Headquarters Reboot: Standard Architecture x Nadel

It was a tall and double-edged order for a 1979 Culver City tilt-up, erstwhile comprising a production site, dispensary, and vacant zone. Purchasing the building during Covid, Nadel, the brand merchandising and experience company founded in 1953, coincidentally in the same area of Los Angeles, initially presented two briefs to Standard Architecture. “It was to be relevant for the times,” begins Silvia Kuhl, cofounder and principal with her husband Jeffrey Allsbrook. The other key aspect, he continues, “was creating healthy offices and outdoor spaces.” Both, obviously, with roots in the pandemic, waning at design’s onset. Then, and still now, conversations veered to workplace challenges and return-to-office policies. So, the program expanded. Nadel needed to entice its 100-count staff to return full time. It also sought to show off new digs to clientele as diverse as the Chicago Cubs, Mac Cosmetics, and Google.

A prodigious amount of work was required. Especially since the “sad and dreary site,” per project architect Tracy Bremer, was devoid of customary workplace amenities.  Outdoor and garden space? None. Daylight infiltration? Minimal. A cogent plan for the bi-level interior to tell Nadel’s story? Non-existent. Overarching moves, ergo, entailed creating inside-outdoor connections, reconfiguring glazing, and rebuilding the interior, including replacing the structurally unsound mezzanine with a safe counterpart.

Designing a Light-Filled, Modern Office for Nadel

What visitors don’t see are the mezzanine offices associated with corporate headquarters since this is command central for the entire operation. That means legal, finance, and human resources as well as dedicated workspace for website and experience departments. Out of view, too, is that driver of most businesses, sales. The team, “a happy, loud bunch,” according to Kuhl, occupies the third soaring space in a ground-floor hybrid setting combining an open workplace cum lounge and enclosed offices ringing all four sides of the perimeter.  With new standards in place, Nadel reports staff back full time and business as busy. As we say, mission accomplished.

Walk Through Nadel’s Headquarters in Culver City, Los Angeles

Michael Hsu Transforms a Historic Building into a Chic Office

San Francisco-based venture capital firm 8VC has found its second home in Austin, Texas, partnering with Michael Hsu Office of Architecture to transform a 100-year-old bungalow. The building has gone through a series of changes throughout the years yet it’s always been a gathering space. In the early 1900s, it was a brothel, as well as the first building south of the river to have power, while in the ’80s it was used as offices, and later an Airbnb property, Camp Congress, whose airstreams are still available to rent. But when 8VC Partner Jake Medwell toured the property, a rare unoccupied structure on the bustling South Congress Avenue, he envisioned a design that incorporated a luxe, homey feel that both enhanced its heritage and looked to the future. 8VC brings vision to traditionally unsexy industries, so it’s only fair its offices are just as sleek and out-of-the-box. 

Bringing to Life a Hospitality-Inspired Office Design 

Inside, the design evokes “historic charm that’s meant to feel familiar with up-to-date furnishings,” says Hsu, firm principal and founder. The palette is warm and rich, “not cold or slick” with bold color and materiality. The layout takes cue from the existing chimneys to create moments surrounding the building’s multiple fireplaces. There are herringbone walnut floors, a leather-wrapped reception desk by David Ambrose, a chandelier from local artist Karen Hawkins, and custom powder-coated aluminum fireplace from auto body manufacturer Metal Union. “The correlation between hospitality and workspaces accelerated amid Covid,” Hsu adds. “People want to feel better in their workspaces and go to an office that reminds them of home.”

Inside the 8VC Headquarters in Austin Designed by Michael Hsu 

Work From ‘Home’—at the Office in This Innovative Space

The German pharmaceutical company Roche Diagnostics had a huge office space when they first contacted Studio Alexander Fehre—almost 4,000 square feet with ample light and air, in the southwest city of Ludwigsburg. What they didn’t have, they felt, was a community. The administration and production departments came and left through the same area, but rarely saw each other throughout the day. So the brief became, as Fehre explains, “to design a place between the offices and the fabrication/production. It was intended as the new ‘heart’ of the re-used building.”

