One Workplace in Santa Clara, California by Design Blitz

Article source: Design Blitz

The One Workplace Headquarters project was a unique opportunity for both One Workplace and for Design Blitz. One Workplace is the largest furniture dealer in Northern California and the single source for Steelcase furniture in the San Francisco Bay Area. The ambitious directive was to re-define the architectural standard not only of the company, but also of the showroom experience itself and create a bleeding edge, world-class workplace that serves both employees and customers alike. One Workplace had already shifted the industry paradigm of sales and showrooms away from a transactional experience to one of collaboration and partnership.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE BOOMERANG

• Architects: Design Blitz
• Project: One Workplace
• Location: Santa Clara, California, U.S.A
• Photography: Bruce Damonte
• Design Team: Seth Hanley, Project Architect, Melissa Wallin, Lead Designer, Chris Baumbach, Architect, Amanda Eckes  Designer
• Completion Date: May 2013
• Size: 35,000 SF

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW TO THE WORKING SHOWROOM AND BOOMERANG. THE PERFORATIONS IN THE THE POD BELOW LEFT ARE BASED ON A COMPUTER PUNCH CARD
AND TRANSLATE TO ‘TRANSFORMING THE WAY PEOPLE WORK. ONE WORKPLACE.’

This leadership position makes One Workplace a formidable client partner, and the next iteration of their corporate headquarters needed to embody this innovation and progression. No longer a static showroom, the working showroom needed to demonstrate what is possible when great minds come together within the context of a multi-disciplinary design lab.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, AFTER | NEW ENTRY TO BUILDING

Design Blitz was a natural design partner for One Workplace. As a young firm who is redefining the architectural service model through their use of client-friendly technology and open platform, they had already established a track record for creating innovative workplaces for several of Silicon Valley’s most successful technology companies including Skype, Comcast and Square. Working in partnership with One Workplace, Design Blitz realized the transformation in built form, creating a working showroom representative of One Workplace’s evolution. A collaborative process, the project brought together Design Blitz’s expertise in workplace architecture and One Workplace’s special knowledge of furniture to create a layered environment.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE SCREEN CREATES A UNIQUE SHADOW AND REFLECTION PATTERN ON THE INTERIOR OF THE BUILDING.

The project consists of 35,000 square feet of office showroom workspace with an adjacent 180,000 square foot warehouse (warehouse improvements were completed separately). In addition to the warehouse, the site also included an existing 10,000 square foot stand-alone, mid-century office building layered with many years of dated tenant improvements. The project successfully connected this building and 25,000 square feet of warehouse into the re-imagined workplace. Design Blitz’s design for the new facade and landscape improvements expand One Workplace’s space into a multi-functional indoor-outdoor environment.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE CUSTOM STEEL SCREEN GRAPHIC PAYS HOMAGE TO OAK TREES THAT WERE IN POOR HEALTH AND HAD TO BE REMOVED DURING THE PROJECT.

In addition to redefining the showroom experience, the project is also about adaptive reuse and urban regeneration. The site is located adjacent to the San Jose Airport, arterial roads and a freight train station in an industrial part of Santa Clara. The concept of transit innovation with the omnipresent planes, trains and automobiles provided significant inspiration for the design team. The city identified the specific intersection where the site is located as a gateway to the city. As such, this project not only had to serve the needs of One Workplace, but also plays a key role in the regeneration efforts of the city. The warehouse and office buildings were both in disrepair.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, NEW 20’-0” TALL WINDOWS ALONG THE FRONT FACADE BATHE THE INTERIOR WITH DAYLIGHT AND VIEWS OF PLANES TAKING OFF. THE MEGA
GRAPHIC SIGNAGE SIGNPOSTS NOT ONLY THE ONE WORKPLACE PROJECT BUT ALSO THE GATEWAY TO THE UP-AND-COMING DISTRICT IN SANTA CLARA.

After exploratory demolition, Design Blitz determined that the small office building had great bones that could be salvaged and celebrated in the new project. Given the raw nature of the existing warehouse and office building and the exploratory nature of the Design Lab work typology, it was determined that the design vernacular should avoid the pristine and instead celebrate the industrial history of the site.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW TO FRONT OF BUILDING

One Workplace is a family-owned and family-run company, with three generations having worked in the company. The family has a strong Italian heritage and it was very important to celebrate the familial and communal quality of the project. During initial conversations, concepts of the kitchen as the family hub and the dining table as key elements kept emerging. As such, Design Blitz used the kitchen as an opportunity to bring all users together and as the programmatic connection between the two buildings. Quite literally, the o!ce meets in the middle.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW TO AIRPORT AT DUSK

Upon entering the building you are immediately presented with the work-cafe. It is an area to meet and eat. Leading with this hospitality function ensures that customers and users encounter a warm and welcoming space. It was also during these initial conversations that Design Blitz began mapping both the client and user experiences through the space. These mapping diagrams created the conceptual basis for the rest of the architectural interventions.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, AFTER | VIEW TO ENTRY TO BUILDING WITH GREEN WALL, CUSTOM STEEL SCREEN AND ENTRY POD.

