요즘 사람들이 모이면 모두들 '재미'에 대해 이야기한다. 그러나 사무실에서 근무하는 사람들이 그저 재미만 추구한다면 어떤 일이 벌어지게 될까.
아 이오와 출신의 건축회사인 IA Interior Architects은 이번 프로젝트를 의뢰한 클라이언트에게 일과 재미라는 두가지 목적을 모두 수행할 수 있다는 점을 증명했다. 3년에 걸쳐 토론토, 시카고, 뉴욕의 LinkedIn 사무실과 캘리포니아 마운틴뷰에 있는 본사까지 마무리한 IA Interior Architects는 프로젝트의 일환으로 샌 프란시스코에서 새로운 디자인을 진행하고 있다. 회사 이사회에 따르면 다양한 비조직화된 공간과 격식에 얽매이지 않는 회의실을 통한 연계들, 심지어 비디오 스튜디오까지 갖춘데다가 풍성한 오락시설을 갖춘 하이에너지 구조들로 구성되어 있다고 한다. 그러나 전문 네트워킹 웹사이트를 위한 개별 벽돌과 모르타르의 위치는 여전히 남아 있다. 관계나 장소에서부터 나온 특징들은 그래픽으로 가장 잘 설명되기도 하는데, 이러한 점에서 IA 사의 환경그래픽 디렉터인 Julie Maggos 는 불가분하면서도 필수적인 파트너로 Neil Schneider 선임연구원과 함께 2-3차원에 있어 함께 작업했다.
토
론토는 이런 점에서 딱 들어맞는 사례이다. 사무실의 위치는 비대칭의 바닥면과 둥근 모퉁이를 제외하고 시대 타워의 평균 사이즈며
LinkedIn은 25층과 26층의 일부를 임대하여 쓰고 있는데, 총 6만 평방피트에 달한다. 내부 인테리어를 하기전,
Maggos와 Schneider는 "무엇이 직원을 짜증나게 하는가?"에 대해 설문 조사를 하였다.
Maggos은
"설문조사를 통해 무엇이 그들을 즐겁게 할까? 어떻게 직원들은 주말을 보내지? 그런 것들을 상상하며 작업을 하게 되었습니다."라고
설명했다. Maggos와 Schneider은 숲이 울창한 아웃도어에서 얻을 수 있는 것 만큼이나 도시의 풍경에서도 동등한
문화를 발견하게 되었다. 벽 한쪽은 디지털로 인쇄된 자작나무 패턴으로 덮었다. 반대쪽은 호두색 넓은 판넬을 위쪽으로 붙여
캐노피처럼 만들었다. 유리문을 지나 계단 몇 개를 지나면 리셉션 데스크가 있는데 그곳에는 캐나다라는 것이 분명한 표시의 그림과
함께 백색으로 색칠된 MDF 층으로 되어있으며 이는 책상 뒤 벽의 전체를 차지하고 있다.
현지의 독창적인 디자인을 보려면, 이
곳의 카페를 가보자. 현재 토론토에서는 정점지붕연립주택이 유행하고 있는데, 이 회사의 카페에는 네 개의 포드를 결합하여 정점
지붕을 만들었고, 내부에서 먹고 회의도 할 수 있게 하였다. 주거를 비유한 디자인을 계속해서 응용하였는데, 계단의 바닥을 둘러싸고
정원으로 구성하여 피크닉 테이블과 벤치, 에탄올 벽난로 등을 설치하였다. 카페 끝에 모퉁이에는 방을 설치하여 농부의 시장에서
발견할 듯한 나무 상자들을 재치있게 배치하였다. 나무 상자의 패널에는 버터, 빵의 이름인 타르트, 감자튀김, 치즈 등의 현지 음식
이름을 인쇄하여 재미를 더했다.
reviewed by ZH,오사
Fun, fun, fun. That’s all anyone talks about anymore. What happened to actually working at the office?
