Sitting at work all day is bad for your health. Plenty of research says so. But how many people can pick up during the day and trek to the gym? Enter Onefootball, which has a running track smack dab in the middle of the office.
Munich-based architecture firm TKEZ has outfitted the new Berlin headquarters of Onefootball, which programs the “world’s most used” soccer app, with a green AstroTurf track. It snakes from the elevator past turfed conference rooms and open desk areas in the 15,000-square-foot office. Goal posts adorn each end of the track. Signed yellow soccer jerseys hang as decorations in green locker room-style metal cabinets along the halls, and the floor of the dining area features diagrams depicting game tactics. And since no fun office would be complete without a game table, the space also has table soccer in front of a wall displaying colorful team scarves. It’s sporty design that fuses work and play.
“The design was inspired by the movement and power of the sport and the spirit of a united team,” Eugenia Zimmerman, a founding partner of TKEZ, tells Co.Design in an email. “The running track symbolizes the dynamics and power of the game and at the same time unifies all areas and coworkers within the headquarters to form one strong team, like a soccer team.” Onefootball’s employees had a race around the track at the office’s opening event. Zimmerman says that during the work week, employees usually just walk around the track instead of running. But if they took advantage of the design–jogging a few laps in between stressful meetings, kicking a ball around during downtime–it could be an excellent solution for office job sloth. And even make workers more productive.
[h/t: Dezeen]
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