An architect at Gensler’s Atlanta office walks visitors through a project in development. Courtesy Gensler
For architects and interior designers, it can be challenging to find the pulse of a particular organization to leverage in a workplace design. “We can’t just go in there acting like we know the DNA,” observed architect Michael Lutz at a recent Metropolis Think Tank talk hosted by the Atlanta office of Gensler. To do so might risk damaging a company’s culture.
But if wielded sensitively, disruption—that is, to break the status quo without tearing the fabric of things—can be a positive motivator, Lutz explained. As a design director and senior associate at Gensler, he has lent his powers of delicate disruption to soda giant Coca-Cola, tech company NCR, and Fitzco, Coke’s branding firm, all of whose Atlanta headquarters were designed by Gensler.
Lutz has also spearheaded designs for the likes of Facebook and The Washington Post. His team planned the social media colossus’s one-million-square-foot campus to mimic the improvised nature of Facebook’s inception, with a “work in progress” aesthetic—plywood ceiling, concrete floors, shop lighting. For the Post, the architects devised an office layout that accentuates the bold black-and-white elements of the print news business while also knocking down walls to foster a free-flowing editorial workforce.
That doesn’t mean the trappings of a heritage brand should badger employees. At the new headquarters of NCR, formerly a cash register creator and manufacturer, you will not find a hall of cash registers, said global occupancy planning director Julian Tablada. The goal, he added, “was to be reserved and not splash [the brand] everywhere.” In the same vein, Gensler was careful to avoid design references to Coke’s marketing materials (those polar bears, for instance); moreover, office spaces are not designated according to the names of Coke’s sub-brands, such as Fanta and Sprite, which are also housed in the space.
Coke did lean on the hybrid spaces and social condensers so popular in contemporary office design. Its new HQ has focus rooms, huddle rooms, a pool table, even a coworking café. But a slyer form of disruption originally took some getting used to: The company’s modernized headquarters allotted space for an on-site medical care center. The results have been “positive,” reported Julie Seitz, Coke’s global director of workplace. “Some employees originally hesitated about using this amenity, stating, ‘Well, I don’t want the company knowing about my health situation.’” But their concerns were allayed because the medical care center is run independently by Emory Healthcare, not Coca-Cola, and the number of patient visits has exceeded expectations.