offices

The modern new building, planned by Bundschuh Architekten, had not only the potential of becoming an important urban building block, but also to be in the best company of galleries, cafés, bars, and an art association, thus completing an exciting cultural quarter.  Of course, the main protagonist of the interior was clear to the design team at Kinzo: the book. Or rather the books. Or even more aptly: the thousands and thousands of books! Our vision was a house, which rests on multi-story high stacked volumes instead of walls and columns. As emotional and atmospheric building blocks, the books should form the supporting structure and at the same time be the daily working instrument. Accordingly, shelves had to be built, many shelves – these had to fill almost every free space on the walls while simultaneously replacing them. But how could Suhrkamp’s enormous book collection find enough space on the limited wall space? A new concept for the entire building plan pro-vided the answer: Kinzo divided the floor plan and let the walls meander through the 6 floors of the building in the form of a zigzag, like an inner facade. This idea not only created more wall space and thus sufficient shelf space but at the same time optimized the area of the rooms and created small niches – usable for all employees as retreat rooms for spontaneous meetings, communication islands, think tanks or telephone booths.

The new home of the New Gorbals Housing Association is a bespoke office and civic piazza forming the centrepiece of the Crown Street redevelopment in Glasgow. Our task was to design a building that could be easily adapted to provide a variety of workplace functions, future proof expansion, better connect the association with the wider Gorbals community with improved facilities for tenants and cultivate the social well-being and comfort of staff. The building maintains a civic presence externally, with an expressive brick skin to visually connect the association to the wider Gorbals community. The facade is considered akin to a permeable ‘walled garden’, maximising views out to the surrounding city, whilst focused on an internal workspace which conceals an intimate south-facing courtyard garden. A large illuminated sign fixed to the building proudly announces ‘Gorbals’ as a landmark within the urban context.

512 West 22nd Street, a Chelsea office building bordering the High Line, is inspired by both its proximity to the planted public space and principles of biophilic design. Its location provides immediate visual and physical connections to nature on the High Line and views of the Hudson River beyond. Designed to achieve LEED Gold certification and foster an office environment connected with the natural world, 512 West 22nd Street sets new standards of health and productivity in the modern workplace. The structure of the building recalls the historical infrastructure and warehouse buildings of the neighborhood, and the crisp contemporary design that defines west Chelsea. Its materiality and form echo the High Line’s aesthetic, with industrial sash-inspired windows, and anthracite terracotta, zinc and granite façade.

Palma Hideaway is the result of an ongoing exploration on how to dwell ground floor spaces sited in bustling urban fabrics. (Case study continuation of Raval Hideaway Barcelona).

The municipality of Machelen needs new workshop and office spaces, replacing different buildings spread over the outskirts of the city. The building should include dressing rooms, a cafeteria and an outpost for the Red Cross. The construction of the building finalizes the administrative reorganization of the municipality, merging and professionalizing all municipal departments.

The new Headquarters for Cisneros Group, a third-generation global media company, was re-imagined as one integrated, creative, and collaborative studio. The space houses the company’s two subsidiaries (Interactive and Real Estate) as well as the Cisneros Foundation and is located on the top floors of the new 2 Miami Central facility, a mixed-use transit hub anchored by the new Virgin Train system. Working closely with the CEO, Adriana Cisneros, the office was designed to be flexible and emphasize wellbeing. These strategies mirror the ambitions of the firm in their nimble business approach. Workplace initiatives include shifting from 100% private office to a 20/80 open plan as well as maximizing both collaboration areas and focused work areas with a 1:12 quiet room ratio.

Studio Atelier11 has the system with the line and grids that the urban development has accomplished recently to the north and the organic system that the natural patterns are preserved to the south, and located in the contact point that different road network of city plan.

David Chipperfield Architects‘ office in Berlin is located in the district of Mitte, within walking distance of the Museum Island. The existing office premises have been expanded: four new volumes extend the five-storey brick building situated at the rear of the property, which was originally built as a piano factory in 1895. While the new, four- storey front building closes the street facade, the volumes inserted into the courtyards re-interpret the existing situation. They are suspended in ambivalence between restoring the situation from before the war damage and a new idea of a block interior: simple cubic volumes form independent structures, which can be perceived from different perspectives, while continuing the history of a typical courtyard structure and transforming it into a flowing exterior space.