The mapped experiences demonstrated that both customers and users would be sent out into the space to experiences a series of carefully planned touch points and then brought back to their starting point – much like the path taken by a boomerang. The boomerang further manifested itself in the creation of the two-story stacked ‘boomerang’ in the center of the open o!ce space. The elevated conference room and observation platform allows members of the One Workplace team to quickly survey the floor and show customers how a variety of systems solutions can intermix to create a unified, flexible and layered approach to workplace layout.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE PROJECTING ENTRY AND CONFERENCE ROOM PODS REFERENCE THE ALTERNATE GRID IN THE INTERIOR OF THE PROJECT AND PROVIDE A STRONG
CONTRAST BETWEEN EXISTING AND NEW. THE WORK CAFE CAN BE SEEN TO THE LEFT.

One Workplace occupied their previous o!ce for over a decade and the new headquarters needed to last at least that long. Design Blitz planned for longevity and flexibility byproviding a raised floor system in the open o!ce for easy future furniture reconfiguration as well as by limiting color and pattern to elements that are easily interchanged as
trends change.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, A FRONT OF HOUSE CONFERENCE ROOM. THE ENTRY SCREEN FILTERS LIGHT INTO THE SPACE.

In learning more about how One Workplace engages with their clients, Design Blitz determined that environmental context is key to e”ective sales. Customers will purchase an entire space, an environment, rather than a single piece. It was crucial that the architecture supported the furniture and not the other way around. Individual spaces were designed holistically to encourage an emotional connection by the customer.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, A GARAGE DOOR WAS INSTALLED TO FURTHER CONNECT THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT TO THE EXTERIOR. THE CLIMATE IN SANTA CLARA IS
FAVORABLE MOST OF THE YEAR AND STAFF IS ABLE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OUTDOOR WORKING ENVIRONMENT.

In addition to being an innovative design, the project demonstrates strong metrics for the economics of e!ciency. One Workplace moved from a 45,000 square foot space into the new 35,000 square foot space while increasing sta” from 101 to 165. The increased e!ciency was achieved by reduction in workstation foot print and a move by the majority of the sales team to a mobile work flow where workers do not have a dedicated workstation. Mobile workers store their belongings at a centralized location and work either at a shared workstation or in the soft seating of the work cafe or alternate work areas. One Workplace is walking the walk when it comes to modern work typologies.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, AFTER | THE WORK CAFE WITH THE OWNER’S BICYCLE. THE COMPANY WAS FOUNDED BY THE CURRENT OWNER’S FATHER WHO STARTED THE
COMPANY DELIVERING OFFICE SUPPLIES VIA BICYCLE.

ABOUT DESIGN DESIGN BLITZ

Design Blitz was founded in 2009 during one of the worst recessions in history. The founders of Design Blitz, Seth Hanley (38) and Melissa Wallin (30), saw the economic decline as an opportunity to reinvent the practice of architecture using the business and project implementation philosophies of their successful peers in the technology sector. Eschewing ‘business-as-usual’ for a leaner, agile work-flow Design Blitz, flourished while other companies shuttered their doors. Design Blitz has grown into a dynamic group of creative architects and designers with eclectic backgrounds who are obsessed with creating really cool flexible environments that are fresh and innovative.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW TO THE WORK CAFE

At Design Blitz we know your space needs to uniquely reflect you, so we take the personality and culture of your organization and make it physically visible. As a full service architecture and interior design firm, we provide the complete range of architectural services required to take a project from programing through construction. Though our focus is the built environment, we are committed to total design solutions – balancing buildings, branding, and experiences.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE SECOND LEVEL OF THE BOOMERANG WITH OBSERVATION PLATFORM AND BOARD ROOM

We are collaborators. We design with and for our clients and that is also reflected in our open-o!ce environment where ideas flow freely allowing the best ideas to surface. Just as our clients are redefining their respective fields, when we built Design Blitz we chose to leave many of the ine!cient conventions of traditional practice behind by systematizing delivery, removing unnecessary management layers and leveraging technology to reduce errors, paper, and shorten the feedback loop wherever possible. By doing so we’re able to reduce our project schedules without compromising quality.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW TO THE BOOMERANG AND ALL-HANDS MEETING FORUM

We’ve also been able to reduce our physical (and environmental) footprint significantly and comfortably work with only 120SF per person as opposed to 200-300SF per person in typical architecture firms. The open model allows our team to be nimble, responsive and share ideas and solutions in a fast-paced environment. By removing the barriers to open communication and flattening the delivery process, we deliver high quality projects faster.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, VIEW THROUGH THE FLOATING PODS TO THE BOOMERANG

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, AFTER | THE FIRE DOORS WERE CLEANED AND SALVAGED INTO THE NEW PROJECT. VIEW TO THE OPEN OFFICE SHOWROOM AND DESIGN LAB
LIBRARY.

Image Courtesy © Bruce Damonte, THE SECOND LEVEL MEETING ROOM AND LOUNGE IS ANCHORED BY AN OVERSIZE PENDANT IN THE COMPANY’S SIGNATURE RED

Image Courtesy © Design Blitz

Image Courtesy © Design Blitz

Tags: California, Santa Clara

Category: Headquarters

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