Coca-Cola’s Headquarters Have A Refreshing New Look

Over its 131-year history, Coca-Cola has reinvented itself time and again, first as a remedy for ailments, then as a beverage, then as a marketing machine selling refreshment, youth, and happiness.

But at a time where science links sugary drinks to negative health effects like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, there is growing skepticism around its namesake product. Soda sales in the United States have plummeted, and Coke is diversifying its portfolio to include more non-soda beverages. Today, the company hopes to reinvent itself once again–this time as an innovation leader, and to do so, it has turned to its own headquarters.

Rather than rebuild a campus anew to help execute this shift, the company looked for ways to overhaul the buildings it already had. At the heart of the renovation is what Gensler and Coca-Cola call the “Mainstreet Experience,” which earned an honorable mention in Fast Company’s 2017 Innovation by Design Awards. The architects turned the ground floors of six buildings on the campus into communal space and physically linked what was formerly six “silos” into a network of buildings.

“We had a kind of a dream with this [would feel like a] really vibrant student center at a great university,” Julie C. Seitz, the Global Director of Coca-Cola’s Global Workplace team, says. “And we’ve gotten that. People are spending time with each other, having conversations they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

“We looked beyond the obvious trademarks to find inspiration in things that were more timeless and tangible,” says Michael Lutz, a senior designer in Gensler’s Atlanta office.

Since the renovation, the company has noticed that managers are now hosting more multi-day internal meetings (some with hundreds of attendees) at the campus instead of renting out space in hotels, which has reduced operating costs–and made the campus feel more effervescent.