Creativity Abounds In This Three-Story HQ For Neiman Marcus

2024 Best of Year Winner for Large Creative Office

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus’s 80,000-square-foot, three-story headquarters in Dallas by Gensler was strategically conceived as a remote-hybrid model allowing employees to work wherever they want—when they want. Autonomy and choice rule. Staffers can sit at workstations, in collaboration rooms, or in lounges designed to reflect a particular flagship store: Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, or New York. Anchoring the HQ is a triple-height atrium, replete with 300 suspended butterflies (a nod to the brand identity) and mobile furniture that can be rearranged or removed for conversion into a grand events space. Tech innovations abound: Telecom, video, and virtual whiteboards enable a 70/30 ratio of collaboration-oriented areas to individual workspaces and support staffers as they connect remotely with colleagues across corporate locations, distri­bution centers, and retail sites.

PROJECT TEAM: PAUL MANNO; KELLY MOORE; NICHOLE BABIAK; AMANDA KENDALL; LOREN BROUILLETTE; KEVIN TURNER; KELCIE HOLCOMB; MARIA RAMIREZ; KHOI HOANG; MELISSA WALLIS; ELLIOTT BEACH; JENI MARTIN-SANTOYO; HANNAH MONROE.

Innovation Thrives in This Postpandemic Workplace

Clive Wilkinson towers at the pinnacle of workplace stars. Landmark offices for the likes of TBWA\Chiat\Day, Macquarie Group, and Microsoft cap the Interior Design Hall of Famer’s voluminous portfolio. A master of the genre, he also counts residential and institutional among his other specialties. But hospitality? Not so much. That may change with a recent project that brings a hospitality influence to bear on the workplace: interiors for Intuit’s new headquarters. 

Located on the financial-software company’s Mountain View, California, campus, the project was many years in the making. It began in 2011, when Clive Wilkinson Architects and WRNS Studio were commissioned to collaborate on a pair of new-builds located on a high-profile corner of the property, visible from the adjacent freeway. The first building was completed in 2016. The second, a glassy four-story, 178,600-square-foot structure with a conjoined single-level cafeteria/town-hall pavilion, was slated to break ground in 2020. “We designed it to be low and loftlike, light and airy,” WRNS partner Brian Milman, who oversaw site planning for the 44-acre campus, says of the LEED Platinum–certified building. “It was conceived as a habitat tied to the ground.” 

Designing a LEED Platinum-Certified Building for Intuit

Midway through permitting the project, COVID happened. Although construction commenced and progressed without pause, the client, forecasting a need for return-to-office enticements, pushed the design team to deep-dive into potential postpandemic scenarios. “Intuit flagged us to pivot and rethink the workplace of the future,” Wilkinson summarizes. Despite uncertainty clouding RTO and how paradigms and policies would evolve, he and associate principal Caroline Morris reasoned that many precepts endemic to hospitality would grow increasingly relevant for the workplace—ideas like experiential spaces, a sense of discovery, zones for gathering and community, indeterminate areas open to whatever occupants want, and places, frankly, for people to be happy. They set about tweaking the initial plans to offer more communal environments and opted for daring choices in color and furnishings. “The big ask was to be bold and playful,” Morris recalls. 

That certainly describes the vibe upon entry. At the ground-level reception, staff and visitors encounter a 20-foot-long desk backgrounded by a powder-coated steel logo wall in Intuit’s signature cobalt. Beyond, a sunshiny-yellow lounge enclosure with a pitched roof, nicknamed the little house, beckons in service of meetings and confabs. Running alongside it, a flight of oak-clad stairs, edged with planters for biophilia, leads to the main conference center (the largest on campus) as well as the scheme’s major design move: a three-story, 40-foot-high atrium. The bright volume is lit from above by clerestories set within a series of angled precast-concrete beams, each 60 feet long and weighing 40 tons. Jutting into the atrium are pods—some angular, some rectilinear, some brightly colored. Long part of Wilkinson’s playbook, these cantilevered, glass-fronted aeries are in fact meeting rooms with a view. 

