Hasta La Ideas

The Shanghai office of Chinese architecture studio Taranta Creations features a staircase within a labia-like orifice and a floor that doubles as a desk.

Above photograph is by Shen Qiang of Shen Photo.

Upstairs, the entire floor plane is used as a work surface, with seating contained inside four large voids.

Taranta Creations designed the space, called Red Town Office, for its own staff.

The staircase joining the two levels is painted red on the inside and silver on the outside.

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Above photograph is by Shen Qiang of Shen Photo.

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Photography is by Fay Wu, apart from where otherwise stated.

The information that follows is from Taranta Creations:

Red Town Office

The design of Taranta Creations his own office space is a reflection of the ongoing creative process within the studio.

The upper floor is constructed as one continuous desk in which four sitting areas are cut out.

This large ‘work floor’ invites the designers to use the space for walking, sketching, meeting, modelling, thinking, drafting, sitting and relaxing.

This kind of informal interpretation of office space encourages cross-pollination between the different projects and disciplines.

The upper floor is connected to the lower floor by a ‘water drop’ in which the staircase is placed.

Design team: Enrico Taranta, Giorgio Radojkovic, Juriaan Calis.
Location: Red Town Sculpture Park, Shanghai, China.
Project year: 2010

Click above for larger image

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ECA/OAI by Personeni Raffaele Schärer	AOL Offices by Studio O+A	F A Law Office by Chiavola + Sanfilippo

Here some photos of the new Palo Alto offices of internet services company AOL, designed by San Francisco designers Studio O+A.

The interior features an open-plan layout with exposed ceilings, concrete floors and meeting areas built from oriented strand board.

Cylindrical booths made of oriented strand board and translucent fiberglass form collaborative working spaces.

The company’s logo is superimposed on imagery taken from abstract patterns, nature and pop culture to make custom-made wall coverings throughout the space.

Studio O+A were also responsible for the interiors of Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters.

Photographs are by Jasper Sanidad.

Here are some more details from Studio O+A:

AOL Offices
Palo Alto, California

AOL launched a company-wide initiative to adapt to changes in online culture—which the company had been instrumental in creating in the first place. As part of this effort, AOL moved its West Coast headquarters to a new corporate space in Palo Alto and brought in Studio
Here are soem images of AOL’s new offices in O+A to give the office a fresh design.

The existing space retained a distinctly 1980s corporate aesthetic: drop ceilings hanging over every office, high cubicles separating employees into tightly defined workstations, dark finishes, and oblique lines.

O+A restored the space to a clean, white canvas—exposing the ceilings, stripping the walls to reveal the structure, and generally creating a spatial equivalent to the transparency that AOL was bringing to every aspect of its business.

Key to this approach is the concept of “honest materiality”—the embrace of materials and processes that originate in the construction industry and that increasingly provide the finish motifs for modern workplace design.

At AOL, for example, oriented strand board (OSB), typically used by contractors to separate spaces on construction sites, was sanded, shaped, and finished to serve as a contemporary accent throughout the complex.

Exposed ceilings, concrete floors, expansive sightlines, and modern furniture all contribute to the industrial look. The result is a space that communicates what it is made of and how it was built.

In keeping with this theme of transparency, O+A’s floor plan emphasizes collaborative space—a change from segregated private offices to open workstations and the collegiality of shared environments.

Two features of the AOL design highlight this concept. The first is a series of circular pods positioned throughout the main work areas as impromptu meeting rooms. Constructed of OSB and translucent fiberglass, these cozy silos provide a space for informal collaboration and spontaneous creativity. To encourage that spontaneity, the pods are open to all employees and cannot be reserved.

An even more prominent feature is the large, bright, collaborative space AOL has dubbed the Town Hall. Part kitchen, part play space, part kick-back area, the Town Hall also functions as an all-hands common area (Ariana Huffington spoke there when AOL acquired the Huffington Post), modeled after late-night eateries in San Francisco’s Mission District.

The kitchen’s bench-seating, ample light, and bursts of color against a white palette go well with the game and relaxation area. Centrally located to bring together staff from departments that might not otherwise interact, the Town Hall is designed to foster the kind of creative cross-pollination for which tech companies like AOL are renowned.

And then there are graphics. AOL’s new logo—the company’s initials in a simple white font—can be placed effectively on any colorful background. Those playful backgrounds vary throughout the headquarters and include both abstract patterns and imagery drawn from nature and pop culture. All wall coverings in the space are custom designed.

The design embodies the elements of the new AOL—transparency, collaboration, creativity, and playfulness—to create a stimulating environment for the firm’s staff.

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Facebook Headquarters by Studio O+A	Skype office by PS Arkitektur	Google office by Scott Brownrigg

Swedish design duo Elding Oscarson have completed this office for design consultants No Picnic in Stockholm, divided in two by a reflective aluminium wall. 