A large corner of the production hall was the perfect place for it. “We decided to look at it like an outdoor space and build some wooden houses,” Fehre says. “A little village inside the large hall.” They constructed four of traditional timber, each with its own individual organization of work and meeting spaces. Three-layer panels light up when the houses are occupied. Two of them are connected on upper levels by a footbridge, while translucent white staircases unite them with the ground floor. There, wood decks create various zones for meeting, collaborating, and recreating.

“The aim,” Fehre says, “was a bit more on the emotional side, and also offer the employees a special place to meet, work informally, and come to visit outside of the home office.” Little touches of home pop up throughout: a ping pong table here, an ersatz courtyard there with thriving greenery, transversely-braced industrial lights, and gathered textile facades. But the idea is to beckon employees back and into the company fold. “It is a sort of post-Covid space,” he says, “a space without typical workdesks, where people can meet in person and experience the values of the company.” They can take those values to heart, Fehre hopes: After all, as the unmissable white letters near the lobby explain, the space is now known as the Herzzone or, in English, the “heart zone.”

A Bold Model Office Designed to Lure Employees Back

What does the office of the future look like? Since the global upheaval of the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, the answer to this question is, frankly, still a little fuzzy. As companies in the West grapple with return-to-office policies, employees in China are fervently back at their desks, eager to regain the social and professional benefits that office life brings. However, there’s no denying that the world of work has changed significantly, and many, particularly from younger generations, require extra motivation to come in every day.

Chinese businesses are therefore increasingly hunting for facilities that will inspire employees of all ages, provide a sense of identity and belonging, and foster new ways of working for this decade and beyond. So that’s what Ippolito Fleitz Group has presented inside the show office at Max Zone Technology Park, a new research and development campus for tech companies on the outskirts of Shanghai. Similar to a model home in a residential complex, the show office demonstrates how prospective tenants might use the space and helps them to better envision occupying it. “You’re not selling the property, you’re selling a dream, a vision,” begins Peter Ippolito, who, with Gunter Fleitz, is cofounder of IFG, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and an Interior Design Hall of Fame member.

Explore This Show Office Designed to Spark New Workplace Visions

To entice innovative tenants, the 10,800-square-foot office needed to be bold and forward-thinking. IFG’s Shanghai team pushed and expanded the current notions of workplace to create a vibrant landscape that’s not only visually compelling but also attempts to answer our initially posed question. “We really like the word landscape, because it implies experience,” IFG project director Patrick Wu says. “It helps people meet each other, communicate, and start ideating together.”

How Behavioral Science Impacts Workplace Design

Designing for a fictional tenant, Ippolito, Wu, and team began by identifying the core functions of everyday work: concentration, communication, collaboration, and contemplation. They then assigned these functions to the office’s five levels, using each to guide the layouts and types of spaces provided. Without a real company’s predetermined visual identity to follow, the freedom to apply color in relation to the four “C”s was granted, as Wu explains: “If an area requires group meetings with more people involved, we use a warmer, energizing color. If it’s more for solitary heads-down functions, then the color is cooler.”

The studio’s “journey through how we work together,” as IFG puts it, starts, as you’d expect, in the lobby—a welcoming area that Wu describes as “an extroverted space.” A central circular orange element serves as both reception desk and seating, creating a continuous flow around its perimeter. Overhead, some 2,000 rods of varying heights form an undulating canopy across the ceiling, and a looping band of light traces the room’s circulation path from above. Also here is a standing-height surface for, say, responding quickly to an email on a laptop, as well as an introduction to the project’s ample live greenery.

