, with storage shelving, and a modular conference table. ‘This mechanism introduces a high degree of flexibility in space utilisation and movement, ensuring optimal convenience for the users,’ the architect says, explaining how the main workspace is a typical photography studio, requiring constantly changing set-ups and teardowns. 

‘Having a moving reception room naturally encourages periodic tidying,’ Kondo continues, ‘which caters to those who thrive in a dynamic work setting.’ Slide the reception space all the way to the right and it opens up a ‘white box’ space behind the glass frontage. 

The reception can then be slid back on itself around the corner (after tidying away all the paraphernalia of the office), maximising the length of the work environment. Elements like wall mirrors are cleverly split across the different stages to give a sense of a jigsaw slotting into place.

Transformable space is a perennial fascination amongst architects of a certain age. The Honsha Office works because its dynamic component is practical, not fanciful, expanding the potential of an awkward space while preserving space, privacy and presentation. 

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When California real-estate magnate Kurt Rappaport wanted to refresh a Beverly Hills classic, architect Dan Brunn was his go-to choice. The result was a truly collaborative project and a labour of love from both sides, as client and architect worked in sync to create a new space that blends art and architecture, luxury and minimalism, past and present. 

Dan Brunn and Kurt Rappaport: a fruitful collaboration

The site was in a 'quintessential Beverly Hills' building, sat on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Canon Drive. The architect and his team at Dan Brunn Architecture (DBA), worked closely with Rappaport, who, being an avid art collector and expert in property and development, has extensive knowledge to draw on and a passion for architecture. 

'Kurt is a tastemaker in life and work,' Brunn said. 'Everything here either has a provenance that carries a special meaning to him, or its an all new creation by DBA. It’s all very lush and filled with great artifacts and curiosities.'

Restoring the building to its historical glory

Brunn redesigned the building's façade, as well as interiors, and brought the structure back to its original 1930s glory – infused with the architect's own modernist architecture influences, as well as 21st-century mod-cons. And while at first, the space was meant to be redesigned and leased out, Rappaport 'fell in love' with it during the process, and decided to move his own business in instead. 

The building's historic bones were brought to the forefront and allowed to shine, revealing its elegant minimalism, both in the exterior and the extensive, clean, white interiors. These are dotted with their owner's collection in art and design, spanning from a Roy Lichtenstein painting, to a hanging Alexander Calder mobile, and vintage and contemporary furniture pieces by the likes of Charles and Ray Eames, Jean Prouvé and Ron Arad. 

The sequence of spaces leads from the front-of-house, public areas, towards more private ones, such as executive offices and a guest suite. Strategically placed artwork illuminates the route through and creates corners of interest, punctuating the minimalist interior, wrapped in luxurious materials. 

'The entire impression of moving through the structure,' Brunn said, 'is that of a single circular band unweaving from space to space, where the overlapping experiences of work and entertainment, business and relaxation transition naturally through a sensuous flow of movement and purposeful space.'

weahomes.com 

danbrunn.com 

'What if work could be extraordinary?' asks Ben van Berkel. Booking.com's office in Amsterdam, named City Campus, is his response, and it's nothing if not ambitious. With its occupants now happily moved in, and a BREEAM Excellent design certificate for sustainable architecture for it under their belt, van Berkel's architecture practice UNStudio proposes this as a model for 21st century workspace. 

When a Dutch student in Eastern Holland came up with the idea for Booking.com in 1996, it was a pioneering thought, and it quickly took off, becoming the global phenomenon of a travel platform it is today, as well as a state-of-the-art tech company. But as the business grew, staff and spatial needs did too, and Booking.com found itself based in several different buildings in Amsterdam, which was neither practical nor efficient. UNStudio's brief was to create a home for the company's some 6,500 staff in town – but one that would stand the test of time, and multitask too. 

Booking.com campus: rethinking workspace for the 21st century

UNStudio landed the commission in 2015 via an invited competition for a site next to the city's busy central station. The architects' ambition was to create a space for a 'small village', as well as a building promoting wellness and community for the employees. 

'It’s really a tech campus building,' van Berkel says. 'I feel it will be one of the most health-oriented offices in the world. It's an active health office, so we encourage walking, natural light and more. It also acts as a “recruiting machine”. People are happier and healthier here, so they are less likely to leave.'

Looking at the building's flowing lines, glazed façades and dynamic volumes, you'd probably think that it's a design-led structure, one of modern aesthetics and expressive architecture gestures. Which is true; but what you won't immediately see is that van Berkel and his team spent hours upon hours perfecting elements like acoustics, climatic conditions inside, glare and material selection – much of it through features invisibly embedded into the building so cleverly you never know they're there. For example, tiny perforations on wall panels help to keep sound distribution to pleasant levels; sensors balance light in each room; sustainable bamboo wood was used for cladding; and a green wall in the dramatic main atrium ensures living plants are part of the everyday experience there. 

Restaurants for the employees offer healthy meals daily, lots of transparency helps with orientation and encourages interaction, while a network of bridges and walkways promotes walking – as opposed to taking the lift – between levels. All the office staples are there too – desk spaces, education and events halls, meeting rooms, private booths, and both breakout socialising areas and quiet corners. But the communal components, circulation and wellness elements are where UNStudio really applied themselves – working on a masterplan for the space, with HofmanDujardin as the lead interior architects, to enhance productivity and health in the Booking.com workforce.

'The focus was on serving the needs and behaviour of Booking.com employees, from the moment they walk in, to the end of their working day, and all the activities in between,' says van Berkel. 'While the individual interior spaces enjoy a truly international flavour that reflects Booking.com’s core business, we wanted the overall concept for the building to serve as a reflection of Amsterdam – its location and the Dutch travel company’s home base since its inception. The architecture therefore combines the robust qualities and the industrial history of the harbour, with glazed detailing that reduces the overall immenseness of the building and gently reflects the glistening of the water and sky. The organisation of the interior, meanwhile, is designed to characterise the vibrancy of Amsterdam’s lively central neighbourhoods.'

unstudio.com 

booking.com 

The Stream Building by PCA-Stream opens today (31 May 2023) in Paris, bringing with it a vision for urban design for the 21st century. It is a mixed-used structure based on sustainable architecture principles, housing office and commercial activities – the outcome of almost 15 years of studies by the studio's research arm, Stream Lab. 

'What makes the Stream Building different is precisely that it is not just an office building,' says Philippe Chiambaretta, the Parisian studio's founder. 'The building is a mixed-use laboratory that stitches the city together. It brings together, under the same roof, all the activities of a mixed and dense urban life, in the spirit of the "15-minute city": offices, a hotel, four restaurants, a rooftop, two food halls. It offers a plural, hybrid and hospitable place, inspired by the mutations of contemporary lifestyles, and becomes a new place of life and resources for the inhabitants in a neighborhood that was cruelly lacking in amenities and services.'

Stream Building: beyond an office building

Chiambaretta has just completed the project, which is situated in the heart of Paris' Clichy-Batignolles district. He sees it more as a manifesto than an example of workspace architecture. 'As an applied research building, it materialises over ten years of prospective thinking, notably carried out during issues 02 and 03 of the Stream magazine [the studio's in-house publication], focusing on new uses and challenges of the Anthropocene,' he explains. 

