Located on the fourth floor of a First Republic building on Narodni Street in Prague, the Poetizer offices are minimalist yet romantic, much like the company itself. Poetizer is the world’s largest social network for poets and poetry lovers, providing a simple platform where millions of users from 120 countries can publish their creations in plain black text against a crisp white background. The designers wanted to capture the essence of the company and its focus on environmental protection, creating spaces where employees can feel relaxed and included.

At the center of the design is a beautiful indoor greenhouse space, “a wild jungle, a mythical Eden, an area that expresses the concept of wild thinking,” as Císar explains. “Thinking that, according to Claude Lévi-Strauss, is close to our ancient ancestors and contemporary poets. He contrasted this initially intuitive and associative thinking, which he likened to a rich rainforest ecosystem, with an already domesticated, strictly rational thinking.”

Set within a larger room, the greenhouse offers space for streaming poetry readings, lounging, and brainstorming. The gabled open metal frame hosts 171 living plants with over 100 species represented, and sofas and chairs facing each other for small meetings and conversations. Between the plants, the daylight streaming in from the adjacent windows, and the deck-like flooring, six or more occupants can get a little taste of the outdoors without leaving the office.

Just outside the greenhouse is the Poetizer HQ’s main room, containing two islands of individual workstations. The desks are on wheels so users can choose to either keep them grouped together or move them away for privacy and concentration.

If employees want to get even more introspective, they can choose to enter a series of smaller study rooms, meeting rooms, and conference rooms in various sizes, all painted dramatic dark hues of green and blue. Feeling almost womb-like in contrast to the bright and open main room, these spaces get extra warmth from lots of wood, pops of red furniture, lush velvet textiles, moody lighting, and additional plants.

“Proud to design for Poetizer, the world’s biggest social network for poetry lovers and a digital publishing house,” says Císar. “The concept builds upon the focus and the minimalist identity of Poetizer. The center stage of the office is occupied by a greenhouse — the wild jungle, the mythical Eden. This boldly placed object creates a space to meet informally, to stream poetry readings, or just simply to relax. Thank you very much Lukáš Sedláček, CEO of Poetizer, for the opportunity and patience.”

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Apex Clean Energy commissioned the eight-story, 187,000-square-foot building with a focus on sustainable materials and building methods in mind. They worked with Hourigan Group developers and architectural firm William McDonough + Partners to eco-consciously build from the ground up.

“The design of the building required an imaginative and creatively challenging process. Our direction was clear: to achieve financial efficiencies that met, or even reduced, our current obligations while setting a new benchmark in terms of sustainability,” explains John Bahouth, Apex Senior Vice President of Administration. “Fortunately, our process led to a partnership with world-renowned architect Bill McDonough, who literally wrote the book on sustainable design.”

In fact, McDonough wrote a text 20 years ago outlining the “possibility of developing healthy and creatively interactive relationships between human settlements and the natural world.”

According to their website, WD+P “have been at the forefront of the ‘green’ architecture and Circular Economy movements for more than 30 years, creating pioneering architecture and many recognized flagships of sustainable design” like YouTube’s Silicon Valley headquarters and NASA’s carbon positive Sustainability Base. The company focuses on “Cradle to Cradle Design,” a philosophy that utilizes safe and healthy materials while taking its cues from the life cycles of living organisms.

McDonough’s firm used cross-laminated timber (CLT) to construct the Apex building, which not only houses all 150 of the clean energy company’s employees but also features retail space on the ground floor. That sustainably harvested wood will help the structure realize a potential carbon benefit of roughly 3,000 metric tons compared to traditional concrete and steel builds.

“It’s essentially a wood building that will last forever and can be built quickly and efficiently and replaces the carbon intensive methods for building that we’ve used for decades,” Apex Clean Energy’s President and CEO Mark Goodwin told local media outlets. Notwithstanding its wooden makeup, CLT is known for its fire-resistance properties, making it a safe choice for a building material overall.

The exterior is clad in a high-performance envelope of DensElement weather barrier, Thermafiber rigid insulation, and a rainscreen shell. A green roof terrace helps create a bio-diverse habitat complete with built-in rainwater retention systems, and the parking lot includes charging stations for electric cars.
The HQ further reduces its environmental footprint with 875 roof and canopy-mounted solar panels for a carbon-neutral energy calculation.