Bold Hues and Spaces Designed for Chance Encounters

Rather than integrating too many tech-focused elements, which, Ippolito notes, “age quickly,” the project instead explores several ways to personalize the office experience—what IFG feels is key to driving progress. “A decade ago, the work would follow the space… Now it’s the other way around,” he continues. “I think a contemporary office follows the work.” The one of the future, it appears, will be shaped by its users.

Inside a Shanghai Model Office Designed by Ippolito Fleitz Group 

ippolito fleitz group: halil dogan; chen dong; leo luo; steven shangguan; frank wang; yu yan; aaron ye; dirk zschunke.

A Kyiv Tech Incubator With a Sleek Yet Earthy Entrance Hall

Defying all the odds, Kyiv, Ukraine, is rapidly emerging as a hub for technological advancement. Helping to lead the charge is the recently opened Unit City; a sprawling workspace campus fashioned out of a former industrial district. Serving as a first entry point to the complex, the 700-square-foot Unit Space reflects a sense of inclusive sustainability articulated throughout the repurposed office park. Award-winning designer Victoria Yakusha treated this double height lobby by masterfully combining aspects of mechanical efficiency, comfortable minimalism, and contrasted texture.

“We managed to represent the soul of Unit City,” she explains. “The most interesting part of the project was the inclusion of three 13-foot Soniah lamps emerging like flower stems high above the reception desk. These are the largest I’ve created to date. The word soniah means sunflower in Ukrainian, a visual correlation that is best expressed in this context.”

Upholding Tradition Through Contemporary Design Experimentation

The local talent made headlines this spring by debuting her Faina product line at New York furniture fair ICFF. Deeply rooted in Ukraine heritage, Yakusha harnesses the full potential of hyper sustainable materials and reinterpreted handicraft traditions to create substantial furnishings and luminaires that maintain the imprint of the human hand at work. Much of the formal language she employs harkens back to folkloric symbolism but with a paired back sensibility that aligns with contemporary taste.  

It’s a similar approach the multifaceted designer tapped into when, under the auspices of her eponymously-named Yakusha Design architecture practice, she conceived Unit Space. While Unit City’s progressive mandate is expressed in the implementation of a large transparent glass screen displaying different digital holographic sculptures and informational widgets, viscerally-hewn Faina ceramic lamps—inspired by celestial shapes—play off the curvatures of arched mirrors affixed to rear walls. Richly upholstered pill-shaped sofas arrange in different modular configurations; juxtaposing geometrically-patterned surfaces throughout. Patinated and semi-iridescent metals render monolithic desks and wall-cladding panels, adding additional depth.

The spatial intervention centers on a biodynamic lighting system that illuminates the space in four different modes, evoking different times of day. A palette of muted earth tones perfectly accommodates this feature. A peppering of indoor plants factors in as a calming and grounding counterpoint. “In modern society when technology and design are evolving so fast, it’s important to maintain a connection with nature,” Yakusha concludes. These seemingly opposed themes neatly coalesce in this cautiously layered and laid-out entrance hall; a sophisticated calling card for the rest of the workspace complex.

Inside Unit Space, a Tech Lobby Designed by Victoria Yakusha

Color and Character Enliven Offices for a Growing Tech Brand

For a young, fast-growing technology company, creating a meaningful space for employees to work and connect was key to the next phase of their business. Studio Anand Sheth brought a considerate, thoughtful approach to Retool’s offices, first designing their San Francisco headquarters, followed by a satellite office across the country in New York.

To get a sense of the brand’s needs for the initial project, founder Anand Sheth converted the client’s wishes and his own vision into a collage that he calls “Future Memory.” The collage visually represents the building’s structure and interprets the client’s goal of community with cut-out photographs Sheth found tucked away in a thrifted envelope. Retool’s rapid growth during the pandemic led to a large remote workforce, so the aim of an in-person space centered on providing a new sense of connection for employees.

How the Design of Retool San Francisco Came to Life

As a San Francisco-based design studio, Sheth is surrounded by the tech giants of Silicon Valley. Well before the pandemic, the technology groundbreakers were also making waves in office design, creating more playful, amenities-rich spaces. “Tech really changed the tone of [workplace design], bringing in inspiration from college and hospitality environments to change the corporate environment,” says Sheth.