'The prospective dialogue conducted by our research department with thinkers, researchers, artists, and urban actors reflects our conviction that architecture is not merely a formal game but should constantly question itself and explore major contemporary transformations, in a process symbolized by our “think/build” formula. Each research cycle thus takes shape in our buildings and urban projects. The result is a design based on the concept of metabolism and circular economy: the building is conceived as a productive organism that transforms its resources through synergistic relationships between its spaces.'

He continues: 'The framework has been designed so that the building's uses can change without major structural work: tomorrow, office floors can become a hotel, and vice versa. The building is, in a way, recyclable. The Stream Building is also a prototype of an innovative construction method. Its wood-concrete hybrid structure, aiming for carbon footprint optimisation, is complemented by an ambitious prefabrication system that allows for a fast construction process with minimal disruption. The experimental dimension of the Stream Building will be experienced over the long term: the building will be subject to an annual report for ten years, providing feedback on all the innovations implemented.'

Sustainability sits at the heart of the design

Even though it is located in an urban setting, in one of the world's contemporary metropoles, it remains in constant dialogue with nature. It features a productive roof, designed around the principle of agrivoltaics: nearly 400 sq m of photovoltaic panels combined with over 300 sq m of urban agriculture. There are no chemicals in use and the year-round garden provides ingredients for the chefs in the building's restaurants. It also helps absorb rainwater and regulate temperatures in the building and wider area. It acts as a biodiversity corridor for wildlife and feeds a micro-brewery in the basement, whose results are consumed in the building's hospitality offerings. Organic matter that is not used throughout the building's functions, goes into a composter that recycles it to feed the cultures on the roof. 

The structure itself is linear and fittingly streamlined, all clean lines and grid-inspired façades. A light piece by artist Pablo Valbuena is incorporated within the exterior's crisp grid. It explores 'the modular system of the Stream Building using time and light as material', in the words of the artist. The work runs on energy produced by the building's solar panels. 

Stream Building: its future

Providing a sustainable, focal point for the area and numerous activities for locals as well as users coming from further afield, the Stream Building promises to become a vital hub of activity for its neighbourhood. As to whether there will be more Stream Buildings in the future, and elsewhere in the world? 'Who knows if there will ever be a Stream Building in London? In any case, one thing is certain: this approach combining mixed use, formal simplicity, material efficiency and reversibility appears to be essential in our current urban context,' says Chiambaretta. 

pca-stream.com 

Housed in a handsome period building, WeWork 37 Avenue Trudaine in Paris offers pristine, contemporary workspace, while drawing on its context's architecture and history. The space, located within a former school, dating back to 1863, is in the heart of the 9th arrondissement and sits within a carefully planned complex that spans offices, social housing units, a crèche and parking. It all comes together under a magnificent glass roof, featuring mesmerising curves and complex engineering, mirroring the grandeur of 20th century Paris, and projects such as the Gare du Nord.

WeWork 37 Avenue Trudaine, Paris

Covering a generous 7,035 sq m, WeWork 37 Avenue Trudaine was designed to cater to a range of needs and functions. The renowned flexible working brand's 20th location in Paris, WeWork 37 Avenue Trudaine contains a variety of set-ups: from private offices to adaptable ‘office suites’ and entire floors of private deskspace and amenities. A range of breakout and social areas is also brought into the mix, located mostly on the lower ground level. 

The venue's design mixes the existing structure's historical character (the façade has been fully maintained, along with various preserved original features such as the flooring), with contemporary elements. Bespoke joinery, for example, provides functional elements for reception, meeting, and work areas. Materials beyond timber include marble tops in Breccia Capraia honed finish in the communal areas, alongside leather and stainless steel details, aiming to create a smart, coherent atmosphere that feels at once warm and welcoming, but also current. 

The undulating roof, designed  by DVVD Architects (which also tackled the overall building architecture and preservation elements) in collaboration with Bechu + Associés, remains the complex's standout feature. Its light, high-performance steel shell, succeeds in bathing the courtyard in light while being thermally efficient, ensuring sustainable architecture principles remain in play. 

‘At WeWork, our design decisions are influenced by our own expertise as well as by the constant feedback we get from our members across the world. This approach, combined with the inherent flexibility of our spaces, means we are not only able to understand what workers actually need and want from the modern workplace but are able to adapt our spaces as these trends evolve, something that has become increasingly important in today's world of work,' says Ebbie Wisecarver, global head of design at WeWork.

'WeWork 37 Avenue Trudaine is a prime example of this. From lounge space and meeting rooms to quiet nooks and dedicated focus areas, we have created a purpose-driven, "destination" workspace that blends functional, flexible and thoughtful design to ensure our members can have their most productive work day,' Wisecarver continues. 'What's more, as part of our design ethos to bring local flavour to our spaces, we have incorporated bespoke artwork and 1970s vintage Parisian street lights to pay homage to the city. The glass canopy, in particular, creates an incredible light effect throughout the ground floor and we have been able to balance this with a marble finish and warm materials to create an inspiring environment that members love to work from.'

wework.com 

Exchange House's distinctive black parabolic arches and exposed industrial trusses, designed by SOM in 1990, make it a landmark in the cityscape of London's Broadgate campus - winning the AIA’s Twenty-five Year Award in 2015. Fast forward to 2023 and London architecture studio Piercy&Company was commissioned by British Land and GIC to redesign the iconic structure's interior, aiming to transform its shared spaces, improving tenant amenities, while also pushing the boundaries of sustainable architecture, employing circular economy principles. 

Exchange House's reception hall brings new sense of warmth

Piercy&Company, a studio that is well versed in transforming historically sensitive spaces, tapped into British Land’s vast archive, using original hand-drawn sketches of the building to inform its redesign. By making the most of the transparency provided by the original continuous ground floor glazing and double height, the architects established a new synergy between the interior and freshly landscaped Exchange Square (by DSDHA) outside. This was achieved through the introduction of layered internal planting, natural materials, and a colour palette that mirrors the seasonal green scheme of the garden. By playing with the concept of a ‘garden room’, the interior changes have brought the outside in, and with it, a palpable sense of warmth to the reception hall. 

Geometric motifs create themes and moments

Large-scale tapestry works by Kangan Arora, an Indian-born and London-based textile designer, were introduced. The pieces feature colourful abstractions of the building’s characteristic parabolic arches, steel trusses and beams. Meanwhile, the elm wood lattice shelving units designed by the architects and made by Benchmark, hold delicate raku fired porcelain sculptures by ceramicist Nadine Bell, introducing new textures and tones to the space. The unit also mirrors the building's overall exposed structure in its characteristic joinery - a geometric motif that is further echoed in the design of the office level bathrooms. 

Embracing circular economy principles

In keeping with circular economy principles that are core to the studio’s overall practice, over 4,000 sq ft of existing Pentelikon marble was carefully removed from the site, cut locally, and hand-laid with cement to create terrazzo flooring for the ground floor reception. Only 40% of the existing marble was used in the reception, allowing for this style to extend to flooring in lift lobbies on other floors, as well as sinktops on the office floor bathrooms. The warm, uniquely-designed terrazzo brings a welcomed contrast in tone and texture to the original building's omnipresent black steel, creating a new grounding feeling to the shared areas.

There's more to come; plans are underway to create a new 200 sq m rooftop terrace, tapping into a previously unused space in the building. This will improve the existing range of tenant amenities for working and hosting. With a design the promotes biodiversity and a biophilic approach, Piercy&Company continues to support sustainability, while also creating new moments of rest, community and connection with nature.