Prioritizing Flexibility in a Workplace Designed for Hybrid Teams

The sprawling plaza at the atrium’s base channels hospitality via comfy lounge seating in citrus hues by Alfredo Häberli, Ichiro Iwasaki, and Hella Jongerius. There’s also an oak communal table surrounded by an eclectic mix of David Geckeler and Jean Prouvé chairs and a barista station, of course. A perforated-steel statement stair—identical to one in the first building—winds up along the atrium’s south side, connecting the three floors. “Progression through the space is spiral and episodic in order to experience delightful moments,” Milman notes. Various amenities sprinkled throughout the large floor plates further encourage movement and mingling. 

Workspaces are what changed the most from prepandemic plans. Intuit’s hybrid two-days-in policy sparked a need for flexibility and options. Out went benching and dedicated desks; instead, the 1,000 employees are grouped into neighborhoods with unassigned workstations adjoined by stylish lounge areas for collaboration. Other features added during mid-pandemic replanning were two quiet zones per floor and a secondary conference hub, on floor three. The latter is fronted by a multiuse prefunction zone that’s certainly more hotel lobby than corporate holding pen. 

Recent parlance is big on equity and choice. “Introverts can opt for seating away from others,” Wilkinson notes, “and people can take a break with games or in designated reflection rooms.” Or they can escape to one of a trio of libraries, stacked on the top three floors, where a hushed atmosphere prevails. 

It all adds up to an evolution of the activity-based work Wilkinson’s firm has long espoused. “No one knew what the end result would be; it was an optimistic and ambitious endeavor on our client’s side,” he says—yet the new HQ is “the type of environment we’ve been promoting for years, offering multiple settings that give employees some say in how they work.” Morris chimes in: “Work is complex, but people are complex.” Confirmation that the teams got it right? Another pivot is pending to bring the interiors of the first building up to the newcomer’s standards. 

Walk Through the Intuit HQ in Mountain View, California

CLIVE WILKINSON ARCHITECTS: SASHA SHUMYATSKY; BEN KALENIK; PERKIN MAK; SARA NELSON; JUAN FEBRES-CORDERO; BEN HOWELL; JUAN GUARDADO. 

WRNS STUDIO: BRYAN SHILES; SAM NUNES; PAULINE SOUZA; MOSES VAUGHAN; RODNEY LEACH; BRIAN MULDER; ASHISH KULKARNI; ERIN BUTLER; GEORGE RUIZ; MEGHAN LUSCOMBE; ROSS FERRARI; DARYL TOY; SIVAN HECHT; NATHAN HYMAN. 

STUDIO FIVE DESIGN: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. 

CREATIVE PLANT DESIGN: INTERIOR LANDSCAPING. 

EGG OFFICE: CUSTOM GRAPHICS/BRANDING. 

REG: LIGHTING CONSULTANT. 

ARTLIFTING: ART CONSULTANT. 

HOLMES STRUCTURES: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. 

INTERFACE ENGINEERING: MEP. 

BKF: CIVIL ENGINEER. 

NORTHWESTERN DESIGN: MILLWORK. 

RUDOLPH AND SLETTEN: GENERAL CONTRACTOR. 

FROM FRONT CAESARSTONE: COUNTERTOPS (ATRIUM, RECEPTION). 

ANDREU WORLD: SECTIONALS (ATRIUM), ROUND SIDE TABLES (ATRIUM, RECEPTION), COMMUNAL TABLE (HUB). 

ARPER: OTTOMANS (ATRIUM). 

VITRA: LOUNGE CHAIRS, STANDARD CHAIRS (ATRIUM). 

MUUTO: STOOLS, NERD CHAIRS (ATRIUM), SECTIONAL, HIGH-BACK CHAIRS (LIBRARY), BLUE CHAIR (HUB). 

