If you’ve ever worked in an office (and who hasn’t?), the typical drab interior set-up will be very familiar to you.
After all, most office spaces look more or less the same, don’t they? The question is: does the architectural design inspire you to be creative and productive? Or is your place of work dull and drab, making you reluctant to go to work altogether? Some solve this problem by having a virtual workplace and then working from a stylish office at home.
An orderly, clean and tidy workspace has been proven to increase productivity, boost morale and reduce absenteeism
That much is well known. However, what about the psychological impact of the interior design of your place of work?
Looking around the globe, there are some truly visionary offices out there that lead the way in terms of doing things differently.
Let’s take a look at 7 of the most fantastic offices around the globe, ranging from money-no-object corporate HQs to smaller companies whose desire to produce creative, inspirational workspaces transcends financial limitations.
Interestingly, they all have one thing in common – their employees just love coming to work!
Ogilvy South Africa
Source: The Work Space
With around 20,000 employees and offices all over the planet, Ogilvy are one of the largest advertising agencies in the world.
Its Head Office is based in Cape Town and features a unique meeting room which can change colour at any given moment depending on the mood, the clients or the day.
Since Ogilvy are champions in branding, they believe their meeting room should live up to their reputation and leave a mark on clients who visit their premises.
The building also features one of the most striking and intricate stairwells and, for those with a sense of humour, their toilets are fitted with mouth-shaped urinals.
Quicken Loans Detroit Office
Source: Hughes Marino
Quicken Loans moved over 6,000 workers to offices in downtown Detroit to help revitalise Detroit and the city’s economy.
The company acquired 9 buildings and each one has a different look and feel, specially designed with the goal to make coming to work each day a fun and uplifting experience for the employees.
There are ping-pong tables and a replica Cavaliers basketball court, graffiti art on the walls and floors, as well as a new, meticulously maintained cafeteria with creative food stations in vibrantly coloured surroundings, offering casual comfort with sofas and armchairs that beckon employees to socialise and relax.
Pallotta Teamwork’s Office
Source: Arch20
Pallotta TeamWorks is a small US charity event company. When building their new HQ, they decided that a raw warehouse in the Atwater area of Los Angeles was the perfect location, given that they were on an extremely tight budget. Instead of opting for marble and mahogany, they used raw, exposed timbers, tents and shipping containers.
With not enough budget to include air conditioning, seven tented villages, or ‘breathing islands’ were created in the warehouse – one each for the departments of Logistics, Marketing, Creative, Event Management, Pledge area and others.
Beautiful white tents contained the air and these were anchored to the floor by shipping containers painted in bright colours. Oh, and the containers doubled up as executive offices!
Facebook’s Palo Alto Office
Source: Business Insider
Facebook’s approach to building their offices was different to say the least. They used their own software to conduct polls, asking for input from their employees on their expectations of an office.
The outcome was a great success and resulted in a vast, colourful open space, with wonderful chillout areas in which employees can skate and even do some music DJ-ing.
Comvert Office in Milan
Source: Office Snapshots
This may be the coolest solution for an office ever devised. When this alternative clothing company required space for their new Headquarters, they found an old abandoned cinema in Milan.
The place was perfect, but the room above, where the audience sat was useless, so the designers used this elevated area to build an indoor skating arena.
Soon everyone got to hear about this and it’s helped the company build their reputation not only as an alternative clothing brand but also for their contemporary workspace ideas.
Selgas Cano Architecture Office
Source: Inhabitat
The two famous Spanish architects, Lucia Cano and Jose Selgas, designed their own offices, and they’ve become one of the most sensational pieces of architecture.
They are located in the woods close to Madrid – the north side of the building is made up of a curved, transparent, acrylic ‘glass’, while the opposite side is constructed from an opaque fibre glass and a polyester sandwich fibre, which offers protection from the sunlight.
There is also a hinged opening at the ends that allows air to flow into the building.
Riot Games Offices
Riot Games is the developer and publisher of one of the world’s most popular video game ‘League of Legends’.
The company only employs gamers and, to remain true to their business, their offices are built like a games arcade, where people are constantly playing during their work hours.
Riot Games believes that their developers will do a better job if they play games! Employees here don’t work in offices, they work in wonderful playrooms!