From peeling back layers to reveal original features and details, to opening up new ways through that allow people to pass under the belly of the building, and creating dialogues inside and throughout the building, Piercy&Company has made forward-thinking yet respectful changes to an architectural icon, subtly transforming it for the 21st century. 

piercyandco.com 

The Drawing Shed is the new architectural office for ByOthers, a studio set up by Richard Keys in 2020 and now set at the far end of a long, narrow south London garden. The project was largely self-built, designed and devised so that all the necessary components could be carried through the narrow hallway of the Victorian terrace – there was no separate garden access.

A south London architectural office in a garden

Key believes that architecture should be steeped in practicality. For the Drawing Shed, these considerations ran all the way to the 20 sq m building’s foundations, which were hand-wound into the ground using a torque wrench designed to take nuts off truck wheels.

‘It was all driven by context,’ Keys says from within the warm, timber-filled interior. Unable to get any kind of mechanical excavation to the site, everything had to be dug by hand, with ‘old fashioned leverage’ used to drill the foundations and avoid traditional poured concrete. It also means the entire building is truly demountable and could theoretically be packed up and taken to another location.

Above ground, the studio is formed from three heavily insulated timber boxes, clad in 100 individual and unique Corten steel ‘trays’, slender laser cut panels that are affixed to the structure with a proprietary fixing system. The location of every single panel was determined by a custom-created code system, developed directly from the original 3D model and etched into the metal.

Describing it as a ‘very simple project that complicated things for fun’, the Drawing Shed gave Keys and his team of three the opportunity to experiment with things like digital fabrication and adapting materials for alternate uses. A case in point is the dipped iridescent steel that clads the internal bathroom pod and doubles up as a magnetic pinboard to display sketches and plans.

The structural ceiling with its deep diagonal ribs adds to the feeling of warmth created by layers of sheep’s wool insulation and surface finishes of clay plaster. The plan steps back as the building reaches the end of the garden, with windows on the side elevation maximising the amount of daylight the little studio receives. 

The Drawing Shed is the practice’s first completed work, but during its conception and creation, the small Peckham-based practice has seen an explosion in interest and work. Currently on the metal pinboard are plans for a block of flats and community space in nearby Lewisham, along with a new studio structure in the Cotswolds. Other projects are in the works in Keys' native Northern Ireland, as well as Yorkshire and the Chilterns.

All ByOthers projects share the same ethos, that of working closely with the client to maximise the value they get from their project, whether monetary, personal or spatial. ‘Architects have quite a responsibility to help their clients reach ambitious goals,’ he says, adding slightly mischievously, ‘We pour petrol on that optimism – from a small shed in Peckham we can do anything.’ 

To further these ambitious goals, Keys has also set up a small construction firm, Places ByOthers, in order to realise projects with maximum efficiency.  ‘I’m on a crusade to get more architects into development,’ he says. The studio is currently working on a self-initiated project for nine new-build houses in a back-land lot in south London. ‘Traditionally, value has been extracted at different stages of the planning process,’ Keys explains. ‘Affordable housing is only unviable because so much value has been taken out of the project along the way.’

Such projects wouldn’t be possible without close collaboration, with regular structural engineers the London Structures Lab, contractors, fabricators, metalworkers and joiners. ‘We always do prototypes and mock-ups and tell clients of the value of these things,’ Keys stresses, although the hands-on approach clearly works best.

Just a few metres away from the large pivoting glass door to the Drawing Shed, another new project is taking shape. A new double-height extension will transform the rear of the existing terrace, with a ground floor living room opening up directly to the garden, carefully composed by Keys' landscape gardener partner. When complete, the ensemble will be a striking showcase of the ByOthers ethos, from deploying Passivhaus design standards to embracing challenge in all its forms, at any scale. 

ByOthers.com

Ask Ramdane Touhami what inspired him when creating his new office in Paris and he offers a succinct answer: ‘Beauty’. Set within a 19th-century ballroom in Paris’ 10th arrondissement, the space is a mix of old-world charm and colourful, contemporary interventions. ‘I didn’t have a vision for the space, I just improvised,’ says Touhami of the interiors. ‘I wanted to create a big, beautiful space for my team that would feel like a home.’

Art Recherche Industrie: ‘anything can be our thing’

The grand office space is the headquarters of Touhami’s art direction agency, Art Recherche Industrie (ARI), which he started in 2013 with the goal of ‘advocating home-made and zero-outsourcing’. Its fields of operation include architecture, typography, graphic design, photography, writing and product, as well as ‘development of brand philosophies and redefinition of identities’. 

Among its many and diverse projects is Officine Universelle Buly 1803, the beauty brand Touhami relaunched in 2014 with his wife Victoire de Taillac: under their direction, the former 19th-century pharmacy has become a cult brand combining innovative skincare with diverse aesthetic approaches that merge past and present.

Among ARI’s recent clients are silverware specialist Christofle and LVMH-owned heritage leather goods company Moynat, as well as newly launched brands Simihaze Beauty and Gohar World. The agency also works on several in-house creative initiatives, which so far include a podcast, a magazine titled Wam, and a board game. Touhami’s enterprising nature and his desire to work on every aspect of creation also prompted him to acquire a printing press in Switzerland (which he dubbed Société Helvétique d’Impression Typographique – the acronym is not casual) and one in Paris. ‘Anything can be our thing,’ says Touhami.

From ballroom to functional office space

The 25-strong team operates from the Paris office, with satellites in Lausanne and Tokyo (Switzerland and Japan are key markets for Touhami’s projects). ‘When we found the building, the walls were mostly covered by 1970s interventions,’ recalls Touhami. ‘We tried to embrace the place: the restoration was done with the idea of keeping the 19th-century effect, to clean what we found, and add a modern side to it.’

The building originally housed Marguery, a restaurant that opened in 1860 and gave its name to a classic dish of sole in white wine sauce. Until its founder died in 1910, it was known as one of the city’s most magnificent establishments – a magnet for artists, politicians and cultural influencers. ‘Our exceptional ballroom seems to be a vestige of those glory days and has been home to a synagogue, a brothel and a cult,’ explains Touhami. ‘Many different energies, past and present, intersect and merge here.’

He and his team transformed the former galleried ballroom into a workspace wonderland: over 600 sq m and two floors, ARI’s team works among Gothic-style statues, gilded panels, stained glass and expressive veneers. The original ballroom has become an open-space office, a rectangular shared desk enveloping a bespoke glass bookcase. A brightly hued staircase leads to the mezzanine: originally a resting and viewing spot for tired dancers, it is now part of the office, with USM furniture creating a delightful contrast with the original features.

While some of the rooms appear as pristine spaces catapulted into the modern age straight from the 19th century, other areas of the building feature a much more » contemporary interpretation. Where he couldn’t salvage the original interiors, Touhami infused the space with modernity and colour, creating a contrasting bright palette of saturated blue, yellow, green and red that he applied both to architectural features and new furniture. A fine example of this is a former Moorish boudoir, featuring aqua green walls and ceiling, a rainbow floor and modular upholstered seating where the team can brainstorm and have creative conversations.

