Creating a colorful and flexible floorplate for a leading change management consultancy's client-facing collaboration lab

Spanning the entire floor plate of this high-end luxury office complex in Manhattan, the design for this floor marked a bold, colorful, and dramatic shift in perception for this private financial services firm, and served as one node in their network of expanding influence in the organizational change management sector. Conceived of as a “sandbox” for ideation, creation, and as a highly visible ‘client-facing’ part of their services, this renovation blends high end hospitality, radically new technologies, and texture and materials not typically seen in the staid financial services world — to shake clients out of their own boxes of what should be expected. The floor plate is highly public, and features a communal cafe, as well as dedicated catering services, ample break out space, and 1/2 of the 34,000 SF floor plate serves as a collaborative sandbox, but can also be flexibly broken into smaller working groups — to accommodate any client, of any size, and for any need. In addition to this, ‘hoteling suites’, or temporary offices, give clients and inter-organizational departments the ability for longer contract terms, and dedicated space to help meet their project needs.

Providing an innovative, fun, technology-rich, and nourishing amenity floor for a self-professed company of ‘workaholics’

For this confidential financial services firm, the challenge was to create an amenity floor which met the needs of the firm’s 16,000 + workforce, many of whom in a questionnaire had considered themselves ‘workaholics’ in initial client surveys. This floor would also need to be highly visible, and public facing and open to client, executive, managers, and co-workers. It became clear early on, the floor would need to have a mix of both highly public areas, such as the barista counter, and cafe, to much more quiet areas, such as the meditation center, and the micro-booths, if the project was to be successful for providing for all of the firm’s constituents. This project was also unique in its goal to provide locally sourced and evolving temporary art installations along core walls, as well as local coffee vendors and their baristas, which stood the client apart from competing agencies, on a highly public floor. In addition to meeting the spatial requirements, this floor also served as a beta-testing floor in which new furniture could be tested, before being invested across the firm’s additional 35 floors.

Creating an innovative, colorful, and technologically-rich executive learning center for the 21st century

Working cross multiple departments, national and international representatives, the renovations to the executive learning and conference center for this private financial services firm needed to satiate the varied needs across the firm from an international network. The response was to create a design which both met the material, and technological needs of the client, while doing so in a range of scales to meet their varied needs. Small yet luxurious conference and meeting rooms, as well as breakout spaces, and dedicated board-room-style meeting spaces populate the floor among various amenity spaces. The design for this floor evokes more of a hotel, rather than c-suite, and was intended to do so in order to more adequately welcome often jet-lagged executives. Innovative to the client, various services are grouped at the building’s core, but feature service stations scattered throughout the floor plate to allow staff to meet the needs of the executives, while not distracting from meetings, or events.

Program
Executive Reception
Flexible Service Stations
Pantry / Servery
Executive Board Room
Conference Rooms
Breakout Space
Flexible Meeting Space
Executive Lounge

Size
34,000 GSF ( Renovation )