For one particular client, however, IA Interior Architects has proved, over and over, that it’s possible to do both. The firm has completed LinkedIn headquarters in Mountain View, California, and offices in Toronto, Chicago, and New York and is currently designing another in San Francisco—a series that has kept IA’s Chicago-based staff on a professional fast track for the past three years. Across the board, these are high-energy settings with amenities galore, from sit-stand workstations to a multitude of unstructured spaces, encouraging connection via informal powwows, and even a video studio, since LinkedIn is producing content as well. Yet each bricks-and-mortar location for the professional networking Web site remains individual. Personality derives from ties to place, often best illustrated by graphics. So IA director of environmental graphics Julie Maggos has been an indispensable, inseparable partner to senior associate Neil Schneider, as they design simultaneously in two and three dimensions.
PROJECT NAME: Linkedin Toronto
LOCATION: Toronto
FIRM: IA Interior Architects
SQ. FT.: 60,000 SQF
RELATED PROJECTS: IHeartMedia Headquarters,
Innocean's Frankfurt Office,
Fold7,
25 Simply Amazing Concrete Interiors,
Birkenstock Headquarters
Toronto is a case in point. The office site is a downtown tower average in all ways except for the asymmetrical, rounded corners of its floor plates, and LinkedIn leased the 25th floor and part of the 26th, totaling 60,000 square feet. Before gutting the interior, Maggos and Schneider distributed a survey. “To see what makes the employees tick,” Maggos says. “What do they do for fun? How do they spend weekends? Our task was to translate that imagery.” What she and Schneider discovered was a culture equally captivated by the woodsy outdoors as by the urban landscape.
Allusions to both are therefore pervasive starting right outside the reception area, in the elevator lobby. One wall here is covered in a digitally printed birch tree pattern. Opposite, swaths of paneling veneered in walnut sweep upward to become canopies. A few steps past the glass door, in reception proper, there’s no mistaking the specific reference to Canada—a topographical map of the country, rendered in layers of white-painted MDF, occupies the entire wall behind the desk.
For locavore design, if you will, try the café. It’s intended not only for eating but also for meeting, with four conjoined pods that riff on the peaked-roof row houses prevalent in Toronto. IA’s versions boast wood-grain wall covering on their exterior and happy, primary-colored acoustical material on the interior. Each is furnished with banquettes flanking a table, diner-style, and a classic George Nelson lantern.
Continuing the residential analogy, Maggos and Schneider envisioned the area adjacent to the row houses, surrounding the base of the staircase, as their back garden. It comes complete with picnic tables and benches, an ethanol fireplace, and, standing in for boulders, gray ottomans. At the far end of the café, in a corner alcove, a wall installation offers a witty reference to the wooden crates found at farmer’s markets: Panels are printed with the names of such local delicacies as butter tart, bannock pancakes, and poutine, aka French fries slathered in cheese curd and gravy.
This level’s other main attractions are the IT genius bar, its counter open to the café, and the training room, which can be closed off with garage doors. As for the level above, a quarter of it is devoted to the lounge, essentially a gigantic game room. Alluding to nearby parks while helping to control acoustics, leaf shapes cut from green felt cover a pair of partitions that curves around to separate a more serious-minded break-out zone from the Ping-Pong and foosball tables. Entirely enclosed, nearby, are an exercise or yoga studio and a wellness room, for nursing mothers or resting.
So where, you might be wondering, does everyone settle into heads-down work? Arrayed at both sides, flanking the communal zone, are office areas, private offices, and meeting rooms small and large. The setup, with work and play interspersed throughout, is a standard LinkedIn solution, according to Schneider: “Staffers spend more time in the collaborative spaces than at their workstations. There’s a lot of layering and mixed use.”
LinkedIn’s unmistakable electric blue is also a constant presence. Note the blue upholstery on benches in the elevator lobby and on lounge chairs in reception. Next to them, an enormous blue-foam double seating niche is emblazoned, twice, with the white “in” of the company logo. Maggos and Schneider see this as the ideal backdrop for indulging in today’s most prevalent pastime, the selfie. In the café, one of the row houses is blue-lined, and stools at high tables, along the window wall, have blue bases. In the lounge, blue vinyl strips on the concrete floor recall reflections of the city’s skyscrapers on Lake Ontario.
We couldn’t help but ask the IA team members their personal opinion of LinkedIn as a job tool. Schneider doesn’t skip a beat: “We do all our recruiting though LinkedIn.” Maggos adds, “In a booming market, it’s hard to find good people.” Applicants, get your résumés in order—not to mention your professional profiles and network of connections.
from interiordesign