Please help me find images of the wonderful office design I saw one day ...

December 31, 2011 5:40 PM

I am looking for images/renderings of a particular kind of office 'layout' - where the design involves lots of: wood, greenery, light, 'interesting' spaces, and perhaps even multi-levels.

We are in the early (very!) stages of planning a new working environment. About twenty years ago I visited the offices/warehouse of a mail-order art supply outfit in the Seattle area (kind of a hippy-influenced place), and had the chance to see their offices (normally not seen by customers). It was an astonishingly beautiful design: everything was done in light wood, there were plants everywhere, and desks/work-spaces were on different levels, a few steps up or down, with the arrangement such that there was quiet/privacy for those who needed it, and openness/communication where appropriate. Your jaw dropped when you entered the space, and as I was taken through it - up, down, around this way and that - to reach the desk of the person I needed to talk to, my single over-riding feeling was "I want to work in a place like this!"

In trying to get a handle on just how they did it, I wrote to them recently asking if it was perhaps possible to see some snapshots, but they did not reply. Googling for generic images of similarly interesting office spaces has not turned up much at all. My immediate problem is to find a way to communicate this 'vision' to the other people working with me here, who know only standard Japanese office design, and who are looking at me like I have been smoking something ...

Can you help me find images of this kind of place?

posted by woodblock100 to technology (6 answers total)

(Also, as an 'aside' here, _none_ of the Categories in the drop-down menu seemed appropriate for this question.)
posted by woodblock100 at 5:41 PM on December 31, 2011

Maybe the lobby/atrium of the Ford Foundation building in New York (just Google Image Search Ford Foundaton Building and you'll get plenty of examples)? It's not well known or photographed much into the individual office spaces, but the lobby sounds like it could at least serve as an example.

The newer Bloomburg headquarters sounds like it might have a bit of the privacy levels that you're looking for, but not the materials. However, I think that's getting more common as designers try to engineer chance collaborations between coworkers in their office layout designs - it's a bit of a fad.

As an aside, I'm not sure how it would work in Japan, but lots of small level changes would be a nightmare to try to do in the US since every level change would have to be wheelchair accessible.
posted by LionIndex at 7:13 PM on December 31, 2011

About 1/5 of the way down this page there are some photos of an office that sounds quite similar to what you're describing. And, it's Japanese, so maybe you can pay a visit?
posted by hasna at 7:18 PM on December 31, 2011

Oxmoor House in Birmingham, AL (publishes Southern Living, Sunset, et al) built their headquarters building in a heavily wooded lot over a stream on the side of a mountain. Slideshow of pictures featured in Southern Living are here: http://huntsville.about.com/library/blsouthernlivingmagazine.htm

All on one level, but incorporates plants, massive native stone work and light woods as requested.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 3:35 AM on January 1

Something along these lines?

Keywords you'll want to use, I think, are "sustainable" and "holistic".

You probably won't get what you want without working with an interior architect who has experience with this type of commission. There are many hidden aspects to a workspace like this including environmental controls and sometimes custom office furniture, although high-end suppliers like Herman Miller probably have something that will give you the combined aspects to a degree.
posted by dhartung at 8:32 AM on January 1

Thanks for the assistance so far ... None of these links show anything like the kind of space that I saw that day long ago, but they are all grist for the mill. (I had been kind of hoping somebody who worked at that same place might be a MeFite, and would help me get some pictures!)

In the meantime - and we're a long way from construction - I'll keep collecting data, and will try to get the concept somewhat more 'firmed up' ... Thanks!
posted by woodblock100 at 3:52 PM on January 1