While companies are still debating back-to-work plans for their employees, it’s clear that what quite a few workers are returning to breaks from the past in terms of design.
Recent examples—two completed, one in the design stage—illustrate this point: The new headquarters for Traffik, a global marketing company in Irvine, Calif.; the Manhattan office of Ducera Partners, an investment banking advisory practice; and BrainFactory Bochum, an office building scheduled to open in northern Germany in January 2023.
Traffik’s two-story, 22,000-sf digs, designed by LPA Design Studios, combines elements of retail, hospitality, and office. Located in what was originally intended for a steakhouse within an outdoor shopping center, Traffik’s workspace nestles near Apple and H&M stores. Street views of the firm’s glass-enclosed podcast studio and main conference room highlight the retail component. The headquarters’ entry and reception area are meant to feel like an urban hotel, with a check-in concierge, lounge waiting area, and luggage carts.
“Our goal was to create an interactive design that informs the way the user thinks, socializes, works and collaborates,” Rick D’Amato, workplace design director at LPA, explained in a prepared statement. “We leveraged our extensive tenant improvement expertise to create an immersive experience for Traffik’s employees that reflects the firm’s buzz-worthy culture.”
The design also harkens back to an old-school ad agency with its emphasis on metal framing, brick, wood floors, and leather seating. There is a constant connection with socialization and collaboration with the inclusions of a stadium stair, library, barbershop with vintage chairs, and cocktail lounge.
Indeed, Traffik’s actual workstations are designed as “libraries” between event spaces, with long tables for group meetings and specialty spaces for smaller gatherings. Each conference room has a unique theme and purpose, offering various meeting modalities that inspire creativity and alternative thought.
LPA was also the engineer on this project, and Bogart Construction the GC. Traffik moved in September 2020.
IS IT AN OFFICE OR A MUSEUM?
A different, more understated design approach is found at Ducera Partners’ headquarters, which was completed last November. Ducera was a growing firm when it leased 29,089 sf on the 36th floor of 11 Times Square in New York City. It retained the interior design services of Ted Moudis Associates to create a modern and mirrored interior that maximizes client and staff comfort, showcases Ducera’s art collection, and provides 360-degree views of the surrounding cityscape.
The space’s jade-tinted ceiling pattern refers to the interlocking geometry of Ducera’s logo. The office’s 85, 120-degree workstations encourage employee collaboration, and a client-facing lounge offers an intimate meeting area.
Conference rooms feature muted color tones on the walls and furniture, and their tinted glass walls expose the city outside. Warm wood and stone colors grace an elegant lobby that is complemented by a dramatic lighting scheme and an oversized decorative front door. A simply designed reception desk can be converted into a bar for social events. Beyond tinted glass doors, a private lounge with a circular seating area, upholstered walls, and an additional bar provide an intimate venue for informal client meetings.
The building’s landlord, SJP Properties, was the general contractor on this project. Robert Derector Associates was its engineering consultant. As of late September, Ducera’s back-to-office plans were uncertain.
EMOTIONAL RESPITE
New York-based HWKN Architecture has been marketing a concept and branding for office design it calls Spirit, which embodies the firm’s design principles: respect for nature, a happy and healthy work environment, intelligent design, and community concern.
“We have to lure people back to the office, said HWKN’s Principal and Founder Matthias Hollwich, in a prepared statement. “With Spirit, we achieve that by turning the building into a destination, adding lifestyle amenities, greater flexibility, and openness to what was once just a commodity. By adding emotion, we turn the commonplace into the unforgettable.”
BrainFactory Bochum, a 186,100-sf office building that will house about 600 employees, is deploying the Spirit concept. Working with its development partner Landmarkem, HWKN’s approach starts with the exterior, where sections of “the prefabricated box” have been removed and replaced with a distorted-column grid. (Goldbeck, a prefab specialist, will be the project's general contractor.)
“We have reinvented the box while still taking advantage of mass production,” said Hollwich. “The early Modernists of the 20th Century sought to make elegant, mass-produced housing. A hundred years later we are doing the same for the office with an emotional twist.”
The interior design opens the floor plans to allow for more natural light to enter seating lounges and coworking areas. The exterior brass finish extends throughout the building, creating an aesthetic link. The building will also be distinguished by what HWKN calls “lifestyle amenities” such as terraces, a gym, and a café.
When BrainFactory Bochum opens, its Spirit offices “will help our clients attract top talent by creating an energized workplace and culture that beat the home office,” predicted Jochem Hermanns, Landmarken’s Managing Director. Construction is scheduled to begin on this project next Spring.
Related Stories
| Nov 6, 2012
Goettsch Partners designs new tower in Shunde, China
200-meter-tall building will be located between Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
| Nov 1, 2012
Greenbuild 2012 Report: Green Architecture Firms
Design firms deliver gold, platinum, even net-zero projects
| Oct 17, 2012
Denver office building makes use of single-component wall system for retrofit
The Building Team selected Centria's Formawall Dimension Series to help achieve the retrofit project's goals of improved aesthetics, sustainability, and energy efficiency.
| Oct 10, 2012
Foster + Partners to Design New 425 Park Avenue Tower
Conceptual designs submitted by Foster, Hadid, Koolhaas and Rogers to be on exhibit during Municipal Art Society’s Annual Symposium
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: DPR Construction, Phoenix Regional Office, Phoenix, Ariz.
Working with A/E firm SmithGroupJJR, DPR converted a vacant 16,533-sf one-time “adult-themed boutique” in the city’s reemerging Discovery Triangle into a LEED-NC Platinum office, one that is on target to be the first net-zero commercial office building in Arizona.
| Oct 5, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Award Bronze Winner: Walsh Group Training and Conference Center, Chicago, Ill.
With its Building Team partners—architect Solomon Cordwell Buenz, structural engineer CS Associates, and M/E engineer McGuire Engineers—Walsh Construction, acting as its own contractor, turned the former automobile showroom and paperboard package facility into a 93,000-sf showcase of sustainable design and construction.
| Oct 4, 2012
2012 Reconstruction Awards Gold Winner: Rice Fergus Miller Office & Studio, Bremerton, Wash.
Rice Fergus Miller bought a vacant and derelict Sears Auto and converted the 30,000 gsf space into the most energy-efficient commercial building in the Pacific Northwest on a construction budget of around $100/sf.
| Sep 24, 2012
Reed Construction completes Lafarge headquarters in Chicago
Reed Construction was contracted to complete the full third floor build-out which included the construction of new open area work space, private offices, four conference rooms with videoconferencing capabilities and an executive conference boardroom.
| Sep 13, 2012
Margulies Perruzzi Architects completes office design for Pioneer Investments
MPA updated the office design and additional support space consisting of five floors at Pioneer’s Boston office located at 60 State Street.
| Sep 11, 2012
New York City releases first energy benchmarking data for private buildings
City is first in U.S. to disclose private-sector building energy data from a mandatory benchmarking policy.