Previously a stable and troop hall, the office has meeting areas concealed behing the mirrored divider.

The large windows to the meeting room are set flush with the metal cladding.

A spiral staircase at the far end of the office leads to the existing mezzanine.

The office also includes a workshop, showroom, project rooms and customer area.

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Photographs are by Åke E:son Lindman.

The following is from the architects:

No Picnic by Elding Oscarson

No Picnic is one of the world’s largest design consultants, covering industrial design, product design, and packaging design; as well as art direction, consumer insight, and architecture. We could hardly imagine a better oriented client, and expected nothing less than an ambitious, demanding, and fun project. They wanted large, open office spaces, a prototype workshop, a prototype showroom, several project rooms, and a striking customer area, distinctly separated from the other spaces in order to maintain secrecy.

For this, the client had found a group of 19th Century buildings in central Stockholm, mainly consisting of two volumes, one originally an exercise hall for troops, and the other once a stable for police horses. They had been converted into showrooms in the 1980’s, and were in a sad state. These buildings currently enjoy the highest level of historical protection. Conversion had to be sensitive, and we have evaluated every step with an antiquarian, literally down to each new screw hole.

We wanted to get rid of all added layers down to the origin. In the old stable we were able to peel the room naked, and just add a custom designed acoustical treatment along the walls, but in the exercise hall, economy and function demanded that a mezzanine constructed there in the 1980’s, was kept. The mezzanine cut the hall lengthwise, and crippled the experience of the space in an unfortunate way. Its edge coincided with the center of the hall, so we opted for the industrial designer’s own method – the way arbitrary but symmetric shapes can be sculpted as half models onto a mirror, we could restore the impression of the entire exercise hall by constructing a delicate aluminum wall along its central axis.

The meeting rooms inside this metal membrane, has large window panes towards the hall. The flat reflection of the glass appearing flush with the distorting metal surface, makes the glass seem like a mirror while the metal appears transparent; the wall is there, yet it disappears. It is bold, kaleidoscopic and delusive with its trompe l’oeil effects. At the same time it takes a step back for the main act: the light and space of the exercise hall, and the old building’s straightforward display of material, construction, imperfections, and time that has passed.

Project Name: No Picnic
Architect: Elding Oscarson
Client: No Picnic AB
Location: Storgatan 23 C, Stockholm
Gross Area: 1100 sqm
Year of Construction: 2010-11

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ANZAS Dance Studio by Tsutsumi and Associates	Bridal Magic by Process5 Design	NE by Teruhiro Yanagihara

Singapore based architects Studio SKLIM created built-in platforms, seating and storage for this renovation of an office in a post-war building on the outskirts of Singapore.

Created for an IT and multi-media company, the office has been designed to retain the exisiting light fittings, ceiling and walls.

The interior includes a raised meeting space with storage space beneath.

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Photographs from Studio SKLIM and Jeremy San

The following is from the architects:

Thin Office
@ Jalan Besar, Singapore

CLIENT : Kido Technologies
PROGRAM : Interior Refurbishment (Office)

AREA : 120 m²
CONSTRUCTION COST : Confidential

STATUS : Completed
DESIGN ARCHITECT : Studio SKLIM

KEY PERSONNEL : Kevin Lim
MAIN PHOTOGRAPHY : Jeremy San
TIME PERIOD : 2010

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

“Work is where you are, work has become a state of mind.”
Paola Antonelli, curator of MoMA’s dept of Architecture and Design  – 2001 exhibition “Work Spheres”.

While tapping on a laptop in a cafe has become the ubiquitous platform to begin “work”,  the need for a permanent work environment for any office is still necessary in the long run.  Perhaps what has changed since the advent of  “coffee offices” has been the increasing need for flexibility within a sedentary work sphere.

The program brief was for an office space shared by an IT company and a multi-media setup.  Located in a refurbished postwar building right in Singapore’s CBD outskirts, the space was long and narrow with split levels, offering the possibility of a raised space.

Throughout the long and narrow office, the ceiling and wall conditions were left unaltered as much as possible, along with the existing light fixtures.

The designed space was to reflect the ethos of the companies: Flexibility, Technology and Creativity.  The office space was  loosely organised into 8 clusters namely: the Boss Boxes, Long Work Top , Discussion Table, Welcome Mat, Sanitary & Storage, Recharging Point, Twist Platform and Multi-media Corner.

Each of these clusters were arranged around an open plan configuration with the exception of Sanitary & Storage to allow a multifarious overlap of working trajectories.

The flexible working environment was kept in mind with the possibility of hot-desking, informal working clusters and also semi-private cubicles.  The Boss Boxes were an option for more privacy as some work required a certain level of seclusion.

