The Eye

Cool, Creative Workplaces From Around the Globe That Will Give You Office Envy

selgascano, Madrid, Spain
The self-designed subterranean offices of Selgascano, an architectural partnership between José Selgas and Lucía Cano, in downtown Madrid. “What we sought to do with this studio was quite simple,” the architects write, “to work under the trees.”

Iwan Baan

Creative industries, such as graphic design, architecture, advertising, and digital media, have added pressure to provide inspiring, statement-making workplaces. The Creative Workplace by design writer Rob Alderson features a selection of stunningly designed work environments from around the world that set a high bar for what it means to create a stimulating office tailored to specific work styles and needs.

Ricardo Bofill, Barcelona, Spain
The self-designed offices of urban design and architecture firm Ricardo Bofill are located in a former cement factory on the outskirts of Barcelona, Spain.

Lluis Carbonell

C&C Design, Guangzhou, China
The self-designed creative headquarters of C&C Design, a young design company in Guangzhou, China, located in a 1960s red brick factory whose design inspiration “comes from the tranquillity of nature.”

Ivy Photography & Production

Dogpatch Labs, Dublin, Ireland
Dogpatch Labs is a co-working space in Dublin designed by Harry Browne & Daniel Moran, located in the vaults below Dublin’s CHQ building in a redeveloped whiskey and wine store.  

James Keating

“For creative agencies and design studios, workplaces are part of their brand identities, helping to attract and retain both creative talent and commercial clients,” Alderson writes in the book’s introduction. “But there is a definite sense that there exists a direct cause and effect between the spaces people work in and their productivity, creativity and outlook.”

Visiting creative spaces is a kind of “snooping expedition,” he writes. “From the books on the shelf to the choreography of the desktop, the prints on the walls to the music, light and temperature – all of these clues feed into the key question: how does all of this help you do what you do?”

The workspaces featured in the book are as eccentric and diverse as the workplaces and locations themselves, and thankfully are not all simply riffs on the all-too-familiar 21st-century office-as-playground clichés.

“We continue to be fascinated by that triangular relationship between the creative, their work and their space, poring over the evidence to try to untangle how each factor affects the others,” Alderson writes. “Sometimes, the spaces we come across don’t look anything like we might expect.”

Barbarian Group, New York, USA

Designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects, Barbarian Group in New York City is a tech-centric creative company whose office features a “Superdesk,” 440-foot-long desk that curves around the workspace.

 

Michael Moran

Oktavilla, Stockholm, Sweden
Designed by Elding Oscarson for a team of strategists, designers, and developers, the Oktavilla offices in Stockholm are housed in an old textile manufacturing hall. It features a wall of bundled magazines that is a nod to the company’s magazine designing history that also acts as a noise absorber.

Åke E:son Lindman

ReMix Studios, Beijing, China
The ReMIX Studio based in Beijing was designed by founding partners Chen Chen, Federico Ruberto, and Nicola Saladino, who describe it as “an internal, unexpected ‘foreign body’ that integrates and absorbs all the irregularities of pre-existing structures and materials.” The “constantly varying shadows are one of its most peculiar, and hence one of our favourite features,” they say.

ReMIX Studio

Jelly Button Games, Hamutizm, Tel Aviv, Israel
Roy David Studio designed the shared offices for mobile games company Jelly Button and digital design studio Hamutzim, inspired by the “low-fi” industrial urban style of surrounding buildings nearby in southern Tel Aviv, Israel.  

Yoav Gurin

CarloBagliani, Genoa, Italy
The offices of Bagliani Ltd., an architecture and real estate development company in Genoa, Italy, designed by Sp10. “Clients and visitors are, at first glance, very surprised and a little unsettled by our office, perhaps because of its ‘total black’ appearance,” the company says, “but during the meetings, nearly everyone seems to enjoy the ‘visual silence’ and appreciates the opportunity to relax and concentrate at the same time.”

Anna Positano with Nuvola Ravera

Studio Boot, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Founders Edwin Vollebergh and Petra Janssen of Dutch graphic design Studio Boot live and work in the building, a former car repair shop designed by Piet Hein Eek and Hilberink Bosch Architecten.
 

Jean-Marc Wullschleger

Casa Rex, Sao Paolo, Brazil
The self-designed offices of design house Casa Rex in São Paulo, Brazil. They descirbe the reception area as “a room that almost looks like a demolition site,” adding that it “always makes a positive first impression.”

Rafaela Netto