“A building that has over 300 kilowatts of solar power on it — what that will do is enable Apex to be net zero in this office, so we will generate as much power as we use in the building,” Goodwin adds. “What we want to do with a building like this is show how a company like ours, which works on the utility side of the economy, how we can help show an example of transitioning in other sectors.”

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Not many people outside Nvidia’s employees will ever be able to get the full experience, but CNET got an exclusive tour of the interiors that gives us a pretty good idea of what it would be like to work there. A walkway lined with trees and shaded with solar panels leads from the Endeavor to the Voyager, and just inside the entrance, you’ll see what looks like a series of jagged mountain-shaped structures inside the main envelope of the building. A stairway scales the central “mountain,” which is where employees meet up and work.

Climb to the top of that mountain, and you can gaze out at the interior landscape of seating areas covered with pergolas to shield them from the afternoon sun. White multi-level mezzanines on either side contain more conventional office spaces. Grasses, vines, and shrubs spill out of long built-in planters that cover virtually every surface of this space, including a sizable green wall. Triangular skylights overhead allow daylight to pierce the roof and keep the plants happy.

At the peak of the mountain is a faceted black structure meant to evoke the image of an abstracted volcano. Inside this “caldera” is a long live-edge wooden table for meetings. As you climb down the back, you see more seating areas, conference tables, and an amphitheater where employees watch presentations. Outside the Voyager but beneath the “trellis” (a canopy covered in solar panels), employees enjoy elevated “bird nest” areas to meet and lounge. These circular enclosures contain sculptural benches, café tables, and an open roof that floods the space with sunlight. Four acres of garden separate the Voyager from the Endeavor.

It’s an unusual design, but Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang wanted a building that gave every employee a view. All offices face outside windows, and employees can choose to work anywhere on campus, not just at stationary desks. The plans were launched well before the pandemic began, but now that the campus is complete, Nvidia sees it as a worthwhile investment. Sure, a lot of employees are choosing to work from home, but if you want to draw your employees back to the office, a gorgeous design like this one is a great way to do it.

If you haven’t seen inside the Endeavor, it’s pretty worth checking out. Architecture firm Gensler designed it around a glass-enclosed elevator core that whisks employees up from an underground parking lot and into a faceted black metal “cocoon” that forms the heart of the building. Just like the Voyager, the Endeavor features a multitude of skylights.

“We worked hard to get the right specifications of glass makeup to allow us the right quality of diffused and soft sunlight in the space,” says Hao Ko, principal and managing director at Gensler. “The final result — where the daylighting is evenly dispersed throughout and evenly experienced by everyone — is a testament to the upfront work we did in design.”

Check out the full tour of the new Voyager building over at CNET.

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Occupying one of the largest undeveloped parcels in the Washington, D.C. area, the $2.5 billion HQ2 complex will be planted with hundreds of native plants, run on 100-percent renewable electricity via solar panels and a local solar farm, and make use of high-performance glazing and built-in solar shading to reduce heating and cooling needs.

The “Helix” building was designed with biophilic principles in mind, just like Amazon’s The Spheres HQ in Seattle (both designed by NBBJ). The spiral-shaped building will be located in the northeast corner of PenPlace and feature two walkable paths of landscaped terrain spiraling up its exteriors. Inside, employees will find both formal and casual meeting spaces in a greenhouse-like environment full of planting areas and living walls.

“The exterior of the structure will feature two paths for employees to engage with colleagues in meetings or to take in views of Arlington, the Potomac River, and Washington, D.C. The Helix will also be home to an artist-in-residence program and a meeting center, and it will be open to the public and community to enjoy two days per month,” Amazon stated in a press release. “We can’t wait for everyone to see this unique and thoughtfully designed space come to life.”