Taking this into consideration, Sheth incorporated some surprising elements into Retool’s San Francisco headquarters. Cloaked in a mix of earthy tones and graphic wall coverings that add intrigue, lounge areas give the feel of a chic boutique hotel. Even the building’s structure furthers the design narrative. Spanning four non-chronological floors in the city’s former Hamm’s Brewery Building, the design strives to embrace old and new in a way that leaves no obvious delineation between such elements: Exposed ducts and original concrete interact with contemporary seating and colorful accents.

Given the growing demand for outdoor space, the San Francisco office also makes the most of its roof deck, reimagined as a lush open-air experience. Here, employees and guests can enjoy the city views and a drink at “The Toolbar,” which includes green wallpaper, angular pendants, and a playful spirit.

Studio Anand Sheth Takes a Fresh Approach for Retool’s New York Office

Up next, Sheth turned to the company’s New York satellite office, which references but does not mirror the west coast headquarters. Meeting rooms in both locations employ a uniquely painted wainscot application, but the east coast palette reflects a decidedly New York sensibility. Heavily used spaces like conference rooms are more restrained, while smaller, more intimate pockets in the office embrace a livelier palette, such as the small breakout room clothed in graphic wallpaper featuring a shattered pattern.

“Now that we’re coming back [from the pandemic] I would hope that the conversation around workplace design stays open and that there’s never a right answer just because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” says Sheth. One such change came in the form of an unlikely material—velvet. To better sound-proof glass-front conference rooms, designers used heavy velvet theater curtains to marry form and function.

Two Office Designs, One Growing Tech Company 

Retool’s San Francisco and New York locales break the traditional corporate mold through moody details, sculptural fixtures, and the use of artful pieces by architectural artists like Rowan Bouroullec, Natascha Madeiski, Sohan Murthy and Tauba Aerbach.

“There’s something about the saturation and the depth of the materials that we chose, in San Francisco and New York, that really serve this sort of counterbalance to the light and airy and lofty spaces that we’ve been trained to see as more efficient or productive,” says Sheth. “If we add some of this mood, that will invite more questioning, encourage more memories, and we’ll have more to respond to.”

Inside Retool’s San Francisco Headquarters

Walk Through Retool’s Satellite Office in New York City

Perkins&Will Strikes a Balance for Mohr Capital’s Dallas HQ

When real estate investment firm Mohr Capital needed a new home in Dallas, Perkins&Will had a tall order: translating the firm’s Texas-sized identity into a compact (for a company of their size) 11,000-square-foot space. The key, says Ariel Lumry, project designer, “is balance, stemming from the use of the space continuing through to the finish palette and application of finishes.”

But first things first. “The space serves a group of employees that spans multiple generations,” she says, “and needed to reflect both the professional nature of who Mohr Capital is as an organization, and simultaneously feel tied to the Mohr family.” The team divided up the space relatively evenly, with 55% for private offices, and the rest in open plan workstations and public and collaborative zones. A logo wall brands the lobby, made of locally-sourced Texas limestone, while a gallery wall at the entrance to the break room hosts Mohr-inspired memorabilia and artwork. Operations nod to sustainability, too, reducing the new headquarter’s water use by some 30%.

Materials strive for harmony as well: walls in private offices merge Arbescato Silver, Silverwave, and Fantasy Blue Marble, all bookmatched at horizontal axes. The central hallway navigates between floor-to-ceiling glass and open workstations with sit-to-stand desks and natural light, beneath a ceiling of slatted wood which follow the window line at both ends to join a wooden aisle. Lobby ceilings, meanwhile, are custom coffers, painted in the brand’s signature navy blue, acting like a deep sky stretching above fifty linear feet of custom planters. And custom screens define zones while acting as wayfinding, separating both the lobby and main conference room, and areas of the break room. “We developed a design aesthetic and palette that is both elegant and welcoming,” Lumry says, “professional while being warm. Modern but timeless.” And unmistakably Mohr.