PENTALQUARTZ: DESK SOLID SURFACING (RECEPTION). 

VICCARBE: OTTOMANS (RECEPTION, LIBRARY). 

STYLEX: SECTIONALS (RECEPTION, OFFICE AREA). 

GEIGER: LOUNGE CHAIRS (LITTLE HOUSE). 

THE RUG COMPANY: RUG. 

NORMANN COPENHAGEN: COFFEE TABLES (LITTLE HOUSE, HUB). 

ASPLUND: COFFEE TABLE (LIBRARY). 

JB3D: MURAL FABRICATION (CAFETERIA). 

FORTH+BACK: GRAPHIC. 

CERTAINTEED: CEILING BAFFLES. 

FSORB: CEILING PANELS. 

WCI: TABLES. 

HOWE: CHAIRS. 

HAY: WOOD CHAIRS (HUB). 

MILLIKEN: CARPET. 

DAVIS: SOFA. 

THROUGHOUT ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES; NORTON INDUSTRIES: CEILING GRILLES. 

ARCHITECTURAL GLASS & ALUMINUM: CURTAIN WALL, ALUMINUM FINS. 

VIRACON: ARCHITECTURAL GLASS. 

WALTERS & WOLF: PRECAST-CONCRETE WALLS. 

CEMEX: CAST-IN-PLACE CONCRETE. 

SHINNOKI: PANELING. 

NORTHERN WIDE PLANK: WOOD FLOORING. 

MAHARAM: ACOUSTIC PANELS, RUGS. 

BENTLEY MILLS: CARPET TILE. 

DUNN-EDWARDS CORPORATION: PAINT. 

PLANTERS UNLIMITED: PLANTERS. 

JLL; KBM HOGUE: FURNITURE SUPPLIERS. 

This Residential Lobby in San Jose, California Offers a Study of Contrasts

2022 Best of Year Winner for Residential Lobby

To borrow from Dionne Warwick, Miro—a pair of mixed-use towers by architects Steinberg Hart—will help you find the way to San Jose: At 28 stories each, they’re the tallest structures in the city’s skyline. Along with 630 residential units, the development includes a plethora of amenities and two lobbies, one for each high-rise, by San Francisco-based Edmonds + Lee. The latter spaces, which span 5,300 square feet in all, are a study in contrasts—one is dark, the other light—though both use wood slats on walls and ceilings to create spatial definition and polished marble in reception areas to produce a sense of quietly substantial luxury. The sophisticated material choices are coupled with an equally urbane mastery of proportion and light, giving both lobbies an unmistakable aura of secure arrival—just the state of mind the lady was looking for in her song.

---

---

Edmonds + Lee Architects: vivian lee; shelley fu; christina yue

Gensler Captures the Spirit of the Midwest for the LinkedIn Office in Omaha, Nebraska

2022 Best of Year Winner for Large Tech Office

Nebraska is not necessarily known as a destination for cutting-edge design and culture. However, the new Omaha office of LinkedIn, the professional networking giant with nearly a billion users, tapped into the deep-seated tradition of innovation and dynamism that has historically defined the Midwestern metropolis. “From the beginning, there was an emphasis on making sure the decisions were an honest reflection of the city,” LinkedIn senior design manager Virginia Alexander recalls. Longtime partner Gensler was a natural choice for the project, as LinkedIn has worked with the firm on interiors and branding for more than a dozen of the company’s offices around the globe.

How Employee Research Informed the LinkedIn Office Design

Concepting for the hybrid work experience was both a technical and a cultural challenge, so Gensler and LinkedIn conducted research, surveys, and workshops with staffers to understand what made them tick, both professionally and personally. “We were challenged to consider how our designs and technology could make working more engaging and equi­table,” Alexander says. Out of the discovery process came a host of amenities including a dynamic tech-ready team space for hybrid collaboration called the Lab, two libraries for heads-down focus work, recreation rooms with a golf simulator and rotating arcade games, music rooms, terraces, and a cafeteria called the Almanac, with revolving food kiosks and LinkedIn’s first all-electric kitchen.