The review process encouraged Amazon to add features like solar panels, bike lanes, and green space to PenPlace, including a tree-lined “green ribbon” pathway that slices through the complex. The company also agreed to contribute $30 million to an Arlington fund to subsidize preserving and building affordable housing as part of its negotiations. Arlington residents hope that additional concerns will be addressed in the future, including providing additional community resources like space for a library, but some are skeptical that the public will feel comfortable using a green space full of surveillance cameras on a corporate campus.

Amazon’s arrival comes amidst growing inequality, gentrification, and displacement in the larger D.C. region, and the 25,000 jobs it plans to add to the area could contribute to the problems rather than alleviating them. Virginia wooed the company with millions in direct cash subsidies on the condition that its new Arlington hires earn an average of $150,000 a year. Unfortunately, clusters of higher paying jobs for specific skills like technology tend to elevate the local cost of living and push out lower wage earners. Since Amazon’s HQ2 announcement, aviation giant Boeing has also announced a move to Arlington, and more companies are expected to follow.

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The opening of the Gigafactory is big news for both Austin and Tesla. The $1.1 billion dollar site has been two years in the making and will serve as the company’s new HQ, employ over 10,000 people, and be the largest cell factory in the entire world. As Musk himself boasted, the facility is so huge it “could fit 194 billion hamsters” inside. He also said that if if you put the Gigafactory on its side, “it’s taller than the Burj Khalifa.”

While Musk can be prone to hyperbolic statements that often border on the maniacal, these statements are actually not far from the truth. The Gigafactory is enormous and, true to its scale, is expected to be one of Tesla’s most productive plants. Experts predict it could eventually rival even the company’s most productive plant in Shanghai. And with its top-of-the-line Tesla manufacturing technology which includes enormous die-casting presses that have the capacity to crank out cars as fast as Musk cranks out sound bites, it’s extremely likely that the Austin plant could produce upward of 500,000 cars, according to a recent article in Barron’s.

But that’s not all the news that came out of the crazy carnival that was the Cyber Rodeo (and yes, there was a mechanical bull there, though sadly no footage of Musk riding it). Below is a breakdown of the best Tesla tidbits that came in between all the prevaricating and showmanship, including what Musk said and what it could mean for the future of Tesla:

Robotaxis may be coming your way. Musk has alluded to this in the past, and it’s entirely possible that the company pulls out a whole fleet of self-driving cars in the not-so distant future.

The Cybertruck is expected to drop in 2023. Oft-delayed and overhyped, Musk didn’t give a precise date for the anticipated Cybertruck release, though he basically said the truck would drop next year (and get ready, as it’ll probably be even smarter than you).

The arrival of the Tesla robot “Optimist.” Not a ton of details on this, but apparently it will be coming next year, and will “obviate what an economy even means,” according to Musk (don’t ask us – we don’t get it either).

Also slated for next year are the Tesla semi and Roadster, according to Musk. And whatever your feelings on him or Tesla might be, there’s no doubt that the new Gigafactory will have far reaching implications for both Tesla’s manufacturing and for the city of Austin itself.

The post Tesla Holds Cyber Rodeo to Celebrate Opening of Austin Gigafactory first appeared on Dornob.

Additionally, with the rise of the “virtual” workspace, NFTs, and other means of expanding the digital world in business, it comes as no surprise that the first office in the metaverse would be the wave of the future. And the future is now.

A first in the architectural sphere, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) has taken the leap into virtual stardom with their completion of the first office in the metaverse. Dubbed “Viceverse,” the office will serve as the new, entirely virtual HQ for Vice Media Group (VMG). Located in Decentraland’s vast, open world digital platform, VMG’s new space is the first of its kind, and an apropos addition to other virtual initiatives led by VMG’s innovation division Virtue Futures, itself an important part of the agency’s creative arm, Virtue Worldwide (known for their launch of Coca-Cola’s first NFT last year).

With so many heavy hitters involved in the project, it’s no surprise that this group of creators used their forward-thinking initiatives to imagine a workplace entirely in the metaverse – an “innovation lab” where teams can collaborate, experiment, and develop projects like new NFTs, DAOs, and the “future of the Internet.”

Recognizing that “the creative opportunities within the metaverse are hugely exciting,” Virtue Futures’ Global Executive Creative Director Morten Grubek recently expressed the agency’s desire to add their own company to the list of others they have helped navigate the metaverse, a vision “that has taken on a new reality” with the addition of BIG spearheading the architectural side of the project.