Inside Mohr Capital’s Dallas HQ Designed by Perkins&Will

Perkins&Will: Ariel Lumry; Makena Rhodes; Brigitte Preston; Anne Kniffen; Jason Dowling

Structuretone Southwest: Contractor

LUM Lighting: Lighting Designer

Purdy McGuire, Inc.: MEP Engineer

GL Seaman: Furniture Dealer

Craig Bull with Mohr Partners: Project Manager

Pricefx’s Prague Offices by CollColl Draws Inspo from Pixels

For the Prague office of Pricefx, the standard workplace cubicle just wouldn’t do. The MO of the global software company, its products helping businesses price goods and services, is predicated on flux: The number and type of clients, which range from newly hatched start-ups to long-established corporations, shifts by the day and even the hour, requiring different spatial configurations intended to stimulate creative dialogue. It wanted smart, performative flex space that acts as a physical corollary to the dynamic digital environment in which its clients work and think on-screen.

In 2016, Pricefx hired CollColl—the interdisciplinary firm, its name a portmanteau of “collaborative collective,” founded by partner Krištof Hanzlík—to design an easily adaptable workplace on a half-floor of an open-plan office building. Hanzlík and his team mixed hot desks, coworking spaces, lounges, and open areas with phone-booth enclosures, offices, and small and large meeting rooms. Two years later, the architects expanded the footprint to occupy the full 9,000-square-foot floor. Then in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when the very concept of office space was in free fall, in a leap of optimism the company re-engaged CollColl to expand to the floor below. But with COVID putting the fundamental viability of such facilities into question, the mandate for flexibility was greater than ever.

CollColl Designs Pricefx’s Prague Offices for Flexibility

CollColl is a small, avant-garde group with a portfolio of both experimental and commercial projects. The success of the two previous efforts in shaping a flexible office landscape suggested the firm’s approach to the new lower level. “We wanted to create a fluid space in which there would be some separation but without distinct rooms,” says Hanzlík, who lead the team along with partner Šimon Kos. “Pricefx throws events for 30, 40, 50 attendees, and there’s a constant flow of people.”

A stainless-steel tubular slide linking the two floors spills into the new main entry, setting a tone that signals the importance of play in a workplace intended to stimulate creative ideas. The playfulness is reinforced by the reception desk, which not only doubles as a coffee bar but, thanks to a grid of LEDs behind its translucent solid-surfacing face, also functions as an interactive billboard on which pixelated images, including the company logo, appear. Nearby, a “gym” area equipped with a billiard table and a punching bag offers actual fun and games, further encouragement for informality and interplay.

The Office Includes an Expansive, Multi-Purpose Conference Room  

Perhaps the most challenging request on the client’s wish list was for a conference table that could seat 50 people during workshops—about twice the number possible previously. Rather than designing a single-purpose room, however, CollColl used seven pairs of glass double doors to partition off one end of the roughly rectangular floor, creating a building-spanning flex space with windows at both ends. This large light-filled area easily accommodates a row of six separate desks—each seating six—that extension leaves quickly turn into a continuous 50-person table: Close the doors and, voilà, an instant conference room. Folding wall panels allow the long space to be divided in half for smaller meetings.

CollColl Takes Inspiration from Video Games

The architects repeat the blocky landscape trope on the other side of the floor, next to the 50-person conference room, where the floor-to-ceiling geometric pile offers a welcome perch during meeting breaks or to people just wandering around with their laptops. And that points to yet another of the unique structures’ multiple functions, as reassuringly fixed landmarks in the floating world that constitutes Pricefx’s mutable workspace.