Touhami wanted the office to be as comfortable as possible for the team, so he hired a Japanese chef to work on ARI’s gastronomic projects but also supply staff lunches. Always mixing business with pleasure, the office’s basement also hosts two recording studios and a tennis court. ‘The special and crazy thing about our office is that it confronts many aesthetics without ever clashing,’ says Touhami. ‘Every space melts into another: different colours, shapes and textures make sure every step in our space feels extraordinary.’

a-r-i.ch

A version of this story appears in the March 2023 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

The American furniture manufacturer Steelcase is today known for its ergonomic task furniture and problem-solving storage systems that characterise the contemporary workplace. But the historic company, which dates back to 1912, is now re-establishing an overlooked part of its history. 

Steelcase has reintroduced a fresh (and loyal) reinterpretation of Frank Lloyd Wright’s original designs for a workstation and desk chair, which the architect created for the SC Johnson Administration Building in Racine, Wisconsin, in 1939. Made by Steelcase back then as it is now, the Frank Lloyd Wright Racine Collection faithfully recreates the desk and desk chair in the style and finishes of the originals, while adding new touches that reflect our current ways of living and working from home.

Frank Lloyd Wright Steelcase furniture collection: from 1939 to today

‘From its beginnings over 80 years ago, Steelcase’s relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright has helped to revolutionise design for work,’ says Meghan Dean, general manager of ancillary merchandising and partnerships at Steelcase. ‘Now, we continue that mission into the home, as there’s never been a better time to revisit design principles that have always been ahead of their time.’

As one might expect, Wright’s designs from 1939 were unwittingly intuitive and innovative. The wide work table featured rounded edges, separate levels above and below the desk for additional storage, an integrated waste paper bin on one side, as well as a built-in tower of drawers on the other, which each swivel out for easy access while the user is seated. 

All of these features have been maintained in Steelcase’s new edition, albeit with some subtle changes in proportion and scale. For example, the desk’s accompanying chair now boasts a wider seat, and its eye-catching, oval, upholstered back easily tilts to support a wider range of postures. In addition to the original rust-red colourway, the desk and chair are also available in elegant black. The chair design has also been adapted into a commanding lounge chair version, which easily fits into live-work situations, outside of the traditional office setting.

The Frank Lloyd Wright Racine Collection is the first product collaboration between Steelcase and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, but the connection between the two entities runs far deeper. In 1985, Steelcase purchased Wright’s Meyer May House in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and spent two years refurbishing it according to the architect’s original vision when he designed it in 1909. 

The new collaboration is intended to be the first of more to come, with fine furnishings, textiles and wallcoverings on the horizon.

‘Frank Lloyd Wright used design as a means of deepening the relationships between people, nature and place,’ says Stuart Graff, president and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. ‘With the Frank Lloyd Wright Racine Collection and our collaboration with Steelcase, we’re excited to expand his vision of an architecture for better living.’

steelcase.com/franklloydwright

The newly designed dMFK office in Fitzrovia hails the postpandemic return to work in London. The architecture studio, headed by partners Julian de Metz, Paul Forbes and Ben Knight, recently launched its Charlotte Street headquarters, co-created with architects Sher + White. As the team explain, the space exemplifies a fresh take on office interiors, one that draws on the learnings of the global pandemic and addresses the needs of today in the UK capital. 

The dMFK office at 76 Charlotte Street

‘Remote working was fraying our nerves, and making us more transactional and less accommodating. Prepandemic, we were social and collaborative. The new office has restored our sense of collaboration, strengthened our teams, and reminded everyone of the pleasure of physically working together. The new design hasn’t so much changed the way we work, rather it’s accommodated the way we want to work, breaking down traditional fixed-desk arrangements and reminding us to engage,’ says de Metz.

The dMFK office's carefully laid-out open plan, and its glass enclosed former-showroom unit on the ground level of what used to be the home of TV broadcaster Channel 4, is all about openness and interaction – as much as it is about personality. ‘People recognise and value distinctiveness in office design. As designers, nothing is more important than creating the kind of place that, whilst being appropriate to the place and the business, can’t be found anywhere else,’ the architect continues. 

Designing the new postpandemic London office

Working with Sher + White, the architects employed an approach with a residential tinge that balances domestic comfort with the sharpness and conveniences of an office. The goal was to craft an interior that everyone wants to use – an asset aimed at 'staff wellbeing, retention and attraction of the finest talent'. Solid French oak, bespoke timber joinery, and rusty Corten steel wall panels compose a tactile interior wrapped in warm, calming colours and natural materials. The flowing interior follows a U-shape, and what starts off as an open boardroom-style space effortlessly transforms into rows of hot desks, and a kitchen/dining communal area. There's visual openness but appropriate separation using clever but simple techniques – smart acoustics, screens, a handful of private booths and a winding floorplan that naturally creates smaller, contained pockets of space.

The team's secret? We asked dMFK’s Julian de Metz and Sher + White director and architect Gemma White to identify the key elements used in the new dMFK office design that are crucial to consider today, but which were not as prevalent in workspace interiors before the pandemic. Here's what they said...

Flexibility

Julian de Metz: ‘We’re now used to moving around within our working week, both in and out of the office and through our day. Within the office, options for places to work, from communal tables to private booths, encourage us to vary our environment through the day, depending on our task, maximising contact with others instead of taking root in one place. We want to maximise contact and collaboration through design. Tech is also an important factor with design businesses running powerful software that often implies fixed desk positions with unsightly computers. We’ve invested in a cloud-based processing solution called ‘Inevidesk’ which allows us to sit wherever, whenever and use discreet, low-powered, local machines.‘

Gemma White: ‘The pandemic showed us that the world of work could function online if necessary but also made us miss the valuable and joyful things about face-to-face working. As such, offices need to work hard to compete with home comforts. Individual workspaces and desktop technology need to be adaptable for many different users throughout a given workday. ‘

Accoustics

JdM: ‘In our homes, we’re used to a comfortable, soft, private acoustic quality. This came into sharp focus when we came back to the office. Working near other people, you want acoustically absorbent space where conversations don’t carry. We design and select soft, absorbent surfaces and furnishings aiming to avoid flat, sheet materials and to use specialist products such as SonaSpray on ceilings, which give spaces a soft acoustic quality that significantly improves concentration and productivity.’

GW: ‘The pandemic necessitated at-distance communication and in order to maintain visual contact, video calling was the only option. The impact [of video calling] on acoustics can be dramatic and an office environment can become tiring and distracting. Greater prevalence of video communication has been a real cue for workspace design acoustics to be improved, resulting in a real sense of calm in the office. In addition, specific acoustically deadened areas have been designed to encourage people to move from their desks while making video calls.‘

Finishes

GW: ‘Warm, non-commercial feeling finishes that focus on comfort and approachability are more important than ever.’

Amenities

JdM: ‘Offices with fantastic amenities, great bike storage, showers, changing, social space, and great local options for eating and socialising are the ones that are attracting people back. We have more staff cycling, visiting local gyms, [and] eating out well than ever before.’

dmfk.co.uk 

sherandwhite.co.uk 

The Office Group (aka TOG) was founded in 2003, which means that the design-led workspace specialist is about to head into its third decade. The company is marking the occasion with one of its most pioneering projects to date. Welcome to The Black & White Building – the tallest mass-timber office building in central London, as well as the first workspace development that TOG has built entirely from scratch, and its most impressive yet in terms of sustainable architecture. 

In its first 20 years, TOG managed to shake up the world of office development. Founders and co-CEOs Olly Olsen and Charlie Green kicked off a quiet revolution, rolling out one location after another, growing their company in size and scope and ever-refining its offering, leading the charge on flexible workspace and hybrid working models (for context, WeWork was founded in 2008). 