As you’d expect from the daring Danish designers, Viceverse is just as stylish as the architect’s brick and mortar buildings – a sleek and swirly composition that fits in beautifully with its pixellated surroundings. And much like an office here in the non-virtual world, Viceverse will offer employees the chance to collaborate with each other and with clients, developing new projects, experimenting with upcoming technologies, and presenting ideas through in-world communications and presentations.

As Nancy Duboc, CEO of Vice Media Group, recently stated, “Vice has always been about being inside culture…This is a new frontier filled with potential and once again, we’re proud to be pushing the boundaries.”

The post Denmark’s Bjarke Ingels Group Designs the First Office in the Metaverse first appeared on Dornob.

Sitting among a group of midcentury buildings in Midtown with views of Central Park and One World Trade Center, the new headquarters hosts 1,250 employees from the office of the commissioner and MLB Advanced Media. Studios Architecture’s managing principal architect Joshua Rider and associate Jordan Evans were tasked with adapting the building’s deep floor plates into a hierarchal, layered program that places functions that don’t require natural light, like tech rooms, multimedia screening rooms, and broadcast studios, in the center of the building. That leaves the beautifully day-lit perimeter for spaces that bring the community together.

A triple-height, stadium-like central volume called the Concourse invites employees from all the various departments to a coffee bar, with staircases leading up and down and a full-height, faceted white feature wall upon which live MLB updates, statistics, and game content can be projected. This space is full of triangular patterns abstracted from the shape of a baseball diamond. From this social hub, employees and visitors filter into open offices and flexible meeting areas, each equipped with five different types of mix-and-match workstation models to fit the needs of each department.

“The building also offered top-tier amenity opportunities critical to a headquarters of this size and stature, including terraces and a double-height auditorium now called the Ponti Pavilion,” the architects say. “But these are just the start to a rich variety of flexible gathering and entertaining spaces to support internal events as well as community initiatives, like its Youth and International programs working to broaden the appeal of baseball. A large-scale café with grab and go and food hall options sits in a unique corner of the building, allowing the seating area open to all to hover five floors above sixth avenue — with views of the bustling streets, but also a front row seat to the iconic Radio City Music Hall sign and views extending down to One World Trade and up to Central Park.”

All those oversized baseball graphics might not be subtle, but the architects incorporated baseball themes throughout the building in other, less obvious ways. Red stitching mimicking that on a baseball accents a leather-wrapped reception desk the color of a baseball glove, and seven types of ash wood on the walls and ceilings nod to the baseball bat. Plus, the more you look, the more you’ll find iterations of the diamond shape.

“The end result is a perfect embodiment of our philosophy of One Baseball,” says Pat Courtney, Chief Communications Officer of Major League Baseball. “This sport is meant for everyone, and we want each person who comes to our offices to feel a part of the game.”

The post Studios Architecture’s Major League Baseball Headquarters Embodies a Unifying New Mantra first appeared on Dornob.

Located within a historic four-story building in the center of the city, the new Maria Nila Salon is a vision in soft pastels, evoking the relaxing sensual pleasures of high-end salon services with fluid organic shapes. Giant MDF and plexiglass cut-outs in dripping shapes call to mind endlessly flowing hair products and introduce a youthful, playful, and creative feeling. The whole salon is awash in dreamy shades of lavender, mint, turquoise, pink, and peach.

ASKA wanted to give the building itself a voice in the design, as well. They chose colors and design elements that would complement original features like floors made of checkered marble and wood laid in a herringbone pattern. At the entrance, the purple plexiglass installation hanging from the ceiling frames the antique wooden door for a contrast of old and new.

The salon is designed to show off the company’s products while doubling as office space. Softly undulating product shelves are spread throughout each room, their shapes taking inspiration from natural elements like water, trees, caves, and coral reefs in a nod to Maria Nila’s nature-centric approach.

