West Elm’s New DUMBO HQ Is a Laboratory for the Future of Workplace Design

Today’s modern employee spends well over the typical 40 hours per week at work, a standard set decades before digital technology changed business entirely. Especially in a booming metropolis, where the workday extends into the late evening and people are attached to their computers for six hours or more, it’s important for companies to create spaces that cater to employees’ comfort and productivity levels. In short, the 21st century office needs to be a place where people want to stay.

That’s why west elm WORKSPACE, a new division of the New York-based lifestyle brand west elm, is a collaborative effort with office furniture manufacturer Inscape to change the look and feel of the modern office. They use research-driven design concepts to produce products that break the boundaries of traditional office furniture — items that make a workplace look more like home than a cubicle-clad, fluorescent-lit office designed in the 1970s.

west elm WORKSPACE tested its new line of research-driven designs in the outfitting of its new, 300-person headquarters in DUMBO. Situated on Brooklyn’s waterfront in the historic Empire Stores Warehouse — a long-lived 19th-century brick building — the team set out to effectively un-office their office.

“It’s a unique opportunity to design things and live with them,” they said. “In a way, our office is our lab, where we can see how people use and live with our products every day.”

west elm WORKSPACE partnered with VM Architecture Studio, a Manhattan firm, to transform the aged structure (it once housed roasted coffee production) and bring it into the modern working world. Knowing that today’s employees don’t necessarily like to be desk-bound all day and long for access to natural light as well as the outdoors, the design team built out flexible, personal areas around the office for their coworkers to make their own and revitalize themselves with views of the city. Their customizable spaces were influenced by west elm WORKSPACE’s three core values: well-being, residential inspiration and choice.

west elm WORKSPACE believes that the workplace should support the physical, mental and emotional health of employees by creating a holistic environment for them to relax, work hard and gain insight on projects from others when needed. VM Architecture Studio utilized the warmth of wood to merge the different spaces throughout the office and provide employees with this cozy and friendly atmosphere. west elm WORKSPACE incorporated their sectional couches and moveable side tables and stools in informal spaces set up for brief meetings and individual away-from-desk work.

The project epitomizes the company’s belief that the modern office should be a blend between a workspace and a home. By incorporating interior details that humanize meeting spaces, an office can be a place of solace and cheer as well as an environment that encourages efficiency. west elm placed swivel chairs, loveseats and coffee tables around the office for coworkers to take breaks, lounge and work quietly on their laptops. The majority of collaborative and breakout spaces resemble a giant living room.

west elm also wants the modern employee to have a choice in the way they work. Designing closed-off, as well as open spaces in a singular office, allows employees the chance to choose the amount in which they want to interact with others throughout the day. Multifunctional blended spaces make room for easy customization.

For their own office redesign, the team analyzed the areas where adaptable spaces could be built out, in effect giving employees more options. The company laid out their industrial benching system throughout the desk-centric spaces, giving workers both private spaces to customize and store their belongings. When workers want a varied physical point of view, then can easily walk to one of many deskless spaces in the office.

“By making creative use of easily neglected spaces within our layout,” the company explained, “we designed versatile breakout areas for distraction-free focus and collaborative small-group sessions to complement our open workstations and private offices.”

west elm’s massive new headquarters is a living, breathing showcase of the inspired designs behind the new WORKSPACE division. A major collaborative effort between VM Architecture Studio, Inscape and the west elm designers themselves, it’s the perfect place to test the ever-evolving trends behind workplace design and the new ways in which modern employees want to get things done.

Not only is west elm itself an incubator and thought leader in the interiors industry, with WORKSPACE it is now a company that utilizes self-reflection and accesses movement in the marketplace to iterate new designs for both the home and the working world.

Images courtesy west elm