As a result, TOG now manages over 50 buildings in the UK and Germany, where almost 20,000 users populate its outposts through a range of membership and enterprise programmes. Interestingly, this latest adventure brings the company full circle back to east London’s Rivington Street, right opposite its oldest operational venue and one-time headquarters.

Enter The Black & White Building

The Black & White Building, which opens in winter 2023, replaces an older TOG venue on the site, a namesake building (painted black and white) that was in urgent need of an update to meet current needs. Unfortunately, the existing structure wouldn’t accommodate a retrofit and expansion, and Olsen and Green felt that building from scratch should not mean compromising on sustainability. 

Enter Waugh Thistleton Architects, which is an industry leader in designing with timber, with projects such as the award-winning Bushey Cemetery in north London and Leamington Spa’s Vitsœ factory under its belt. The client-and-architect team set out to create a truly innovative, sustainable piece of workspace architecture within the relatively narrow but long site, landing at a volume seven storeys high (if you also count the accessible, planted roof) and 44m deep. 

Don’t let the glazed façade fool you. This building is as eco-friendly as it gets. As Waugh Thistleton’s Andrew Waugh explains, the timber louvres change in depth as they ascend the building, passively protecting it from solar radiation, and optimising the flow of natural light and heat into the workspace, instantly reducing the building’s carbon use. The louvres also reduce the need for solar coating on the glass, which is fully demountable to facilitate recycling. The building frame is entirely made from timber, with only the foundation made in concrete. ‘With timber you are not worried about weight and gravity, you are worried about wind. It’s all about understanding the material and designing with it,’ he says. 

To achieve the optimum result and comply with the stringent requirements that regulate building with timber in the UK, the architects chose a CLT frame for its perfect balance of sustainability, lightness and strength. The exterior fins are hard-wearing tulipwood (which is particularly sustainable currently, thanks to a US surplus created by a combination of shallow roots and heavy storms, which means many uprooted trees are available for use). Glulam (made from glue-laminated layers of timber) is used for the curtain walling; and the columns and beams are beech LVL (laminated veneer lumber).

‘Putting up a timber construction is also about four to six months faster than conventional building methods,’ Waugh says, pointing out how efficient and environmentally friendly the structure is, while also remaining elegant and honest. ‘What is important to us design-wise is that the building is a sophisticated kit of parts: you can take it apart if you wanted to’ The team expects to achieve a BREEAM Outstanding rating once everything is completed.  

The market seems to be responding. ‘We expect to have at least 40 per cent of the building let from day one,’ Green explains. ‘The demand is there, the sustainability story is compelling, and of course the strength of the design is a tremendous incentive.’ Waugh Thistleton’s carefully composed timber structure is complemented by interiors by emerging London studio Daytrip. Inside, spaces include coworking lounges, separate offices, meeting rooms, private booths, bike storage, showers, and a yoga studio that can be rented out. The commitment to sustainability continues with interiors too – for example, the yoga room ceiling is sprayed with Sonaspray, an eco-friendly acoustic treatment made from fire-treated recycled paper and other rapidly renewable materials. Wherever possible, furniture has been sourced from within the UK, with a particular emphasis on pieces from London-based makers, including Kusheda Mensah and Sebastian Cox.

‘The other magical thing about wood is its longevity,’ says Waugh. ‘Did you know that the oldest wooden church in the world is in Essex [Greensted Church] and it’s been there for over a thousand years?’ There’s plenty to admire about the humble natural material’s abilities, and TOG has its eye on more projects in the same vein. ‘This is our chance to really push to be different. Leading sustainability by example,’ says Green. The Black & White Building is just the beginning. 

The Black & White Building opens 17 January 2023

waughthistleton.com

theofficegroup.com 

A version of this story appears in January 2023 Wallpaper*, The Future Issue, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

WeWork Singapore, which opened in September 2022, is the latest flagship opening from the fast-growing co-working enterprise. First launched in New York in 2010, the company now has 800 rentable co-working office spaces worldwide, with a presence in every continent (if we omit the frozen land mass of Antarctica). 

WeWork Singapore's new inner-city spaces

The new site is set at 21 Collyer Quay, at the heart of Singapore's Central Business District and is the second largest WeWork space internationally. 

Aiming to create a flow between the interior and public spaces, the design incorporates details in artwork and greenery. At the community bar, a two-sided painting by Joanna Pang was commissioned to sit facing both the indoor space and the street, while a third-floor serenity and wellness area incorporates plants into its lobby, mediating transitions between work and relaxation. 

In creating the co-working spaces, the designers were on a mission to build a social hub and collaborative breeding ground for WeWork's members. Through thoughtful lighting placement and visual and spatial cues to alternate floors, the design for the building is open, allowing for ease of movement and the feel of a ‘vertical social village’. 

Lighting subtly directs users around the building, and towards visual focal points in artwork and Singaporean cultural references. A mural by Kristal Melson, Untitled Mural, references the ‘garden in the sky’ cityscape, and is echoed throughout, while refurbished antique Peranakan tiles line staircases, bringing new life to history and reflecting on regional heritage.

Commenting on the tone of the spaces, Franquibel Lima, VP and global head of design studios at WeWork, explained how the ‘design team blurs the line between hospitality and workspace, while striking a balance between functional, flexible and thoughtful design’. The offices provide for an array of professional lifestyles; quiet corners, dynamic collaborative spaces and focused work areas are all accessible to WeWork members, with a variety of rentable areas of different scales and flexibility. 

wework.com

This winter, 6a architects is unveiling not one, but two new buildings in Greenwich Peninsula's Design District. A2 and B2 are now up and running, bringing this quirky, and growing, creative hub in south London one step closer to full completion, while adding some exciting new businesses to the area's curated list of tenants – which so far includes The Photography Foundation and Queercircle. 

6a architects' two buildings at the Design District

When 6a architects, the studio led by Stephanie Macdonald and Tom Emerson, was invited to participate at the Design District, the architects jumped at the opportunity to experiment with materials and shapes in this new quarter. The architects drew on the tradition of warehouses and working buildings, ‘in which a few basic qualities of space, light, robustness and repetition provide spaces for all sorts of uses over a very long time'. 

The team were also inspired by the idea of designing not one, but two new builds here. 'We were very interested in the “double”, to do the same building twice. Partly because of the industrial nature of the brief and partly as the pair have a long architectural history – Piazza del Popolo in Rome and much closer in the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich, by Wren. In our case, the buildings are like non-identical twins; almost the same but not quite – one pale pink, the other green. A couple of minor variations in interior layout but otherwise the same,' they explain. 

The result is a set of sharp and geometric structures, close – but not next – to each other. Graphic patterns in the openings and cladding make them stand out, carving their own identity in the Design District's well-known, by now, explosion of colour and shape – its collection so far spans from Roz Barr's minimalist, block-coloured Bureau, to the dichroic surfaces of D2 by Mole Architects. 

However, these seemingly random volumes are not an architect's mere flight of fancy. 'The shape was a product of the areas required distributed over the allowable height. We started with a straight extrusion of the footprint repeating up to the maximum height. However, this produced more space than required,' 6a explain. 'So, we started cutting the volume obliquely until we reached exactly the right areas. This cut in turn produced floors with distinctive characters and quite radical proportions, especially the top floor, while allowing more sunlight into the streets and public spaces. The cut also introduced this oblique form which led to exploring it further as a figure for the façade and fenestration.' 