Walk Through the Pricefx Offices in Prague 

collcoll: adam kössler; libor mládek; mark kelly

sysloop: lighting consultant

av24: audiovisual consultant

olbert tomáš: woodwork

bauhanz: general engineer

capexus: general contractor

alfeko: custom slide (entrance)

molteni&c: armchairs (café)

Dupont: bar solid-surfacing

studio vono: chairs, barstools

Bosch: oven

XAL: pendant fixtures (meeting room)

lintex: whiteboard

vitra: tables, chairs (meeting room, conference room, av studio)

3deco: wall finishes (meeting room, conference room)

verti: glass partitions (meeting room, conference room)

av24: av equipment (av studio)

barrisol: concealed lighting (grotto)

common seating: ottomans (conference room)

freifrau manufaktur: swing seat

Interface: hard flooring, carpet tile

farrow & ball: paint

Inside JPMorgan Chase’s Historic D.C. Offices by Studios Architecture

The nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., is also one of the oldest, tracing its origins to the late 1700’s. “Respecting history and supporting art and culture have been a part of our DNA since inception,” explains Farzad Boroumand, the bank’s executive director and global real estate head of design. It was only fitting, then, that when choosing a home base for its new mid-Atlantic headquarters, the financial institution would purchase a venerable property: the 1922 Bowen Building in the heart of D.C.’s Historic Fifteenth Street Financial District.

Much like JPMorgan Chase itself, which is a synthesis of many institutions that have merged or been acquired over the years, including First Republic Bank last month, the Bowen is a hybrid of several early 20th-century structures that had been combined and expanded in phases. Although the 12-story limestone edifice is not landmarked, its listed status and contribution to a historic district stipulated a sensitive renovation—and an equally conscientious design partner. After inviting proposals from several firms, the client selected Studios Architecture. “Studios stood out by suggesting innovative interior solutions that were appropriate to the classical exterior,” Boroumand recalls.

For JPMorgan Chase, Studios Architecture Designs a LEED-Certified HQ

The firm’s work at the LEED Silver–certified headquarters, totaling 231,000 square feet, encompassed a subterranean mechanicals level, the lobby and an adjacent ground-floor community center, four levels of employee and executive workspace, and a client center with a terrace. The primary challenge was to deliver the perfect marriage of old and new. “The client sought a modern scheme that spoke to who JPMorgan Chase is and would carry the organization, with its rich history, into the future,” says Studios board chair and principal Marnique Heath, who teamed with the client to lead the project with the support of Studios associate Ethan Levine, both architects from the firm’s D.C. office.

Many of the gestures, Levine notes, “were centered on thresholds, creating opportunities for visitors to pass into the bank and make them feel a sense of belonging.” That starts at the main entry sequence leading from Fifteenth Street. The client requested that it convey welcome and a sense of transparency, which Studios answered by introducing a glazed portal with revolving doors and, above, a glass canopy.

The Office Design Features Restored Details

Studios Architecture Creates a Flexible Workplace for JPMorgan Chase

The client center, up on the building’s 11th floor, houses various conference rooms and meeting areas as well as a generous terrace. Continuing the transparency theme, Studios carved out a double-height volume along the terrace-side perimeter, which serves as an airy waiting area. The firm also made substantial facade alterations here, expanding the glazing to create more openness and invite broader views of the Washington Monument and the White House. A new feature stair, its balustrade incorporating the same metalwork used on the ground floor, leads to the executive level on 12.

An elevator bay with tinted, mirrored panels and a series of LED mobile-esque chandeliers provides access to the three renovated floors of flexible work areas accommodating some 500 employees. Architect and client collaborated to uncover future-oriented strategies for the office proper. “We investigated entirely different models of working, incorporating features such as virtual meeting spaces and more homelike and lounge-y environments,” Heath recalls. A diversity of furniture types and finishes, along with 2,500 square feet of open lounges on each work floor, encourages staff members to access different settings as they shift activities throughout their day.

