Office Design

In Sid Lee's Free-Form Office, The Walls Are For Scribbles

BY Belinda Lanks | 07-19-2011 | 8:55 AM | SID LEE

It never ceases to amaze me how ostensibly innovative companies expect their employees to work in perfectly uninspiring digs. For all their “out-of-the-box” thinking, they still think it appropriate to stuff their creatives into ... READ MORE›

Tiny Details Add Up To Stunning Effect, In This Swiss Office [Slideshow]

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 06-24-2011 | 8:03 AM | ECA/OAI BUILDING

There are two things Switzerland does better than anyone else: minimalism and milk chocolate. The slick, glassy office building you see here is proof positive of the former in the town that gave the world the latter. The ECA/OAI ... READ MORE›

An Office Where The Art Highlights Communication Problems

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 06-14-2011 | 8:21 AM | ANNE-LAURE MAISON

Most of us who work in open-plan offices think there’s plenty of communication between coworkers -- too much, in fact, with every chewed banana and crunched chip and shrill phone conversation broadcast indiscriminately throughout ... READ MORE›

At Least AOL's New Offices In Palo Alto Aren't A Disaster [Slideshow]

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 06-07-2011 | 9:47 AM | STUDIO O+A

San Francisco design agency Studio O+A has sent us images of its new West Coast headquarters for AOL in Palo Alto and -- hold on to your foosball tables -- it doesn’t completely suck! We say that not because Studio O+A sucks. The ... READ MORE›

An Office Where Huge Mirrors Solve Old Problems While Reflecting The Past

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 05-09-2011 | 10:54 AM | ELDING OSCARSON

Adapting old buildings for contemporary use is one of the thorniest design problems around. Balancing the needs, both aesthetic and functional, of modern life with the labyrinthine imperatives of historic preservation can be an ... READ MORE›

With Funhouse Office, MVRDV Turns A Punishing Job Into A Joy [Slideshow]

BY Belinda Lanks | 05-04-2011 | 11:31 AM | MVRDV

MVRDV, the Rotterdam-based architectural firm responsible for such gravity-defying projects as a barn balanced on a hill, has won a much quieter commission: the conversion of a defunct Dijon Mustard “laboratory”--your guess is as ... READ MORE›

A Government Building So Beautiful You'll Forget To Hate Paying Taxes

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 04-25-2011 | 2:50 PM | OFFICE DESIGN

Most tax offices are about as charming as, well, doing your taxes. Leave it to UNStudio's Ben van Berkel -- an architect who made an NYC loft look like sculpture and a shopping mall feel like a museum -- to design a government tax ... READ MORE›

An Office That Feels Like a Mini Neighborhood

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 03-29-2011 | 10:00 AM | JENSEN & MACY ARCHITECTS

The latest in our annals of wacky, zany, golly-gee office design comes courtesy of Jensen Architects in wacky, zany, golly-gee San Francisco. Their design for the ad agency Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners West resembles a cartoon version ... READ MORE›

New JWT Office in France Channels Bond. James Bond. [Slideshow]

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 03-14-2011 | 8:54 AM | JWT

The French arm of ad giant JWT tapped quirky fellow countryman Mathieu Lehanneur to design its offices recently. The result: a cool little bunker of a place that looks like a cross between a golf course and a set from Dr. No. And we ... READ MORE›

An Office Where Everyone Gets to Be a Space Cadet [Slideshow]

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 02-24-2011 | 10:04 AM | CHRISTIAN POTTGIESSER

Here's a great way to show clients your company is otherworldly: Make your office resemble something George Jetson might've commuted to in his aerocar. With the Pons + Huot headquarters, by Parisian architect Christian ... READ MORE›

Improving Office Life With Chic Furniture That Integrates Plants

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 02-18-2011 | 2:32 PM | MODERN DESIGN

There are countless reasons why your indoor office should look more like the great outdoors. Research has shown that vegetation can purify the air, improve employee productivity, and create a natural sound barrier between you and your ... READ MORE›

Cheap Monday's New Office Is Fit for Modern Pharaohs

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 02-17-2011 | 3:24 PM | SWEDISH DESIGN

If you want to convince clients that your company is something approaching royalty, you could do worse than what Cheap Monday, a Swedish jeans brand, has done: Turn your headquarters into a modern-day Giza. The office was ... READ MORE›

Ex-Cons Transform a Factory Into a Dazzling Recycled Office [Slideshow]

BY Suzanne LaBarre | 02-10-2011 | 9:33 AM | DOEPEL STRIJKERS ARCHITECTS

Holland-based Doepel Strijkers Architects has unveiled a striking new office building in Rotterdam. We're not sure what's more interesting about it: the fact that it was designed to astonishingly exacting environmental standards or ... READ MORE›

Designers of New York's Subway Cars Turn Attention to Modern-Day Work Culture

BY Kaomi Goetz | 05-24-2010 | 8:49 AM | DESIGN

Antenna's new office system for Knoll offers ingenious flexibility--which has become all-important, as our work culture has changed.READ MORE›

Storage Towers Show Innovation in All Its Messy Glory at Stanford d.school

BY Linda Tischler | 04-30-2010 | 2:24 PM | DESIGN

Design students, who venerate the perfect objects created by their professional idols, forget that innovation is a messy, imperfect process, plagued with fits, starts, and failures. A set of storage towers, custom-created for the new ...READ MORE›

More on Stanford's New d.school Building

How We'll Work in 2025

BY Cliff Kuang | 03-31-2010 | 1:05 PM | VELDHOEN

Clive Wilkinson's new headquarters for an Australian bank represents the cutting edge of the "mobile office." READ MORE›

From Treestumps to Transformers: Dutch Laud Top Interior Design of '09

BY Cliff Kuang | 12-01-2009 | 2:38 PM | DESIGN

You know what the Dutch love almost as much as design? Design awards. Yesterday, they announced the latest: The 2009 Great Indoors awards, which selected five winners, from among over 380 entries worldwide. And the winners are...READ MORE›

Commuter-Friendly Office on Wheels Puts Bus in Business

BY Cliff Kuang | 11-25-2009 | 3:07 PM | DESIGN

Austrian designers cut the Gordian knot, in a solution to traffic nightmares.READ MORE›

The Hills Are Alive, in Google's Swiss HQ [UPDATED: New Pics]

BY Cliff Kuang | 11-04-2009 | 10:34 AM | DESIGN

There's lots of perks at Google HQ out in California, but the design itself is a snooze. Things are a lot more interesting at their just-completed engineering offices in Zurich, Switzerland. The common spaces are particularly ...READ MORE›

Design With Teeth (and Also Cavities, Fillings, and Drills)

BY Cliff Kuang | 10-26-2009 | 3:51 PM | DESIGN

Design is drilled into Japanese culture--and Japanese designers treat every object as a chance to design something superb: bento boxes, kitchen knives, filing cabinets, toothbrushes. And even, apparently, dentist's offices. Check out these surprising examples.READ MORE›