Creating a Post-COVID workplace within a former manufacturing facility to support business growth and teams was at the project’s core. Through thoughtful planning and design, instead of creating industrial goods, the space would now be creating a memorable and immersive state-of-the-art customer destination while reinforcing the company’s core values of innovation and collaboration.
Initial ideation sessions with the client team uncovered concepts of navigation and submersion, currents and flow, motion and transitions. These concepts guided the organizational strategies and dynamic 360-technology experience of the main Immersion Center “theatre” which acts in multiple ways to be able to contribute to the innovation ecosystem as an incubator that inspires collaborative ideation, facilitate robust programming for training and education yet flexible for both work and gathering.
Entering a narrow space from a long and compromised ground level offered opportunities to curate a sense of experiential contrast, curiosity and heighten the experience of ascending toward the Immersion destination above. The Immersion Center itself is a beacon of light and energy rewarding curiosity upon arrival. By integrating an operable scrim that opens to reveal the main workplace beyond, the user experience is further lead deeper into the “working engine” of this innovation hub. A new monumental stair within the existing clerestory creates a secondary gathering place while providing spatial buffers between focus and teaming areas.
In aggregate, the full intention to once again entice people to return to a communal place of work by making this one-of-a-kind facility an experience like no other.