“The concept of the House of Maria Nila is to always be inviting, have an air of friendliness, and encourage a modern way of expressing beauty,” states Maria Nila. “While the townhouse Maria Nila now calls home is located in Lärkstaden, an area fully built on the design that dominated Swedish architecture in the early days of the 20th century, it’s clear that the inside speaks young-at-heart and playful.”

“With a wish to not compromise with the old soul of the house, Maria Nila asked the new and upcoming architecture firm ASKA to take on the mission to create an interior that would mirror the values of the brand: friendly, curious, and honest. A task that fitted well with the philosophy of the trio. ASKA’s belief is that styles, design expressions, and epochs will pass with time. But the essential architectural qualities, the residuals – aska in Swedish, will always remain. With the use of pastel colors, round shapes, and soft materials, ASKA has mixed the old soul of the building with the young spirit and energy of Maria Nila.”

ASKA visited the space often throughout the renovation to fine-tune certain elements as necessary, like adding their own custom acoustic panels when a particular room was found to be too noisy. They designed and crafted much of the furniture seen throughout the salon and brought in objects made by hip young creators like furniture designer Gustaf Westman and LED artists Josefin Eklund and My Zachrisson.

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Designed by the Foshan branch of the Topway Design architecture firm, the new headquarters of ZCMetal was created to highlight the versatility and beauty of metal, as well as its connection with the natural world.

“As designers, we’re living in an environment with cold reinforced concrete buildings and fast-paced lifestyles, thus we are increasingly desiring to return to nature,” explains the Foshan Topway team. “Through this project, we intended to create a free, refreshing space where visitors would feel like they’re brought to nature and liberated from fatigue and burnout. Based on the design concept of ‘naturalism,’ we tried to integrate environment with nature to create a people-centered and personalized space.”

ZCMetal itself aims to endow its products with “artistic aesthetics, natural forms, and humanistic spirit.” Those products include customized metal furniture, decorations, and art installations, all fashioned using the powerful combo of modern carving technology and traditional craftsmanship.

The entry way/exhibition hall of the new HQ is designed to “wow” visitors as it leads them through a giant curving cavern, with layers of reflective steel mimicking the weathered texture of ancient canyon walls. LED lights from above allow the surfaces to change color, from blazing reds to icy grays. The ceiling can even be programmed to appear like a shimmering blanket of stars or a veil of billowy clouds. In one bend of the cavern, a metallic seat rises organically from the polished steel floor.

“We hoped to return metal to its original state and simplicity of nature,” add the architects. “Nature nurtures mankind’s creativity, while we give back to nature with creative thinking.”

Once outside the canyon, the view opens up to a two-story high reception area, complete with a lobby bar and conversation space. The reception desk is made from delicately molded steel, with a backdrop of artistically brushed metal surrounding an oval of geometric shapes and shadows. Giant metal water droplets are suspended mid-fall above the desk.

To the right, visitors can view the spiral staircase, itself enclosed by dark walls filled with neon LED polka dots. While the initial impression is reminiscent of a disco-era dance floor, the subsequent reflections created against adjacent walls produce echoes of trees and rivers of light. Just outside the space are a series of descending drops that suggest the idea of a waterfall.

Perpetuating the water theme is the landscaped area between the stairs and the reception desk, where Topway has sculpted a splash of metallic water backlit by more frosty blue LEDs.

Overall, the ZCMetal Headquarters exudes a feeling of modern power and wonder, with a nod toward the nature that sustains today’s technology.

Founded in 2002, Topway Design began in Shanghai and has since expanded across 24 Chinese provinces and Canada. They specialize in the architectural planning and design of real estate development projects. Some of their larger undertakings include Dalian Jinzhou Greenland Center and the Taiyuan Tsinghua Science Park.

The post Foshan Topway’s Giant Metal Canyon Recreates Nature Through Technology first appeared on Dornob.

In June of 2018, McDonald’s opened a shiny new headquarters in Chicago’s lively West Loop neighborhood. Right up until its unveiling, the building resembled little more than a giant canvas covered in Big Macs. Still, it does look the the company is going back to its roots with this surprising new facility, having been based in the Windy City for nearly two decades in the middle of the 20th century. Not only will the HQ provide state-of-the-art workspaces for the company’s 2,400 employees, but it will also feature McDonald’s flagship Hamburger University.

