The new relationship between a company, its employees and their shared connection to the physical world, otherwise known as The Office, is less about mindless management and hierarchy driven designs, and more about architectural expression of creative thinking and individual freedom.
Or so one could assume based on the physics of work and space of the following five Orange County companies.
Gone are the days of identical cubicles, lateral files and upholstered ergonomic chairs. The new place of order in business boasts ejection seats from B52 Bombers, exposed wood beam ceilings and air conditioning ducts, and game rooms with pinball machines. It’s about mechanical geometry and great textural experiences. It’s about defining a corporate culture that’s larger than life and designing space that supports organizational objectives. And it’s about accepting the end of control.
And none of it makes any sense to your average outsider.
Imagine a conference room designed to look like the bridge of the Star Trek Enterprise. Or an office building that houses a full-scale, state-of-the-art NBA basketball court. Given how much time Dick and Jane Briefcase spend at their offices—persons who need to maximize communication, interaction and creativity if they want to keep their jobs—on second thought maybe it does make sense for an employer to design a physical world where openness, energy, and positive feelings are encouraged, not stifled.
Oakley in Foothill Ranch
It’s near impossible to describe quite right the outside architecture of Oakley’s 400,000 sq. ft. office/warehouse in Foothill Ranch. Company president Colin Baden describes it as “a box with a really great hood ornament” at its entrance; a hood ornament that mixes science and sculpture and the occasional nasty explosion to form what appears to be a mechanical breath mask of unparalleled scale—formidable and intimidating.
For a company that started selling sunglasses in 1984, Oakley has quickly moved from an old-economy factory with standardized production procedures to an architectural expression of maximum individual creativity and space. The company designs and manufactures high-performance sunglasses, footwear, watches, and athletic equipment for the young and restless. It built a legacy on the aesthetics and function of science, art and technology. And the physics of work and space, and the connection between employees and the physical world, reflect the same intensity.
“We’re in a very competitive business, and to be leaders requires an aggressive, take-no-prisoners mentality,” says Baden. “There’s no bureaucracy here, no corporate layering that has a tendency to restrict a person on a mission. Our roughly 1,400 employees know their responsibilities and their mission. We’re a bold graphics company and that’s the image we want to convey internally and to the outside world.”
The lobby looks, from above, with its mechanical geometry and ejection seats from B52 bombers, like one giant bat cave. “Whacked, yet uplifting and cool, over-the-top,” says one employee.
The building also houses a 430-seat theater and a full-scale, state-of-the-art NBA basketball court.
“This is an aggressive building. You feel like a bad dude working here, and you sort of work with that attitude,” says Scott Eilertson, Oakley’s eyewear brand manager. “It definitely personifies who were are, and what we do.”
DGWB Advertising in Santa Ana
When DGWB Advertising moved its offices last year from an industrial park in Irvine to the multiethnic neighborhood of downtown Santa Ana, most of the roughly 100 employees expressed concern about the city’s reputation for gangs and crime. “We gave our employees a chance to vent,” says Jon Gothold, the company’s co-partner and creative director. “We even brought in the city’s chief of police and other officials to share the ‘real story’ behind Santa Ana. There could have been an employee backlash, but because we’re near the Artists’ Village District and because this building is just so cool, we’ve actually created a more collaborative, stimulating environment.”
The four-story building is on the National Registry of Historic Places. DGWB Advertising, Orange County’s largest independently-owned advertising agency, decided to buy and renovate the former City Hall because “it appealed to our corporate spirit of being independent thinkers,” says Gothold.
Of course, the renovation part didn’t happen overnight. Two of the four stories had been converted to executive suites with design concepts from the Brady Bunch era—bad shag carpeting and bamboo wallpaper. So the building underwent both an exterior restoration and a total reconstruction of the interior. Everything inside was stripped down to its raw materials and then sandblasted, including the concrete walls and the wood ceilings. The exposed water pipes and sprinklers and air conditioning ducts created an urban industrial look of steel, concrete and timber. Existing wrought iron grillwork on the original second floor windows was kept to embrace hints of the building’s historical past, while vibrant colors were added to show the pathways to individual departments and team rooms with names like Pompeii, Roswell, and Graceland.
“We tried to design office space that was not lavish or expensive, but conducive to an environment that fostered a creative spirit,” explains Gothold.
