Living Room as Office

Menlo Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park, California, needed a refresh on their new San Francisco shared work studio in the SOMA neighborhood, asking INTERSTICE Architects to focus on flexibility and differentiation in a comprehensive interior design collaboration. With so many employees working from home and utilizing a flexible workday schedule, the office, located in a renovated warehouse, needed to portray a larger collaborative space on the upper lofted floor with a more versatile lower floor that was divisible into separate office suites. The project resulted in an open-plan lobby workspace with smaller enclosed offices that could be used for more private meetings.

 

Maximizing the Train-Car Feel

The open-plan aspect of Menlo Ventures’ two-story office in the SOMA district needed to be useable when larger teams gathered to collaborate in the same space, while simultaneously providing for closed-off conference spaces for individual client meetings. INTERSTICE’s solution was to use every space available to its maximum potential. The design of the office put an emphasis on overlap and interaction wherever possible. Even the circulation, corridors, open kitchen area, and tucked away train-car-style enclosed stations were designed for optimal use and flexibility. There are fewer than 30 personal desks in the space, instead replaced with spacious community tables, coffee table stations surrounded by couches and armchairs, and hot-station desks. 

 

 

Warmth in the Detail 

The authentic warehouse frame of the old structure produces a harmonious composition marked by high contrasting areas of crafted materials and textures. Concrete walls, warm wood furniture, and frosted glass partitions for offices contrast with the live-plant green wall at one end of the space. With plenty of natural light filtering in through the upper floor windows and skylights, INTERSTICE encouraged the client to embrace the planted element in the office. The modern warmth of the green wall adds to the desired living room feel Menlo Ventures wanted. This, paired with the new automatic skylights and sliding glass walls, are dynamic elements which, when taken all together, work to transform this multi-level workspace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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