A Design Aesthetic to Match the Client’s Aesthetic & the City’s Heritage

Working alongside their design architect, this Global Consumer Products company selected a roomy 45,000 square feet of industrial space with high ceilings and large windows as the new home for their New York City offices. The existing architecture would allow us to use and expand their existing standards. Like the company’s product, which is sleek and minimal in design, these standards favored an industrial aesthetic, free of ornamentation and with a high-contrast palette of black and white, while honoring each local market in which they are applied.

As the City has long been romanticized for its brawny steel-framed skyscrapers, cast-iron buildings, and suspension bridges, Mancini’s design leverages architectural and material concepts including solid and void; iron and steel; and structure and suspension. These concepts formed the basis of the design, driving the interior architecture of the space throughout. Seen in every large gesture and detail, the space has a common language that translates a clear presence for the brand.

Thinking in Terms of Solid & Void

A volumetric study of this complex, multi-floor location revealed a way to put these concepts into play. We thought of each space through the addition and/or subtraction of masses and voids. The results created the opportunity to visually punctuate the space: for example, where a void is “cut” into a mass—like the way a recessed space “cuts” into the ceiling of the conference room below—the cut is marked by an abrupt change in finishes. We also took cues from the building itself, and derived the lines and grids running through space from the placement of windows, columns, and walls.

Creating a Feature Stair to Wow Employees and Guests

Our application of architectural elements carried through into the development of an interconnecting stair. The client wanted to not only create a large, all-hands space for employees, clients, and guests to gather, but one that would connect the workplace floor with the amenity floor in a seamless fashion. Early options envisions the staircase as a product of intersecting volumes. Subsequent options elaborated on the idea by suspending stair elements from above, much the same way a roadway would be hung by cables on a suspension bridge.

Designing Spaces for Employees & Guests Alike

This Global Consumer Products company standards fully embraced open planning—there are no private offices anywhere in the globe—but didn’t want a “sea” of workstations like is often found at large workplaces. So, we designed the space in neighborhoods where there would not be more than 32 workstations in a single grouping so the space won’t overwhelm anyone through visual repetition. To complement these neighborhoods, we added a mix of collaborative spaces suitable for many workstyles: lounges, whiteboard scrum areas, and booth-style open seating join standard huddle rooms and enclosed conference spaces of various sizes.

Accommodating this Global Consumer Products Company’s Executives

As client executives often travel between offices for in-person meetings with clients, a full conferencing suite was a must. One boardroom and two smaller conference rooms, flanked by a coffee bar and executive assistant touch-down space, allow distributors, industry stakeholders, and suppliers to meet in-person with clients and the Company’s people both in comfort and in style.