Health, wellness, and resilience emer­ged as key themes, so in addition to an on-site fitness center and an outdoor roof deck, as well as incorporating no- or low-VOC materials and finishes and only reclaimed or FSC–certified timber, the campus contains four respite rooms sprinkled throughout. Ranging in size and design, the tech-free spaces have ambient light to support a variety of ways to re-energize mind and body. “Everyone resets their brains differently,” Dubisar says. “Some need calming spaces, others something more tactile and hands-on. Rather than a generic ‘wellness room,’ we have different spaces so people can choose the one that fits them best.” They also should help the project achieve its pending Fitwel 2 Star certification, along with a fire stair surrounded by bold graphics and with motivational phrases integrated into treads to encourage staff to take them instead of the elevator.

---

---

Office Culture Meets Local Culture 

The final theme to emerge was expressing Omaha’s particularities of place. “We looked to the historical significance of craft in Omaha and the overall notion of going against the current,” Cavaliere says. Civic storytelling begins in the two-story atrium lobby with a stair backed by a double-height wall of whitewashed brick, a traditional building material in Nebraska. Sculptures by Japan-born Omaha artist Jun Kaneko animate the welcome experience on the ground level, as do Gensler’s integrated wall graphics and site-specific art installations that nod to Omaha’s agrarian roots and contemporary culture. Conference-room graphics referencing the Max, a longstanding Omaha LGBTQIA+ nightclub, quickly became a LinkedIn staff favorite. “It’s incredibly meaningful for people to feel represented not just in their city but also their workplace,” Cavaliere states.

Ultimately, this place-based narrative could be a stronger draw for employees to return to the office than more traditional amenities. “The purpose of the workplace today is to reinforce a sense of community and culture,” Dubisar says. “The office should make you better and support the whole self. At the same time, it’s a place for people to come together and strengthen relationships.” As Linked­In’s global real estate portfolio continues to grow, prioritizing personal expression and community connectivity in the workplace seems only fitting for a company that’s staking its claim as the world’s largest professional network.

Gensler: randy howder; laura richardson; chad wyman; marissa everling; ben vela; chad spurlin; samantha lewis; jeffrey ding; fang fang, eric mortensen (interiors); jennifer hamilton; tiffany ricardo; jarrod holt; marie achterhof, Miriam Diaz, victoria chau, Brian newman (branding); Gail napell, nova punongbayan (sustainability advisors)

tucci lighting: lighting consultant

acrylicize: signage

morrissey engineering: mep

urban evolutions through imperial woodworking company: millwork

lockwood construction: general contractor

glen-gery: brick (lobby)

carl hansen & søn: white chairs

muuto: gray chairs (lobby), sofa (coffee bar)

dum: stools (lobby, coffee bar)

grand rapids chair co.: stools (reception, cafeteria)

sancal: lounge chairs (coffee bar)

Mattiazzi: chairs

Lindner: ceiling mesh (elevator lobby)

barbican: ceiling fixtures (elevator lobby, cafeteria, neigh­borhood)

pinnacle lighting: pendant fixtures (confererence room)

allermuir: chairs

hollis + morris: pendant fixtures (cafeteria)

blu dot; de vorm; hightower: chairs

Lambert et Fils: pendant fixtures

corral: chairs (canteen)

stylex: sofas

menu: stools (workstation)

andlight: downlights

kvadrat: panel fabric

tretford: carpet

bernhardt design: sofas (neigh­borhood)

pair: custom communal table, custom shelving

most modest: lamp

Maharam: seating fabric

Moore & Giles: seating upholstery

rad furniture: custom tables

filzfelt: felt

one workplace; two furnish: furniture suppliers

er2: custom graphics installation

Benjamin Moore & Co.; Dunn-Edwards; Farrow & Ball; Sherwin-Williams Company: paint

OMA and Gruen Associates Design Audrey Irmas Pavilion, Los Angeles

2022 IIDA Winner for Public Space and Commercial Lobbies

Designed by architect Abram M. Edelman and built by Hollywood moguls in 1929, Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple is pure Cecil B. DeMille, a camera-ready, domed architectural extravaganza waiting for a cast of 1,000 congregants. But by the second decade of the new millennium, the synagogue was looking to present a more appealing and open public face for a more inclusive mission.

