Office Architecture: The Latest Architecture and News

Australian architecture firm Conrad Gargett has won an international competition to design the Misk Foundation Headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, “Misk”, announced the competition for the new headquarters, which will be located in the Prince Mohammed Bin Salman "Nonprofit City" within the Irqah neighborhood in the capital of Riyadh. The new city, spreading over 3.4 square kilometers, and launched in November 2021, seeks to empower youth and support innovation and entrepreneurship, and become a model for the development of the non-profit sector globally and an incubator for youth and volunteer groups as well as local and international non-profit institutions. One of the declared goals of the City and Misk is to transition from an oil-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.

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Powerhouse Company has revealed a new design for THIS., a new mixed-use development in Amsterdam’s North District. Overlooking the waterfront of the IJ river, the complex offers the necessary amenities for both working and living in an area close to the city center. The ensemble includes a new office building, two waterfront private sector residential buildings, and two social housing blocks containing a total of 2017 homes. A Hidden Garden, designed by Delva Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, connects the residential and office buildings, creating a space for leisure and social activities.

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Powerhouse Company has revealed the design of the new IBM Headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The architects drew inspiration from the client’s ethos to create a building that functions as a vertical city, with a large atrium conceived as the central social space and multi-tenant offices as neighborhood units. The 35,000 square meter building will house startups and scaleups in addition to the various amenities like fitness areas, restaurants, and lecture halls.

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Google’s first ground-up campus, designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group and Heatherwick Studios in collaboration with Google’s design and engineering teams, opened in Silicon Valley. The campus’ mission is to create a human-centric design for the future of Google’s workplace and set new global sustainability standards for construction and office design. The site aims to operate entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030; it integrates the most extensive geothermal pile system in North America and is net-water positive. The campus also includes 17 acres of high-value natural areas, including wet meadows, woodlands, and marsh.

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Nestled in the heart of Yuhang District, Bjarke Ingels Group’s design for the new OPPO R&D Headquarters, China’s largest smartphone company, combines aesthetics and innovative technology in a building that will be an environmental, economical, and socially sustainable hub for innovation.

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After winning an international competition at the end of 2019, UNStudio has designed the new office of international software development company JetBrains in Saint Petersburg, promoting interaction and sustainability through its architecture, and focusing on the project's three keywords: Connective, Comfortable, and Versatile. UNStudio further developed the design in 2020 and construction is expected to start later this year.

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One of our responsibilities as architects is to understand how to implement strategies into our designs that consider the people who inhabit the spaces,  our natural resource consumption, and ensuring these projects are profitable. All of this can be achieved through three main goals: Reducing our carbon footprint, creating healthy workplaces, and the design of efficient and profitable buildings.

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For technology companies, image is everything. Whether it be the latest iPhone, the newest Slack interface, or the latest Uber app update, these multimillion-dollar giants strive daily to keep the user engaged, and to keep their image young, current, and cutting edge. Invariably, this need to be noticed transcends the digital screen, and manifests in the architecture of the offices where this innovation takes place.

Across the world, from Dublin to Tel Aviv to Tokyo, the workspaces of the world's largest tech companies are redefining how offices are designed, aided by leading architects such as Foster + Partners, Snøhetta, and Gehry Partners. While our recent article on solutions for flexible home offices reflects on strategic functionality and individual expression, the 30 workspaces below dedicate themselves to collaboration and inspiration through a play on scales, color, shapes, and unexpected fixtures.

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Safdie Architects have unveiled details of their proposed corporate headquarters for Surbana Jurong in Singapore. The scheme seeks to reflect the mission of Surbana Jurong (Singapore’s leading architecture, urban design, and infrastructure firm) of characterizing Singapore as the “Garden City.” Located on a previously undeveloped site, the campus will “integrate harmoniously with its natural landscape” while also offering over 740,000 square feet of space for the firm’s 4000 employees. The scheme marks the first initiative for the Safdie Surbana Jurong joint venture, which was established in 2017 to develop innovative and iconic projects in Asia-Pacific.

The scheme manifests as a series of treehouse-like pavilions united by a central pedestrian “street,” all shaped by a careful examination of, and respect for, the site’s existing trees and unique flora. The result is a distinctive network of offices embedded within surrounding parkland, with the glazed pedestrian street interweaving interior and exterior landscapes.

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