From re-purposed cinemas and underground bunkers to cardboard offices and shipping container villages, here are some of the most innovative offices in the world.
Pallotta TeamWorks
Pallotta Teamworks, a charity event production company, operates from a shipping container village built within a large warehouse in Los Angeles. To make the office more energy-efficient, the warehouse is fitted with skylights to reduce the need for artificial lighting, and the containers are topped with white tents to create “breathing islands”, to reduce air-conditioning requirements.
Macquarie Bank
This Australian financial services company’s Sydney office is centred around a ten-story, light-filled atrium, with 26 meeting pods and numerous adaptable work-zones branching off of this central space. A large interior staircase links the various office “neighbourhoods” – each of which houses 100 employees.
RDM Innovation Dock
This former shipyard machine room in Rotterdam Harbour is a rentable space, used mostly by schools and small businesses for educational purposes. During renovations, a second level was added within the original space. The 1 000 square-metre upper level is permanently held in mid-air by a crane.
Selgas Cano Architecture
via HiConsumption
The office of this architecture firm in Madrid, Spain, is a clean and minimalistic tunnel-like space located within a wood. The long and narrow office’s south-facing wall is built from fibreglass to block direct sunlight, while the north-facing wall is transparent acrylic, providing an unobstructed view of the natural surroundings.
Pionen White Mountains
Pionen White Mountains is a data centre located 30 metres below the granite rocks of the Vita Berg Park in Stockholm, Sweden. Formerly an anti-bomb bunker, this 1 200 square-metre space now includes a glass walkway and a circular glass office, both suspended from the ceiling within the main chamber.
Grupo Gallegos
This advertising agency’s offices are built in the shell of an old movie theatre. The re-purposed building is located across the road from the Huntington Beach Pier in Huntington, California, so the design team brought some of the California sunshine inside by painting statement walls with bright colours and hanging umbrellas from the ceiling.
Kickstarter
Almost all of the construction materials, fittings and furniture in Kickstarter’s New York headquarters are reclaimed or recycled. The company’s eco-friendly offices are also designed to be energy-efficient, with an open-air courtyard, which allows natural light into the building, and gardens planted throughout the building to reduce the need for air-conditioning.
Nothing
via Assets Inhabitat
Nothing, a commercial creative agency, had its office in Amsterdam built almost entirely out of cardboard. Inspired by the company’s name, the design team went about creating “something from nothing”. Amazingly, the walls, beams, stairs, signage, tables and shelving are all constructed of cardboard.
The Box Office
via The Box Offife
This unique office block in Providence, Rhode Island, is made up of 32 up-cycled shipping containers. The brightly-coloured outdoor container block, which houses numerous small businesses, is one of the largest shipping container structures in the United States. The block is both eco-friendly and energy-efficient, using 25 percent less energy than a conventional office building of the same size.
Corus Entertainment
via Teknion
Located on a waterfront property in Toronto, Canada, Corus Quay, the headquarters of Corus Entertainment, is over 43 000 square metres in size and eight storeys high. The building, which houses 1 200 employees, features a five-storey atrium with a bio-wall, a three-storey slide and storage space for 100 bicycles.
XtraSpace Flexi Offices
XtraSpace Flexi Offices aren’t design marvels, but they are innovative, offering small business owners and professionals a cost-effective alternative to traditional office premises.
Find out more about our Flexi Offices or contact us, and we’ll be happy to assist.