Technology is a crucial aspect of any modern day office and the ease of being “connected” to either an internet network or a power source was one of the concerns of the client.  The fluctuating size of the workforce also meant flexible working spaces which could be contracted and expanded to fit the demands of this office.

The result was the “Long Work Top” which incorporated an ingenious power strip of  data points, power supply and telecommunication points to be accessible at any location along this table, expanding the number of workstations from 6 to 10 in a few minutes!

This single piece of stretched work surface became part of a greater string of furniture transforming from table top, reception seating, storage and finally  to pantry space.

The Twist Platform was a raised meeting pod that capitalised on the higher ceiling to incorporate storage beneath.

The geometry of the subtly twisting space was driven by sightlines, privacy and anthropometrics.

The unconventional form in an otherwise sleek and straightforward office space added a dynamic backdrop to the Recharging Point and provided privacy to the independent operation of the multi-media setup.

The giant overhead light fixture was a final touch to the suggestion of this event space

The essence of this “Thin Office” was a desire to remain anonymous and to provide a blank canvas for various work scenarios and possibilities.

This “thinness” was translated from the basic organisation of spaces which opened up a central thoroughfare for circulation, light and natural ventilation, through to the furniture details which celebrated the geometrical state of being folded, suspended or twisted.

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Redhill Apartment by Studio SKLIM	WOW Sendai by Upsetters Architects	Brandbase Pallets by Most Architecture

This office in Paris by French designer Mathieu Lehanneur for advertising agency JWT features caves made from pulped paper and plants that play music.

The rough exterior shells contain pristine white meeting rooms, while plants cascading from the ceiling outside activate the sound system when workers brush against them.

Green pathways snake across the floor of the lobby while clusters of white blocks provide informal seating.

Lehanneur collaborated with architect Ana Moussinet for the project.

More about Mathieu Lehanneur on Dezeen »

Photographs are by Véronique Huyghes.

Here are some more details from Mathieu Lehanneur:

The JWT Agency by Mathieu Lehanneur

Perpetually on the lookout for new ways to live, sleep, create and work, Mathieu Lehanneur turns the advertising agency JWT (Neuilly/Seine) into a “digital plant station”, a new reflection from the designer about contemporary working styles and the necessary invented depictions of them when applied to the professional world of communications. Hot on the heels of the office conceived for David Edwards, founder of the Le Laboratoire (Paris) and areas for teenagers and children at the Centre Pompidou, he has once again designed an area dedicated to creative production larger than 1000m2.

An interior architecture produced in collaboration with the architect Ana Moussinet where the objects are as much brainstorming aids as three dimensional logos assigned to sum up the spirit of this French JWT subsidiary specialising in digital media. First symbolic move: to reverse the usual dynamic of authority by placing the two chairmen and the director of JWT on the ground floor, as close as possible to the hub of the agency, separated from the reception simply by tall wadded doors!

The second meaningful gesture, the agency’s specific digital sensibility is entirely embodied by the meeting room, transformed into a creative cavern with walls totally produced from paper fibres, “It has literally sucked up and recycled the available paper in the agency, an archaic and useless support that JWT France eventually envisages totally eliminating.’ Providing excellent soundproofing, usually used for thermal insulating in organic buildings, the final execution sublimates the irregular exterior surface, a shell whose spray projected neo-archaism contrasts with the milky and luminous purity of the internal shell: pure James Bond genius where the most unobtrusive rock hides Dr No’s ultra technical trace.

Close-by, another mineral projection changes agency coffee breaks, this time from the sky and much higher, a black tar meteorite now serves as a bar. A strange and visually magnetic object, a small piece of interstellar virginity, this anti-design mass welcomes visitors for an onward journey towards creative horizons to be built. A place for fruit, objects or simply for leaning on or putting down coffee cups.

The lobby navigates alternatively between geometrical and unruly lines like these megabit landscapes in the form of seating, immediately counter-balanced by an effusion of plants, cascading from the ceiling that will prompt music when gently brushed against, inaugurating the plant mixing! A plant juke box developed with the artist group Scenocosme and whose play-list is updated by the creative members of the agency.

Linking digital rigour and the plant boom, between technology and the very human enthusiasm which transpires in each intervention of the building with the omnipresence of the Andrea air filter, a small harmless piece of equipment whose decorative plant becomes a resource dedicated to the lungs of the collaborators: probably the agency with the purest air in Paris!

JWT agency by Mathieu Lehanneur in collaboration with the architect Ana Moussinet.

Thanks to Anne Doizy, Managing Director JWT Paris, Frédéric Winckler and Claude Chaffiotte, chairmen at JWT Paris.

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Grotto by Callum Morton	Trufa by Anton García-Abril	My Caravan Studio by Paul Coudamy