The design began with a sketch by the client.
It is a plan. A sock shape that has three distinct parts: a foot, a heel and an ankle. This sketch represents the areas of software development (foot), business functions (ankle) and the common areas of shared ideas and culture (heel). The sketch represents the basis of all design decisions with success realized through the structure’s ethereal definitions of users and their pursuits.
The building is an extrusion of this parti. The form emphasizes the importance of the software developers “devs” through the inclusion of a foil that delineates where the building “becomes” theirs. The foil is literally a metallic insertion. Here, the building changes languages from an open envelope to punched openings into a cloister of private offices where the “devs” seek quiet individual process. The envelope’s divergent inclusions are evident through the fenestration, but what is common on both sides of the foil is the owner’s wish to speak to the nature of the site. The use of wood in the composition and the seemingly random (natural) rhythm of windows with wood punctuation aids the building in belonging to this place.
It is an office building…shaped like a sock.
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