The choice of materials was similarly informed by practical needs and qualities, such as durability. The architects ended up using terrazzo and corrugated aluminium on the outside, and blockwork and pink (fireproof) plasterboard (in some places unfinished and exposed, in others green and moisture resistant) inside. The work of American artist Richard Artschwager, who made sculptures using Formica, served as inspiration.

It was a welcome challenge for the architects at 6a: 'It is very rare for a developer to create a centre of creative production like Design District. It is a completely synthetic place, the product of an idea more than evolving over time. In one sense, Design District is quite foreign to London’s general tendency to evolve naturally with uses moving organically around the city over time. On the other hand, it is very like London to be experimentally audacious – to try something new against the current. It has been a great experience to be part of the Design District, working alongside many colleagues we hugely admire and for a client who showed great vision in an era where risk and experiment are all too rare. I hope the users are productive and happy there, now and in the future.'

And with only a few studios left available at A2 and B2, there's yet more coming up by the dynamic Design District team. A further two four-storey properties are being prepared, D4 designed by Barozzi Veiga and B1 by SelgasCano. These, set to similarly house workspace, will offer even more opportunities for creative businesses to make a home in this corner of south London. 

6a.co.uk 

The skyscraper at 550 Madison Avenue, Philip Johnson and John Burgee’s wonderfully weird postmodern gem dating to 1984 and once known as the Sony Tower, can now be experienced by all New Yorkers, thanks to the creation of a new public garden, designed by Snøhetta. The landmarked building has been renovated and transformed into an epic office tower by investment firm Olayan Group, featuring a redesigned lobby, overseen by Snøhetta and Gensler, and an incredible amenity floor designed by Rockwell Group. The architectural garden itself, which occupies a previously enclosed mid-block passageway, adds half an acre’s worth of new green space that's been propagated with local trees, bulbs, plants and shrubs to provide a respite for tenants and the surrounding community alike.

The 550 Madison garden

Covered by a dramatic glass canopy that also captures rainwater to irrigate the garden naturally, the new public park also boasts a water feature, heated benches and plenty of seating for passers-by to take a breather. It is beautifully framed by a soaring new 65ft arched window in the building’s lobby, where a dramatic mix of terrazzo flooring and marble panels is made all the more awesome by the fact that they surround a monumental, site-specific artwork by Alicja Kwade (whose Au cours des mondes, 2022, took over Place Vendôme in Paris this autumn during  Paris+ par Art Basel). Kwade’s work, titled Solid Sky, is a 24-ton sphere of blue Azul do Macaubas quartzite, suspended by stainless steel chains from the vaulted, triple-height ceiling. It’s a glorious reference to the building’s iconic Chippendale curved roof pediment – a circular cut-out that frames the sky, which inadvertently inspired Kwade’s choice to use a blue stone for the piece. 

The 550 Madison amenities

The homage to the building’s former life continues on the newly constructed amenity levels, where almost 30,000 sq ft of real estate has been dedicated to redefining what being at work can and should mean. Rockwell Group has designed the building’s club level, just one level above the building lobby, with multiple social gathering spaces. 

In the Grand Hall – which is flanked by Philip Johnson’s original rose-window oculus and a pair of Dorothea Rockburne murals – an oversized, constellation-like chandelier, a communal interlocking table and custom-designed sofas, side tables and lounge chairs create a space that easily transitions from day to night. In the café, scalloped mesh walls and a European walnut canopy create warmth and intimacy perfect for dining. 

There is a large variety of more private meeting spaces, from four smaller meeting rooms, including one with a pool table, to a library, a hearth room, and a screening room, which can be cordoned off according to the size of the group. Equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and digital canvases, which project specially commissioned artwork from Lab at Rockwell Group, these are a far cry from your typical conference rooms. 

550madison.com 

snohetta.com 

UK House is a Grade II-listed building on London's Oxford Street, built in 1906 and reworked in the 1970s to blend baroque-inspired forms with Edwardian elements and 20th-century architecture in a handsome whole. The mixed-use scheme houses mostly offices, and now, thanks to Swiss-based architecture practice Christ & Gantenbein, it has some new lobby architecture to show off too – alongside a refreshed basement level decked in chic monochrome and minimalist architecture with a playful, highly individual twist.

UK House by Christ & Gantenbein

The historic building effortlessly mixes contemporary design with heritage features, and the team at Christ & Gantenbein drew on this to create their spaces. While large windows clad in bronzed metal feel at home with existing the surrounding retail façades on Oxford Street, once visitors step inside, they are welcomed by a dramatic, theatrical experience uniting art, architecture and an extreme attention to detail that is a signature of the Basel based practice's work. 

The lobby features black and white decor, matched by mirror-clad columns and an artwork by Wolfgang Tillmans on the right wall. Polished chrome details, white and black stone and a checkered marble flooring compose an interior that exudes elegance and luxury – infused with a quiet sense of drama. The ground floor lobby architecture includes a front desk, a separate space for meetings, and an adjacent coffee point. 

Guided through stairs and elevators, guests can climb down to the lower ground level, where epoxy floors with a black and white pattern mark out the cycle route and lead to the bike storage. There are changing rooms alongside showers and lockers, for cyclists and exercise fans. 

An array of bespoke furniture, conceived by Christ & Gantenbein specifically for this commission, can be found throughout, next to contemporary design classics. The Christ & Gantenbein pieces include the lobby desk, its bench, and various multi-functional geometric objects that can act as stools, low tables or perching points, as needed. These, vividly coloured and gently tongue-in-cheek, add a touch of brightness and fun to the overall architectural approach, making for a functional, yet cheerful and welcoming interior that instantly draws you in. 

christgantenbein.com 

Pearson Lloyd’s 25 years of design have seen the London-based studio collaborate on projects with partners from Knoll to the NHS, finding solutions to everyday problems in design. Its ‘bFriends’ collection of home and office accessories for workplace design specialist Bene and 3D-printed using recycled bioplastics, earned a Red Dot Design Award 2022. Now, Pearson Lloyd and Bene have teamed up to introduce 12 new additions to the nifty and colourful accessories collection. 

‘bFriends’ 3D-printed desk accessories

Each item in the ‘bFriends’ series is 3D-printed by London-based Batch.Works, and is made entirely from PLA (polylactic acid), a non-oil-based bioplastic. The material, which is derived from cornstarch, uses 65 per cent less energy in its production and generates 68 per cent fewer greenhouse gases than conventional plastics. The bioplastic can be recycled for reuse, and Batch.Works’ 3D-printing facilities are wind-powered, adding further credentials to the sustainability-focused production model. 

Each new item in the collection comes in an array of upbeat colours and the designs span plant pots, coin collectors, trays and desk organisers. Small clips serve to hold together slender vases in a group display, while pen pots are designed to allow office accessories to be clipped and slotted into them. A menagerie of whimsical, animal-inspired desk adornments including giraffes, crocodiles and elephants, adds fun to the collection.