Gothold’s convinced that tearing down the traditional wall-to-ceiling office layout has had huge affect on employees’ morale and efficiency. “There’s so much more interaction between people, especially between departments,” he says. “This move was the best thing that could have happened to us.”
Blind Studios and Ax’s Design in Lake Forest
The physics of work and space at graphics design company Blind Studios in Lake Forest seem to revolve around employees who are “virtually” present, yet often physically elsewhere. It’s not about being tethered by your desk and chair, but by your computer and the Internet. The 1,700 sq. ft. office used to be a gutted warehouse with nothing more than white walls and a concrete floor, until owner Loni Hayes and comrade Tommy Buzbee effected a radical design of wood floors, crushed aluminum and piping.
The feel is something close to what you might call post-industrial machinery, with no closed offices. “You don’t have much privacy here, but it doesn’t matter because we’re all on the same page,” says Hayes. “In fact, communication has been enhanced.”
Blind Studios opened its doors three years ago, and handles everything from Internet graphics and print designs to trade show booths and “club stuff.” One of its most notable clients is former NBA celebrity Dennis Rodman.
“We like the post-industrial look because we like to think of ourselves as a machine that pumps out designs for everything and everyone,” says Buzbee, sporting a half-goatee and sideburns, frosted blond hair, and tribal tattoos on his back and arms. “We want the cutting-edge, modern look. It’s a great selling tool because there’s not much selling that needs to take place, once you’ve walked into our offices.”
The same type of post-industrial look can be found up the street at Ax’s, a company that designs beauty industry equipment, salon stations and chairs, commercial and corporate interiors, and trade show exhibits. And like Blind Studios, there are no doors anywhere in the 15,000 sq. ft building, except in this case for the front door and the one leading from the kitchen to the warehouse.
“We tried to create office space where our employees could feel good about themselves,” says owner Sorin Purcario, whose desk is made of two ¼-inch sheets of plexiglass on a bright yellow aluminum base with two sides that resemble airplane wings. “We also need to constantly ‘wow’ our clients and let them know we’re not your typical cabinet shop.”
Clients that include hair-service company Fantastic Sams and internationally acclaimed hair stylist Jose Eber. And just to keep it interesting for the Ax’s 18 employees, the office interior is redesigned at the end of every year “just so it doesn’t get stale or boring,” says Purcario.
JMP Creative in Santa Ana
While most CEOs would argue it’s wildly unrealistic to think creative office space alone will foster enough creativity and independent thinking to achieve all organization objectives, one Orange County businessman thinks otherwise. “If we’re about ideas and creativity, if we can create results that go beyond traditional thinking, then we should also be able to work in an environment that goes beyond traditional thinking,” says Jim McCafferty, owner of JMP Creative in a nondescript building of Santa Ana.
McCafferty is a believer in cognitive ergonomics—the relationship between your physical environment and your ability to think. Cognitive ergonomic assumes that your physical setting affects your ability to think, to be creative, and to make connections. “Fun ideas are attained through an inventive working environment that enables our team to avoid cookie-cutter thinking,” he says.
His “team” consists of roughly 34 artists, inventors and marketing professionals who design new toys, technologies and premium items, and develop and execute guerilla marketing and media/licensing ventures. A partial client lists includes Universal Studios, Pepsi, Chevron, Ocean Spray, Kodak, and DreamWorks Pictures.
As with Oakley’s “hood ornament,” it’s also near impossible to describe quite right the interior of JMP Creative. A cross between Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom, The Mysterious Island of Captain Nemo, and Planet Hollywood. There’s a toy room with walls upon walls of the “coolest toys ever collected under one roof” and a game room with pinball machines for “stress release,” says McCafferty.
It’s a far journey from the 800 sq. ft. office space he once rented near a railroad track.
“It’s an environment for a child,” says lead designer Kurt Kress. “As soon as I walked in here a little more than eight years ago, I said to myself, ‘I’m home.’ You get to be a kid in this environment. It’s okay to be goofy and to stop thinking like an adult, and start thinking like a kid again. It’s a creative environment with a lot of freedom and range, which pushes you to go even further in your thinking.”
Of course, the downside is that it’s one monster distraction for employees who are trying to produce. “I’m less worried about distractions than I am about becoming stale or uninspiring,” says McCafferty. “These are significant costs, but they’re proportionate to the creative ideas we generate.”
