16 Amazing Office Spaces That Will Make You Want to Stay at Work Forever
Most people need to get away from the office to take a breath and get away from it all. But these offices? You might find yourself sticking around later than usual just to take in the surroundings.
From forests under glass to working on a pirate ship, these 16 office spaces will make you forget all about watching the clock.
Google
Location: Playa Vista, California
Industry: Technology
Google recently opened up a brand new and very unusual large office in Playa Vista, California. It’s not just an office building. It’s a building within a sprawling 450,000-square-foot wooden airplane hangar. Not just any airplane hangar, either. It belonged to Howard Hughes, who built the hangar for his 200-ton airplane, the Spruce Goose, in the 1940s.
The hangar is a far cry from its original form and has been masterfully restored by ZGF Architects. It now has four floors, with each level shaped in such a way that allows for daylight on every level. There are numerous stairways, bridges and walkways, and the walk routes take a circular fashion which is “intended to increase interaction,” according to ZGF.
From certain angles, it sort of looks like a parked cruise ship.
Corus Entertainment
Location: Toronto, Canada
Industry: Media
This Canadian broadcasting company located in Toronto resides in an impressive business space. This nearly 500,000-square-foot eco-friendly office has a three-story corkscrew slide and more than 150 gathering areas.
Branded rooms have their own unique feel, like the Talk Sports Radio Station area, which has hockey rink-shaped tables. The huge building has copious amounts of break spaces — which is a good thing, since the building can comfortably allow for 1,100 employees.
Etsy
Location: Brooklyn, New York
Industry: E-commerce
When designing its headquarters in Brooklyn, Etsy took on the Living Building Challenge, where construction and design is driven by sustainability on all fronts.
Etsy contracted local artists for all of its furnishings and artwork, the building materials are all eco-friendly and the company even weighs their own trash with a target to “ultimately send zero waste to landfill.”
Oh, and the place looks awesome, too.
Inventionland
Location: Pittsburgh
Industry: Workspace provider
Inventionland is a Pittsburgh-based company that exists for inspiration: employees of other companies pay to rent some space where they can invent new products and improve on existing business strategies. Here’s a glimpse of what theme park workspaces the company offers:
* A pirate ship for high-tech products and games
* A movie-like computer lab for robotics
* A storybook themed area for children’s products
* A miniature motor speedway for automotive ideas
* A friggin’ castle, for pretty much whatever
* A sports-themed room for sports-themed products
* A cavern with waterfall for ideas that require some natural inspiration
Bahnhof
Location: Stockholm, Sweden
Industry: Technology
Bahnhof is a Swedish internet provider based 100-feet underground in Stockholm, mostly within the confines of a Cold War-era nuclear bunker.
Being so far underground may sound pretty depressing, but Bahnhof’s office is totally awe-inspiring. The data center/office space has glass walkways and walls, showcasing the blown-out portions of underground granite. Numerous water features, low-lying fog and lots of plant life liven up what used to be a dreary place.
Amazon
Location: Seattle
Industry: E-commerce and more
While Amazon’s warehouse workers get the shaft, the companies’ white collar workers are afforded an amazing workspace.
About 40,000 plants from around the world inhabit its three incredible geodesic glass domes located on its campus in Seattle, Washington. The place basically has its own climate which allows these plants to thrive symbiotically with its workers, who have multiple sitting areas that rise above the artificial jungle like a treehouse community.
Bumble
Location: Austin, Texas
Industry: Technology/Dating app
Bumble’s headquarters in Austin, Texas is all about the company name. Its female-first dating app has been popular enough to afford the company a bright yellow office space with a professional blowout room, bar and honeycomb flourishes throughout.
The Barbarian Group
Location: New York City
Industry: Advertising
The digital ad agency based in New York City has a unique piece of furniture that wraps, weaves and undulates around the entire office: a superdesk. The arches are fitted with shelving and more seating areas and create tiny walkways. The desk is 1,100-feet long and can accommodate up to 170 people.
WeWork
Location: New York City
Industry: Workspace provider
WeWork’s goal as a company is all about collaboration, and it really shows in its Manhattan headquarters.
The office has transparent workspaces all over, with tons of glass and open space to encourage people to work together by showcasing how everyone else is working together.
King
Location: Stockholm, Sweden and elsewhere
Industry: Video games
King is the company that makes addictive mobile games (most notably Candy Crush Saga). They have offices throughout the world and each one has some incredible design work going on.
Their Stockholm office is colorfully designed and has a dining area with carousel dining seats, a cartoonish library (with fireplace) and a craft room with a bright yellow pegboard wall.
Airbnb
Location: San Francisco
Industry: Technology/Hospitality
Airbnb’s San Francisco headquarters takes its influence from … well, everywhere.
Rooms feature signs naming their area of influence, like Johannesburg, Cairo, Mumbai, Sydney and Los Angeles. And there are tons of quirky touches, like a living wall, a mini trailer and a wall lined with tented working spaces.
Plus, there are no drunk tourists stumbling around.
Twitter
Location: San Francisco
Industry: Social media
The mashup between old and new in Twitter’s main office is awesome. The company is situated in a 1937 Art Deco building located in downtown San Francisco. While it still retains its original architectural charm, many areas have been updated with a woodsy theme.
There’s a kombucha bar, a game room, working booths, an exercise room and a massive common area with a wavy ceiling. The mixture of glass and wood blend together high-tech ideals with classic design.
Urban Outfitters
Location: Philadelphia
Industry: Clothing
The clothing brand Urban Outfitters has one helluva cool looking headquarters in Philadelphia. It’s built in what was an historic Navy shipyard.
Nine shipbuilding factories and a campus fitted with iron railways are now a vibrant, artfully created landscape. The inside is amazing too: tons of plant life, a glitter wall and cozy sitting areas now make up the insides of an old military campus, which still has its gritty industrial beams and chapped walls that look damned cool.
Epic Systems
Location: Verona, Wisconsin
Industry: Healthcare
Epic Systems is a healthcare software company with about $2.5 billion of revenue. As far as amazing workplaces go, they’re putting that money to good use — its headquarters in Verona, Wisconsin, is out of this world.
Its multi-campus property has a number of amazingly themed places like the wild-west building, a “deep space” auditorium, a farm-themed campus, fantasy-themed areas, a New York City subway tunnel, an Indiana Jones-themed tunnel and a crazy cool conference room treehouse.
Groupon
Location: Chicago
Industry: E-commerce/Deals
The coupon/deal giant Groupon has a pretty sweet office setup in its Chicago headquarters. The office of the money-saving enterprise features a wealth of different kind of rooms, from a dining area with UFO piloted by a cat to a rather serious-looking meeting area that resembles the war room from “Dr. Strangelove.”
There’s also a tiki bar.
Nike
Location: Beaverton, Oregon
Industry: Sporting goods
Nike spared no expense at its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike’s main campus sits on 286 acres, has over 75 buildings, a manmade lake (Lake Nike), 281 bronze statues of sports legends, an appropriate area to play just about any sport you want and numerous places to work out.