From a design perspective, the focus here falls squarely on amenities, flexible working conditions, education, and innovation. Scott Phillips, McDonald’s Director of Corporate Real Estate, explains that the vision behind the project was “to connect work and people, foster and showcase innovation, and create a sustainable, flexible, and evolving workplace that would respond to changing needs.”

The design is a joint effort between interiors company IA Interior Architects, who were previously involved in the masterplanning of McDonald’s Oak Brook headquarters, and architects Gensler, a company renowned for its industrial approach to large-scale projects. The team knew they wanted to maximize employee collaboration from the start of the design process, making a point to allow staff members to work in every single corner of the building whenever they so felt like it. Each one of these corners marks a distinct “work neighborhood,” complete with huddle rooms, communal tables, workstations, private phone rooms, and personal lockers.

A huge, Escher-esque staircase at the center of the building further encourages interactions between staff members from different departments. The sixth floor “Work Café” is filled with stadium seating and huge floor-to-ceiling glazing that provides expansive views out over the city. All the offices are also peppered with outdoor terraces, and the ninth floor is even equipped with a wellness center to help employees stay in shape.

The concept behind this headquarters is very much in line with those found in Silicon Valley, encouraging staff to work at their own pace and in their own way while providing them with the facilities and amenities necessary to lead a balanced life at the same time. The building is also LEED certified, maintaining McDonald’s commitment to sustainability in the workplace. On top of that, all the food waste produced in the new HQ’s kitchens is composted and reused on its green roof. McDonald’s iconic heritage is also on display throughout the building in the form of mini-museums, with exhibition cabinets housing hoards of Happy Meal toys from over the years.

Of course, no McDonald’s HQ would be complete without a proper McDonald’s restaurant. This takes up the entire ground floor, featuring all of the classic menu items as well as some international meals that don’t otherwise appear on US menus. The restaurant has been dubbed an “Experience of the Future” location, and it places a heavy emphasis on the connection between the food industry and technology.

The post McDonald’s Chicago Headquarters Sets a New Benchmark for Contemporary Office Design first appeared on Dornob.

As human beings, we already feel a deep connection to nature. Biophilic office design just capitalizes on that connection to boost the health of all workers. On top of that, it also reduces heart rate, stress, bacteria levels, dust, and absenteeism. For those reasons, it seems like GSK Asia House is just the type of regional headquarters that you’d expect from a pharmaceutical company.

Employees make up the backbone of every successful company. In this case, the employees wanted a free-flowing space on a campus-like scale, despite all the recent criticism surrounding open-plan offices. The resulting building is essentially made up of one large atrium, with the main entrance topped by a six-story-high glass façade to allow natural light to shine deep into the offices. The ground floor is open to the public to encourage interaction with GSK’s Shopper Science Lab, which gathers insight about consumer preferences within the Asian market.

The project’s architects, HASSELL, wanted the office to feel like it was in a park, which is exactly why they went for a biophilic design, in which plants act as furnishings, decorations, art, and healthy additions. The building is already located in Rochester Park (which itself is located in Singapore’s One North business hub), so the greenery within feels more like a continuation than anything else. Each floor was planned out in a horseshoe shape, with 15 types of workstations, interaction spaces, meeting rooms, a gym, and a café per story. Above all else, GSK Asia House is supposed to encourage cross-functional communication and multi-level collaboration.

“In building our new regional headquarters…we aim to create a more agile, high performing, and sustainable business in Asia, with the very best talent,” said Emma Walmsley, CEO of GSK, at the new HQ’s opening in 2017.

It’s refreshing to see a company working out of a building that truly represents what they are all about. Healthcare as an industry, and pharmaceuticals in particular, can sometimes seem like such opaque worlds that consumers and patients have a hard time demystifying the reality behind them. Things like the price of drugs, the manufacturing standards of different medications, and all the different health insurances involved can leave the average person feeling intimidated. Healthcare is a business for which we are all customers, including the employees of pharmaceutical companies. GSK’s hope is that an office with a biophilic design will make for a healthier and more energetic workforce, which in turn will make for a healthier and happier consumer base in Asia.

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