Ultimately, the Bowen Building stands as an example of how legacy institutions like JPMorgan Chase can build a framework for serving their communities on multiple fronts—one that acknowledges the past while making much-needed modern interventions to cocreate a better future for all.

Behind the Design of JPMorgan Chase’s D.C. Office

Studios Architecture: ashton allan; monica castro; kristian passanita; tammy chan; ruben smudde; jennifer hicks; jesse wetzel; katherine luxner; june zhu; maria percoco; gabriel boyajian

gordon: landscape architect

interior plantscapes: interior plantings

mcla: lighting designer

tce & associates: structural engineer

GHT: mep

columbia woodworking; jefferson millwork & design: millwork

boatman & magnani: stonework

gilbane building company: general contractor

bright chair: sofa, chairs (library)

modernfold: sliding door

B&B Italia: shelving

bernhardt design: tables, credenza (library), sofa (community center), coffee table, white lounge chairs (conference area)

spinneybeck: desk leather (lobby)

shickel corporation: custom screens

flos: custom pendant fixtures (lobby, client center)

bendheim: custom paneling (elevator lobby)

tech lighting: chandeliers

whitegoods: cove lighting

Stellar Works: armchairs (waiting area)

cassina: table

emerald ironworks: custom stair

planter­worx: custom planters (waiting area, terrace)

pilkington: glazing (exterior)

boon edam: revolving door

alpolic: canopy

skyfold: retractable walls (community center)

Lambert&Fils: globe pendants

vibia: pendant fix­tures

datesweiser: worktables

arper: chairs

martin brattrud: banquettes

9wood: ceiling panels (com­munity center, office entry)

londonart: wall­covering (conference area)

walter knoll: blue lounge chairs

axis lighting: linear pen­dants (conference area, lounge)

BuzziSpace: dome pendant (lounge)

spacestor: cus­tom shelving

stylex: coffee table

Scandinavian Spaces: lounge chairs

muuto: sofa, ottomans

astek: wall­covering

naughtone: two-tone sofa

milliken: carpet tile (lounge, workspace)

Andreu World: tables (ter­race)

Janus et Cie: stools, chairs, sofa

Tuuci: umbrella

stepstone: pavers

andrew neyer: pendant fixtures (office entry)

adler display: environmental graphics

Greenmood: petrified moss

viccarbe: benches

herman miller: task chairs (workspace)

knoll: workstations

armstrong: ceiling tile

applied image: privacy graphics

evensonbest: furniture supplier

transwall: glass partitions

guardian glass: exterior glazing, fins

kawneer: curtain wall, storefront system

ege: carpet tile, rugs, broadloom

Sherwin-Williams: paint

Milbank’s London Office by LSM Makes Return to Work Worth It

In early 2020, after months of anticipation, LSM had just completed the New York headquarters of international law firm Milbank when the pandemic forced staff to Zoom from home indefinitely. Nearly two years later, as restrictions eased, LSM unveiled Milbank’s London office at 100 Liverpool Street, the net-zero, amenities-packed, mixed-use anchor of the city’s revitalized Broadgate neighborhood. This time, however, things were different. Cube culture was out; remote work and 30-second commutes were in. What would it take to make folks embrace office life again?

In a word: “joy,” according to Milbank managing partner Julian Stait. The new workplace had to signal that, “People here are at the center of what we do.” To that end, says LSM founding partner and Interior Design Hall of Fame member Debra Lehman Smith, “We tailored every inch of the 100 Liverpool space to be active, energizing, and conducive to good work. It is very different from one’s home, and that is very intentional. This is an escape from home. With every detail we thought about what would make the client want to be here.”