In 2015, the congregation held a competition for an ecumenical “gathering space” to be built on the temple’s parking lot. The brief was simple: rooms—small, medium, large. The architectural issue was how to design a building that neither cowered from nor competed with the synagogue next door.

Led by partner Shohei Shigematsu with associate Jake Forster, OMA won the competition. The architects basically created a five-story, 54,600-square-foot object-building that, from some angles, looks like a truncated pyramid warped in a distortional field.

The interior organization is straightforward to the point of being diagrammatic. Lobbies, conference rooms, reception spaces, and service facilities flank either side of the hall and chapel in simple, orthogonal layouts. On the roof, OMA cut a circle that opens to a glass-enclosed sunken garden one floor below. A symmetrical set of stairs zigzags through an airy atrium, connecting the plaza entry to the chapel and the planted rooftop above.

Including terrace furniture by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the new pavilion is fresh, spirited, and brash­ly colorful. With a jolting change in visual mode, the contrast in eras jumpstarts the campus into the new millennium.

OMA: SHOHEI SHIGEMATSU; jAKE FORSTER; Jesse catalano; david chacon; caroline corbett; nils sanderson; andrea zalewski; natasha trice; marie claude fares; wesley leforce; sandy yum; jade kwong; shary tawil; joanne chen

Gruen Associates: Debra Gerod

OMA Turns to Angular Forms for the Audrey Irmas Pavilion in Los Angeles

Designed by architect Abram M. Edelman and built by Hollywood moguls in 1929, Los Angeles’s Wilshire Boulevard Temple—a monumental composite of Roman, Romanesque, and Byzantine styles—is pure Cecil B. DeMille, a camera-ready, domed architectural extravaganza waiting for a cast of 1,000 congregants. Still impressive today, the historic structure expresses a time, place, and attitude nearly a century old. But by the second decade of the new millennium, the synagogue was looking to present a more appealing and open public face for a more inclusive mission. Korean and Latino residents now occupy the neighborhoods surrounding the full-block campus, and the starched architectural formality of the 1920’s no longer suited today’s more casual L.A.

In 2015, the congregation held a competition for an ecumenical “gathering space” to be built on the temple’s parking lot. Called the Audrey Irmas Pavilion after the Angeleno philanthropist and art collector who donated $30 million to the campaign, the facility would not only serve the synagogue but also welcome events held by members of other communities. The brief was simple: rooms—small, medium, large.

OMA was one of four finalists, and the project was right up the firm’s alley. In the 1970’s, cofounder Rem Koolhaas had helped rediscover the Russian construc­tivists, whose postrevolutionary buildings incorporated “social condensers,” shared spaces that precipitated collective activities and fostered a sense of community. Such programmatic thinking was in OMA’s DNA. The architectural issue was how to design a building that neither cowered from nor competed with the synagogue next door.

Led by partner Shohei Shigematsu with associate Jake Forster, OMA won the competition. As though signing a noncompete clause with the domed temple, Shigematsu changed the architectural subject, abandoning a historicist narrative in favor of an abstract language of geometric form and chaotic pattern. “It couldn’t be too pretentious,” he says, “so we started from an efficient box.” With three tilted sides, this box was not, however, simple. Two of the facades—one facing the temple, the other the synagogue school—slope backward, providing light and openness for a new plaza and an existing courtyard, respectively; the Wilshire facade slopes forward, reaching out to the urban corridor while sheltering a planted terrace at its foot.