The 'bFriends’ home and desk accessories series demonstrates the experimentation facilitated by fast-moving 3D-printing production lines. With the printers accessible in offices, prototype stages are much more malleable, and in this case, have helped enable the sense of playfulness evident in Pearson Lloyd’s designs. 

pearsonlloyd.com
batch.works
bene.com

Quay Quarter Tower cuts a fine figure near the Sydney waterfront, all twisted forms and contemporary high-rise dynamics; but this tall building stands out for more reasons than one. Its sculptural physique is certainly eye-catching, but this is also an impressive feat of sustainable reuse, hailing a new era for its genre in Australia and beyond. Its accolades now include a prestigious International Highrise Award 2022, which has just been announced today. Sustainable architecture, urban innovation, striking aesthetics; there's a lot to be said for this new-era high-rise.

Quay Quarter Tower’s sustainable reuse

Its architects, 3xn (in partnership with BVN) celebrate the project as ‘the world’s first adaptive reuse skyscraper’. Gone are the days when height and volumetric gymnastics alone could impress the global architecture scene. Now, every building needs to work hard to make the most of its challenges and opportunities in order to have a positive – or, at least, neutral – impact, environmentally speaking. Quay Quarter Tower was designed to do that, not least through its very basis as a redesign of an existing tall structure – as the client, AMP, opted for a clever reimagining, instead of demolishing, its 40-year-old bones. 

Spanning 206m and 50 storeys high, Quay Quarter Tower – previously known as AMP Centre – was in need of a refresh. In 2014, its owners decided to act, appointing 3XN through an international competition – the Danish studio is well known for its progressive approach to environmentally friendly design and jumped at the opportunity for a proposal, winning the bid (and developed in partnership with BVN). 

‘They could have knocked it down, but they didn't. It was also a clever financial decision as if they’d done that, due to local planning regulations, they couldn't have built as high as this,’ 3XN founder Kim Herforth Nielsen explains. 

The site is a stone's throw from the Sydney Opera House, another Danish design in the Australian metropolis, so the architects knew they had to make this a truly spectacular one in order to follow in Jørn Utzon’s footsteps. 

Now, Quay Quarter Tower is composed of five stacked and shifted volumes; the lower floors face Young Street and Sydney Harbour Bridge. The building's volumes then fan out eastwards towards panoramic views of the Royal Botanic Gardens, the Sydney Opera House and the wider harbour. This twisted shape was especially conceived for the design to be as site-specific as possible, adding dynamism to the arrangement – the form achieved not as a goal in itself, but rather resulting from the careful orchestration of vistas and light orientation.

Meanwhile, internally, the spaces are built around large-scale atria on various levels, which create hubs of activity and underline the sense of community in the building – opening up view lines and communication between floors and functions. 'We wanted to create a campus, and work with the idea of an atrium to get as much daylight and [as many] views as possible inside,' Herforth Nielsen says. ‘We wanted to create a strong sense of where you are, whenever you stepped out of a lift.' 

3XN partner Fred Holt adds: 'It was designed from the inside out, it’s all around the user experience, it has a sculptural shape but it’s not really about the shape.' Quay Quarter Tower represents a 'vertical village' the team explain, as they hoped to strike the right balance between 'intimacy and connectivity'.

This project also has a huge economic benefit to it, the team say. 'It’s a great sustainability story; we are pushing transformation of existing assets and by doing so, we saved about nine months of work in the process, so as an asset owner you can fill up the building quicker,' says Holt. 

And this is despite the design adding approximately 45,000 sq m of new tower floor area, primarily on the north side of the building (the architects achieved this by grafting on new floorplates to the existing slabs). 

The smart façade helps with climate control inside the building; its cladding, a series of external sunshade hoods, reduces heat loads, making internal blinds redundant, and cutting overall energy needs. 

The tower’s social aspect – the 'vertical village' concept – meets environmental elements such as this, which combined with the upcycling of a large-scale, existing building add to the project's sustainability credentials. At the same time, with an open ground level, Quay Quarter Tower also feels powerfully connected to its neighbourhood, helping to transform the whole urban locale. 

Quay Quarter Tower's International Highrise Award 2022 win highlights its success in creating a coherent design that does many things with one fell swoop. 'Sydney has high-rises with a lot more textures – look at Harry Seidler's work for example – and we wanted to do something in that world, we wanted to solve issues through the form,' Herforth Nielsen concludes. ‘It was a lot about how [a] building lands in the city and we wanted to make sure we connect it and animate it as much as possible. And its initial renders look just like the end result – even better!'

3xn.com

quayquartersydney.com.au

bvn.com.au

Orgatec 2022 trade fair, the recent, October edition of the biannual Cologne event, brought together the world’s purveyors of newly released office furniture. Among the exhibitors, Italian furniture company Citterio proposed a new office dynamic, led by micro-architectures – its ‘CSS Village’ modular office system of self-supporting structures.

Focusing on ergonomics, acoustics and flexibility, Citterio – one arm of the Molteni Group – has designed its new office design solution based conceptually around the structure of a village. An open communal area acts as a central hub: ‘Visitors are encouraged to stop here, look around, find out more or work,’ explains creative director Marco Maturo. Pergolas dot the surrounding space, and between them, panels of glass and fabric form meeting rooms, small focused spaces and larger training areas. The connecting pergolas encourage a diverse range of settings in previously bare spaces – whether open shelving or seating areas or nooks for desks – and are prepared for the inevitably evolving office cultures of the coming years.

In contributing to a changing landscape, the team has ensured materials have been appropriately considered from a sustainability standpoint. Fabric panels and fittings have been made with a 100 per cent post-consumption recycled polyester material, derived in part from reclaimed marine plastics. The components are designed to separate at the end of the product’s useful life, with the repurposing of the materials being one of the design's guiding principles.

Along with the presence of light, and an open feel to the prospective office layouts, organic tones are integrated through the use of oak, sycamore and Canaletto walnut, as well as aluminium frames in a variety of tones.

citteriospa.com

A tired, 40-year-old commercial building in the city's northern suburbs has been reborn as a fun, contemporary Athens workspace by London- and Athens-based architecture studio Neiheiser Argyros. Named Art1 Office, the project, for design-led developer Hellenic Properties, offers a fresh take to office architecture by blending sharp geometric shapes, bright colours and quality materials that balance elegance and a playful, vibrant atmosphere. 

Led by the studio founders Xristina Argyros and Ryan Neiheiser, the architecture team worked with the building's existing bones, revealing existing surfaces while adding bold elements that transformed both the exterior and interior of the original structure. ‘What used to be a confusing muddle of geometric clashes is now untangled and rearticulated as if the building is composed of twelve separate buildings, each with its own cladding logic and interior atmosphere,' the team explains. 

Subtle colour variations of white, grey, black, and gold highlight the building's exterior and celebrate its modern shapes and discrete volumes. In a similar vein, inside, strategic splashes of colour throughout mix gracefully with the existing black marble flooring that has been restored, and the exposed concrete formwork ceiling structure. The juxtaposition of rawness and polish of these elements creates a well-balanced whole that draws the visitor in and showcases dynamism and a thoroughly contemporary attitude. 

Neiheiser Argyros' redesign was not just about aesthetics. ‘The building incorporates a range of sustainability strategies – high-performance insulation and windows, the use of local natural materials, low-energy MEP systems, charging stations and bike parking, and integrated photovoltaic panels – and achieves the local A+ highest energy efficiency grade,' the architects said. Meanwhile, a green roof and a circular pergola crowning the top of the building invite users to connect with the green outdoors and the cityscape beyond this modern Athens workspace.

neiheiserargyros.com

From 25 – 29 October, we turn to the biannual Orgatec trade fair for the latest prime picks of office furniture and workspace design. This time around, sustainability heads the thematic list, along with flexibility, and – acknowledging home and hybrid working – a cosy, at-home feeling that is gracefully fulfilled by Cassina with its Cassina Pro collection, on display at Orgatec for the first time. 