Previously, Milbank’s London operations comprised 54,000 square feet split between four noncontiguous floors in two adjacent buildings in the Moorgate area. Since moving 1 mile east, the office’s 140 attorneys now occupy 90,000 square feet on two inter­connected floors, with spectacular views of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

How LSM Revamped Milbank’s London Office

The site sits adjacent to a cross-rail hub, which appealed to Milbank’s commitment to sustainability. In fact, the entire project was in many ways a large-scale recycling effort. Hopkins Architects created the L-shape base building by connecting two old structures with a rotunda topped by a glass canopy, then stripped the tired 1980’s cladding from the original and replaced it with an undulating glazed facade. Retaining 32 percent of the original steelwork and 49 percent of the concrete significantly reduced the embodied carbon in the new structure, and 99.8 percent of waste associated with the project’s construction was diverted from landfill.

LSM amplified and echoed the curvilinear vibe throughout the interior, from custom crescent-shape sofas and dimpled workstation corners to a contrasting marble floor border that highlights the organic geometry as it snakes around the curvy floor plate. However, when it came to laying out workstations and enclosed offices along the perimeter of the long floor plate, Lehman Smith and team relied on regular geometry for efficient space planning.

The upper floors of the building were progressively stepped back to reduce massing from the fine grain of the urban fabric and create a series of planted terraces. “The terraces and the ability to work and meet within a garden setting were major factors in the selection of this site,” Milbank partner Suhrud Mehta explains. Since the law firm was the lead tenant, leasing the top two floors, eight and nine, LSM was able to tailor the building to the client’s needs while it was still under construction. That included adding and relocating doors for greater access to the rooftop English garden as well as installing an electrical infrastructure to power special outdoor events. LSM also moved building services away from key terrace views and expanded the HVAC and ventilation systems to accommodate a robust, round-the-clock food-service program.

The Office Design Features Bespoke Details

The two most dramatic bespoke moves were cutting a new slab opening for an interconnecting stairway in the atrium and then, with the help of art consultant Patrick Morey-Burrows, commissioning three large-scale, site-specific pieces by contemporary artists. “Each of them is a brilliant star!” proclaims Lehman Smith, whose signature has long been creating workplaces to embrace amazing art.

As staff and visitors enter the atrium and make their way to conference and office spaces, they pass through and around Paul Morrison’s Cyclorama. His overscale, monochromatic botanical motifs encircle the curved walls on both levels and play off the black-framed glazing in a way that is reminiscent of a Victorian garden conservatory.

Art Installations Add Visual Intrigue

Another focal point that draws circulation to key spaces is Idris Kahn’s Integration of Hope, 2021, which covers an entire rounded wall on the eighth floor. Composed of 15 layers of hand-mixed gesso—consisting of slate and marble dust, Prussian blue, and ultramarine pigments—the result is a violet tone so intense that it can only be described as sonorous. What looks like a color study from afar takes on new meaning as one draws closer and realizes that Khan has used oil paint to hand-stamp overlapping words and phrases that express his ideas about diversity and inclusion into an abstract, universal language.

Out on the terrace sits Jeppe Hein’s Sine Curve I, a sculptural installation of head-height reflective panels arranged in a meandering formation. As the viewer moves about, their own reflection bounces around, shifting the focus from themselves to the London skyline, to the office behind them, and back. It’s a good reminder to stay focused in a world that is at sometimes unfamiliar and disorienting—and to stop and smell the roses on the terrace before getting back to work.

Inside Milbank’s London Office

LSM: rebecca montesi; mario degisi; yun gui; donnie morphy; mark andre; evie soileau; shahram ameryoun; james black mcleish

fisher marantz stone: lighting consultant

art source: art consultant

akt ii: struc­tural engineer

hilson moran: mep

unifor: millwork

specialist joinery group: metalwork

structure tone: general contractor

spinneybeck: chair, sofa upholstery (atrium)

knoll: side table

wilkhahn: chairs (conference room), table (meeting room)

quadrant: carpet (conference room, meeting room)

newmat: ceilings

mechoshade: paneling

cassina: table (breakout)

interstuhl: chair (office)

vorwerk: carpet tile (office area)

sas: ceiling system

Ultrafabrics: ultraleather

campo­longhi: flooring

ergonom: furniture supplier

dulux: paint