The architects basically created a five-story, 54,600-square-foot object-building that, from some angles, looks like a truncated pyramid warped in a distortional field. “We were aware of the temple as an icon, and didn’t want to interfere with its landmark quality,” Forster notes. “So we imagined something contemporary.” Inspired by ceiling coffers lining the temple’s dome, they wrapped the volume in a grid of hexagonal GFRC panels, most of them inset with variously angled rectangular windows that create a jitterbug pattern on all sides. The oblique facades set off the pavilion against the otherwise orthogonal context of the surrounding buildings, giving the structure a sculptural identity.

Each facade centers on a monumental aperture looking into one of the two main congregational spaces. On the Wilshire elevation, a wide arch offers a telescoping view down a long barrel-vault event hall all the way to the adjacent school. Directly opposite the temple, an enormous trapezoidal opening on the second floor accommodates a covered terrace fronting a chapel that, like the hall, extends to the far facade. The laminated-glass walls wrapping the terrace and chapel are green, harmonizing with the blues of the stained-glass windows in the adjoining synagogue. “Our goal was to create a contextual and targeted porosity to the building, so we punctured the facades from different directions,” Shigematsu explains. “The pavilion opens to the wider community, while complementing and engaging the existing temple,” Forster adds.

The interior organization is straightforward to the point of being diagrammatic. In a biaxial plan, the ground-floor hall and second-floor chapel are stacked perpendicular to each other. Lobbies, conference rooms, bar areas, reception spaces, and service facilities flank either side of the hall and chapel in simple, orthogonal layouts. On the roof, the architects cut a circle that opens to a glass-enclosed sunken garden one floor below, alluding to the temple’s Byzantine dome and establishing a vertical z-axis to the sky. A symmetrical set of stairs zigzags through an airy atrium, connecting the plaza entry to the chapel and the planted rooftop above, “like an Indian stepwell that climbs up,” Forster suggests. “We aimed to build a gathering machine, both formal and informal, at different scales,” Shigematsu says in conclusion, “not just a commercial or conventional event space.”

For all its helter-skelter window patterns and leaning facades, the complexity of the Audrey Irmas Pavilion is more apparent than real. Basically, it’s a box pierced on two levels by double-height voids with ancillary functions fitted between them and the perimeter walls. OMA achieves the maximum impact with a few big moves. The building distinguishes itself from its neighbor both by geometry and attitude: The temple is serious and institutional, bound by tradition and anchored by gravitas; the pavilion is fresh, spirited, and brashly colorful. With a jolting change in visual mode, the contrast in eras jumpstarts the campus into the new millennium. Architectural grandeur and sobriety meets contemporary cool, bringing this stretch of Wilshire into the hip and now.

OMA: jesse catalano; david chacon; caroline corbett; nils sanderson; andrea zalewski; natasha trice; marie claude fares; wesley leforce; sandy yum; jade kwong; shary tawil; joanne chen

Gruen Associates: architect of record

Studio-MLA: landscaping con­sul­tant

Spaceagency: graphics consultant

L’Observatoire International: Lighting consultant

Arup: structural engineer; mep

Rhyton Engineering: civil engineer

Millworks by Design: woodwork

Matt Construction: general contractor

SDC Lab: furniture (terrace)

Lindner: metal-mesh ceiling (terrace, chapel)

Navy Island: acoustic paneling (hall)

Eurocraft Architectural Metal: custom fence (exterior)

west coast industries: custom benches (atrium)

vitra: chairs (conference room)

American Standard: sinks, sink fittings (restroom)

Cepac Tile: penny tile

Figueras: chairs (chapel)

Durodesign: flooring

Stromberg: facade panels

QCP: concrete pavers, planters

Steel City Glass: curtain-wall fabrication

Oldcastle: glass

Goldray: glass lamination

Sefar: mesh interlayers

Vanceva: color interlayers

Corradini Corp.: terrazzo flooring

Trademark Concrete Systems: concrete flooring