Interiors, Workplace
Answering the call to expand their already sprawling footprint in Southern California, ZGF partnered with the confidential company to create a workplace environment designed to drive research and discovery. This global leader in medical innovation aspired to create an office centered on collaboration, wellness, and flexibility. These objectives drove the interior design of the three-story office space to produce an R&D workplace that supports the company’s product development lifecycle from ideation through production.
Southern California
211,000
November 2020
Interior design services and space planning
Collaboration spaces are a cornerstone of this modern research and development workplace, which is designed to drive scientific discovery through heads-together ideation.
Developing the next generation of high-performance laboratories requires an understanding of the most pressing challenges the world faces today: solving for the most complex biomedical mysteries while confronting the dwindling predicament of climate change.
To accommodate the company’s growing staff, the workspace adds roughly 930 workstations and 177 private offices. Formal conference rooms, informal meeting and lounge settings, a main kitchen, and smaller kitchenettes strategically placed within work areas to provide on the go hospitality, while establishing ample settings to connect, collaborate, and conversate whenever and wherever inspiration strikes.
The combination of open visibility and informal seating arrangements within work areas breaks down the massing of the expansive space, encouraging heads-together teamwork. With groups in separate divisions moving into the space, clear distinctions between team areas are created by breaking the space into neighborhoods. Defined by color, these neighborhood spaces create unique identities within each team while still maintaining a sense of togetherness. Neighborhoods on the north ends of each floor are defined by purple finishes, with the central and southern sections defined by green and blue respectively.
With 42% of the workspace’s total square footage allocated to circulation space, design strategies that encourage both vertical and horizontal movement are ubiquitous across the workplace’s three levels.
Workstations are pulled off the edge of the building to define a sunlit path, creating an indoor nature walk around the workplace perimeter. This establishes a quarter-mile long loop adjacent to double height windows, providing space for employees to get in their steps when time doesn’t allow for walks outdoors. Circulation is also facilitated by the central spine that intersects the building lengthwise to create a shortcut through the space—which is about 1.5 times the size of a football field in length. This direct route provides an option to counterbalance the scenic pathway, accommodating senses of urgency and hectic schedules. These strategies, along with three interconnected staircases—one located in each of the purple, green and blue office neighborhoods—facilitate rigorous movement throughout the workplace.
To encourage employees to walk the perimeter nature loop, thoughtfully crafted lounge spaces defined by custom wood slats and hospitality-inspired carpet are placed along the route. This creates spaces for walking meetings to turn into seated brainstorms, or to simply sit and relax.
Flexibility is integrated through a novel meeting room model that was developed to accommodate employees’ privacy and collaboration needs. Because those with office entitlements also spend a significant time traveling, individual offices are purposefully larger than the traditional size—12ft by 12 ft—so they can flex into meeting rooms when vacant. This collection of semi-shared spaces also maximizes the number of private meeting rooms adjacent to employee workstations.
Workspaces characterized by grey-toned materiality and custom lighting create a professional setting with a sense of style.
Dome-shaped, gold-tone metal light fixtures add warmth and sophistication to casual collaboration zones.
Color is further introduced in collaboration areas within each work area. Upscale carpet design, colored glass, wood slats, and hospitality-style furnishings match each neighborhood’s color scheme.
On the second floor, paths are cut through the width of the floorplate that lead to two pre-function corridors which are situated on either side of the central green neighborhood. A departure from the from the hues that characterize the neighborhoods, pre-function spaces feature red materiality. The nearby main kitchen area features booth style and informal seating arrangements and a hallway lined with additional booth seating pods branches off each side of the space to provide a quiet escape and to accommodate crowds on busy days.
Designed to accommodate waiting and collaboration between meetings in the red pre-function zone, upholstered bench seating run along the outer wall of each conference room, with three breakout zones along the corridor comprising a lounge setting, meeting table and coffee table arrangement.
Polished floors throughout pre-function areas express an industrial, yet refined aesthetic and are softened by the materiality of the upholstered benches and area carpeting.
A low voltage illuminated rope in the main kitchen adds feelings of synergy and movement. Coupled with the three-dimensional backsplash tile that is mimicked along the perforated ceiling tile, this hospitality space reflects the dynamic nature of the R&D life cycle.