Five projects new to Cassina Pro comprise seating and desks, by Mario Bellini, Charlotte Perriand, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec and Le Corbusier. Each piece, though designed from a different starting point, fulfils the same end goal – to enhance the office experience visually and in tactility. Designers such as Linde Freya Tangelder and Mikal Harrsen also join the team for Orgatec, accentuating Cassina’s design collaborations.

In ‘Cab Office’, an evolution of the ‘Cab’ chair, originally designed in 1977 by Mario Bellini, the brand has revamped the simple structure into a swivel chair. The chair comes in five subtle colours and three designs with varying backrest heights and seat depths, covering maximum comfort and minimal forms in one go; each version sits on a five-spoke, cast-aluminium base in either a brushed polish or black finish. 

For the communal and hospitality working zones, Cassina offers up Charlotte Perriand’s ‘Banquette Mauritanie’ bench, a combination of latticed carpentry and plush upholstery, with modular elements such as changeable backrests and integrated USB sockets.

Also among the brand’s repertoire of benches, the ‘Cotone Slim’ bench by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec combines simplicity and versatility, and Le Corbusier's ‘LC16 Bureau’, originally created in 1957 as a children’s desk, has been pulled from the archives and reproduced in an adult-sized iteration.

orgatec.com

This Toronto office has been designed with a post-covid workspace in mind. Created for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) by international architecture firm HOK, it is the fast-growing global consulting firm's Canadian headquarters. The 400-person-strong team now has a fresh interior for their day-to-day operations – one that not only conveys the firm's dynamism and ethos, but also cleverly leans into the needs and wants of a workforce that just came out of a pandemic, enhancing health and wellness, productivity and innovation. 

‘BCG helped us learn and grow and push our boundaries in terms of transformational workplace design,' says Caitlin Turner, director of interiors for HOK in Canada.

‘This was an opportunity to demonstrate that the office wasn’t dead,' the HOK team continued. To that end, the architects worked to compose an interior that satisfies work needs but also includes an array of amenities that help support employees throughout their working day.

Collaboration and inclusivity were key to create a truly agile workspace. Flexibly designed, the spaces include open offices, case team rooms, convertible private offices, soundproof phone booths, a quiet library, a large café and individual nooks to work in next to the library. 

Wellness was also high up on the architects' agenda. Embracing the position that ‘sitting is the new smoking', rooms have been designed to encourage movement. In this context, chance encounters and cross-pollination across departments were also promoted.

And while work settings are multiple and diverse, everywhere is bathed in natural light and supported by specially designed or selected, state-of-the-art office furniture. As a result of the team's efforts on the wellness front, the project has earned a WELL Health-Safety Rating. It is also on track to attain LEED Platinum Core & Shell certification and WELL Platinum Certification.

Equity in the workspace was another core concern, so as a result all rooms are bookable and everyone has the exact same workplace environment and options – and this caters for BCG’s neurodiverse population too, as interiors have been designed with a range of design strategies to ensure comfort for all.

Even the company's alumni are part of the picture. ‘Purpose-built spaces are set aside for BCG alumni who find themselves visiting Toronto or who are in the neighborhood and want to drop in and work,' the architects explain. ‘When people join BCG, they become part the BCG family – even after they leave.'

hok.com

Black Kite, an independent visual effects and design studio in east London, just got a new office – an uplifting space defined by colour and shape, designed by architecture studio Bureau de Change. Practice founders Katerina Dionysopoulou and Billy Mavropoulos carefully curated the space around a series of cleverly intersecting and carved-out cylinders, resulting in a London office that bridges heritage, playfulness and contemporary design. 

The concept for this colourful office is far beyond an architectural flight of fancy. Composed to support workspace functionality, the cylindrical volumes help create varying degrees of privacy, carving out anything from quiet reading nooks, to gathering spaces, desk booths and discreetly tucked-away meeting areas. 

At the same time, the architects made sure their design works in harmony with the site's industrial, East End heritage. The round shapes that have been gently placed within the floorplan abstractly resemble iron kilns. A retained grid system of slim, internal exposed concrete columns reinforced that approach, as does the relatively restricted material palette. Meanwhile, carefully planned contemporary furniture is playfully juxtaposed with the industrial atmosphere's roughness, resulting in a pared-down, yet warm whole. 

‘We are proposing a scheme that extracts and interpolates volumes and motifs of traditional Victorian foundries and kilns to create a gradient of introverted to extroverted spaces, seamlessly integrated together through a bespoke layout and design language,' says Dionysopoulou. 

Listening to its client's needs, Bureau de Change generated a relatively open-plan interior with dedicated enclosed sections to respond to Black Kite's requirements for production and visual effects suites that should be isolated from external sources of light and sound. The site's tall ceilings and generous overall proportions help to allow these structures to breathe. 

Textures and finishes were equally important in the overall composition. ‘Each of the volumes is clad in painted routed timber surfaces, informed by the vertical seams of traditional iron kilns. The cut-outs are finished in a rough clay plaster, juxtaposing the sharper articulation of the cylinders with warm cave-like textures, further adding to the journey of materials, textures and colours in the space,' Mavropoulos adds. 

INFORMATION

b-de-c.com

A green, airy haven in the the heart of downtown Montreal, Sid Lee's new international HQ is a sight to behold. Occupying three quadrants of a building, former the section housing the Royal Bank of Canada, the structure that houses the new office architecture forms part of ongoing regeneration plans to revitalise the iconic Place Ville Marie and its esplanade. The result, an elegant redesign that both uplifts and amazes, is an open, bright workspace interior, and ‘an affirmation of the agency’s commitment to creating new links with the urban epicentre.'

Named the Biosquare, the office provides a new take on one of the city's most iconic buildings, and contains a microcosm of sleek, linear elements, minimalist architecture and wellness principles in the continual presence of greenery and nature. The entrance connects to a public plaza, featuring monoliths made of bush-hammered stone that form the café, kitchen and bathrooms. From there rise floors of desks, meeting rooms and gathering areas for staff, all coming together around a grid structure system that helps unite different spaces seamlessly. 

‘We envisioned the space as an extension of the city and its energy,‘ said Jean Pelland, architect and principal partner at Sid Lee Architecture. ‘By anchoring the architectural elements in human interaction, the campus becomes a platform that is active at all times of day, a place where artisans can gather, collaborate and create.' 

Blending minimalism and biophilic design, the office interior features strategically placed new natural light sources; open-air circulation in the shape of bridges and balconies that encourage visual connections and a sense of place; and planting throughout. At the same time, there's spatial drama aplenty, befitting the grandeur of the former bank building. The architecture asserts itself without being too imposing and through the use of block colours and repetition – whether at the all-white workspaces, or the dark and moodier meeting areas and communal facilities. 

‘With the Biosquare, Sid Lee is bringing its entrepreneurial spirit to downtown Montreal and creating an accessible collaborative hub for the city’s creative and business communities, with the aim of helping novel ideas emerge,' said Sid Lee co-founder Philippe Meunier. 

INFORMATION

sidleearchitecture.com