From Reebok’s office running track to Mother’s giant kitchen table, Jeremy Myerson chooses twelve world-class office spaces where design thinking is helping companies from a range of sectors work more creatively
Project: Merck Serono HQ, Geneva, Switzerland
Client: Merck Serono
Designer: Mackay & Partners
Year completed: 2007
This new headquarters for a global pharmaceutical company incorporates three existing buildings and three new ones on a freshly minted 70,000 sq metre corporate campus designed by Chicago-based architects Murphy Jahn. But what really stands out is the interior design by London practice Mackay & Partners, which creates a cohesive ‘knowledge village’ from seemingly disparate parts on a former industrial site. Clever use of colour, material finish and artworks animates a scheme that could otherwise have appeared monolithic and unwelcoming. A grid-like street plan leads the 1,200 staff to a central social area that is the moden equivalent of the village green, but the real stand-out space is a sixth floor executive suite where the company’s most expensively paid knowledge workers can make their decisions in smooth luxury.
Client: BMW
Designer: Zaha Hadid Architects
Year completed: 2005
This office scheme for 750 staff at BMW's Leipzig car-making plant not only acts as the central core that ties together three main production segments (assembly, body shop and paint shop). It is the nerve centre for the entire complex, the administration hub where all the production processes converge. Its complex geometries create a large open office like no other, comprising a stacked landscape of concrete terraces through which runs the car production line, bathed in ethereal blue light, a constant reminder about what working at BMW is all about.
Project: Genzyme Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Client: Genzyme Corporation
Designer: Behnisch Architects, Inc
Year completed: 2004
Biotech company Genzyme has sited its new 12-story headquarters right next door to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its innovation culture is expressed through a grand, light-filled atrium that connects all the floors and the hanging internal gardens attached to several of them. The atrium is the defining feature of the project. Within its shaft is a large hanging sculpture, a mobile made of many small reflective panels that creates a kaleidoscope of light and colour, and is symbolic of a cascading of knowledge through the building.
Project: Regional headquarters, Birmingham, UK
Client: PricewaterhouseCoopers
Designer: BDGworkfutures
Year completed: 2004
Many accountancy firms have a grey image. But you couldn't accuse this firm of blending into the background with its dramatic new office in Britain's second city. A 'liquorice allsorts' design concept, detailing the ground floor awnings, concierge desk and lockers, creates a clever and striking visual cohesion between the floors of the building. The drama begins on arrival with a vibrant reception that leads into the social hub of the building at the base of the atrium. The office areas provide a range of work settings, with well-proportioned bench desks complete with domestic style task lights provided for a nomadic workforce.
Project: Pixar Animation Studios, Emeryville, California, USA
Client: Pixar
Designer: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson
Year completed: 2004
Pixar's box-office appeal relies on maintaining a culture and environment in which some of the world's best writers, artists, animators and computer engineers can come together to collaborate effectively on new feature-length animations. Its headquarters is a vast industrial facility which is also crafted to be human in scale. A large central atrium measuring 60 feet across acts as the 'town centre' of the scheme. Incorporating a 25-seat theatre, a café, conference rooms and lounges, this interior piazza is spanned by 15 triangular trusses and two pedestrian bridges suspended by cables from the roof trusses.
Project: Corporate headquarters, Epsom Downs, UK
Client: Toyota
Designer: Sheppard Robson
Year: 2001
The UK headquarters of Japanese car maker Toyota makes explicit visual reference to the automotive industry in its curved forms, crisp metallic finishes and spacious interior vistas. New Toyota models are even parked in an airy, light-filled internal street that forms an essential part of the plan. The £25million project gives Toyota's 500 employees more freedom to move around within the building and a greater variety of places to work. The overriding impression is of the company's brand ethos being suffused through a series of cool, grey, technically precise spaces linked by galleries, balconies and staircases and finished in glass and steel.
Project: World headquarters, Canton, Massachusetts, USA
Client: Reebok International
Designer: NBBJ
Year: 2000
Designed to bring 1000 staff together in one world-beating office environment that would exude the energy of the brand and inspire Reebok's people to improve their game, this $70million scheme weaves sports and fitness facilities into the central office functions. The new building rises four storeys high to present a new sports arena-style façade. The space plan is based around a central spine, from which there are views onto an indoor basketball court and a running track that enters the building through a glass tunnel from outside. 'It's changed the way people wake up in the morning and think of the business. It's a catalyst for change,' says Reebok CEO Paul Fireman. 'You're living the experience.'
Project: Headquarters building
Client: Pfizer
Designer: Sheppard Robson
Year: completed 2004
Pfizer's move to an award-winning new headquarters in Walton Oaks, Surrey, is widely regarded as a model of good relocation practice, achieving a green campus in which high-quality design is tailored to management objectives. The modern facility for 900 staff lies low in the landscape, with five office 'fingers' radiating off a curved central spine. The new HQ was designed to enhance cross-functional team working, aid recruitment and improve communication. It is also environmentally conscious: staff receive cash incentives to leave their cars at home.
Project: London headquarters
Client: EMI
Designer: MoreySmith
Year: completed 2003
The new London HQ for 300 EMI staff creates a distinctive, contemporary work environment on five floors of a refurbished Kensington office building. Visitors now enter a dramatic double-height reception space. Inside, a glass roof spans the open atrium to form a bright central, covered space, changing a 1970s open garden into a staff café and social hub. Within the 97,000 sq ft scheme, open-plan workspaces promote a sense of community while each floor has a different identity with contrasting materials and palettes for an individual feel.
Project: Abbey Wood campus for Procurement Executive, Bristol UK
Client: Ministry of Defence
Designer: Percy Thomas Partnership
Year: 1996
Built at a cost of £254million, the aim of this project was to bring procurement staff who had once solely served the Army, Navy or Airforce together within a single organisation on a single site. It marked the largest relocation exercise ever undertaken by a British Government department, uniting 4,400 staff from 15 different offices in London, Bath, Portland and Portsmouth on a single 98-acre campus. The design of the site's network of buildings and interior spaces is based on the idea of connecting 'neighbourhoods' within a green organic village. It includes piazzas, cafes, atria, internal glazed streets, village squares, water features, a fitness centre, a nursery, an international conference centre, and a circular drum library within the overall plan.
Project: Advertising agency offices
Client: Mother
Designer: Clive Wilkinson Architects
Year: 2004
Advertising agency Mother's 42,000 sq ft headquarters in the Tea Building in Shoreditch, a burgeoning arts community on the fringes of the City of London, boasts probably the largest office work table in the world. The Mother ethos has always been to work communally at one giant table. Now the company has grown, the new table - made of concrete and resembling a racetrack in the way it weaves through the space - is able to seat 200 people. Naturally, this feat of construction dominates a creative office scheme with a difference.
Project: IOD at 123, London, UK
Client: Institute of Directors
Designer: Hemingway Design
Year: 2001
The Pall Mall building of the Institute of Directors in London has been converted into a business club with state-of-the-art communication and meeting facilities to attract and serve the needs of young members. It is a relaxed annexe to the more formal main IOD headquarters next door. The interior sends a strong message about the role and future of the organisation - and some 90 laptop points add a practical note, encouraging more mobile and drop-in working.