The Heart of the Workplace
A central amenity space includes a casual café which serves visitors and clients throughout the day.
Project Tag: branded environments
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Phoenix Closures Headquarters
Employees and guests are immediately drawn to a collaboration space.
In the reception area, the playful feature wall comprised of round perforations and additive cap-shaped dots done in a variety of colors, is an ode to the vibrant personalities of company and project leadership. Guests will follow the feature wall around a corner into a large social space, designed to put the energy of the office front-and-center. A wide variety of furnishings in colorful textiles were carefully selected to put employees and guests at ease.
Unique environmental branding reinforces the company’s culture.
A graphic installation in the center of a breakout area is the company logo “sparking the flame of innovation”. Dimensional wood sculptures appear in multiple locations.
Welcoming spaces support both quiet reflection and informal gathering.
Soft lighting, layered textures, and comfortable seating create a welcoming atmosphere that encourages people to slow down and connect. Warm wood tones, shelving, and curated details shape a space that supports both focus and relaxation—offering a place to recharge, collaborate, or pause during the workday.
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American Red Cross Indiana Region Headquarters
Designed for Collaboration and Wellness
Flexible training rooms, a community center, teaming areas, local office spaces, and huddle spaces encapsulate the programs within the headquarters, creating an environment that promotes interaction where employees and volunteers feel energized and accommodated. Employees are not assigned desks or specific workspaces, so the design of the facility is very flexible and adaptable. Amenities include a rooftop terrace that creates a respite and wellness destination, and a coffee house that connects and creates community.
An Exterior that Reflects Both Sustainability and Place
The building is extremely sustainable, with the exterior wrapped in red brick, seamlessly blending in with the surrounding architectural aesthetic.
Natural Light and Neighborhood Views
The headquarters has large windows that welcome natural light creating a community-oriented atmosphere and providing views of the surrounding neighborhood of downtown Indianapolis.
Brand Identity Expressed Through History and Design
In addition, a key branding focal point is incorporated on the interior corridor that displays historical Red Cross artifacts, local to Indianapolis. The iconic, ARC-branded “red” is carried throughout the headquarters.
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LDI, Ltd.
Subtle Design Elements Celebrate a Rich Company Heritage
The interior design and corporate branding pay tribute to the rich heritage of the company in subtle ways such as the incorporation of the “Lacy Knot” in the pattern of a suspended ceiling and a custom conference table.
A Sculptural Staircase That Connects Floors and Company History
Additionally, the design includes a new staircase to connect their two floors of office space. The stair features custom sculptural details to pay homage to the company’s history in the corrugated paper industry and milestone dates.
Design Guided by Listening and Discovery
There are a multitude of details that the design team was able to incorporate into the final design through careful research, in-depth visioning, and interview sessions with the client.
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Allied Solutions Headquarters
A Holistically Designed Lobby Organized Around an Open Atrium and Interconnected Spaces
The holistic interior design, and seamlessly incorporated branding elements are apparent immediately upon arrival to Allied’s second floor lobby. There, employees and visitors are enveloped by Allied Solutions’ “Blue Culture” with views to an atrium with a grand staircase, an informal mid-level conference room, social gathering spaces, and a 3rd level conference room.
An Interior Shaped Through Visioning, Research, and Collaboration
By design, the activity of the office is put on display in response to feedback provided by the user groups during their visioning sessions. Research and careful dissection of information from the visioning sessions gave designers the opportunity to carefully parallel Allied Solution’s unique culture in its interior environment. The result is a unique space that embodies the company’s cultural and business aspirations.
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The Taft Center
Classic Materials and Signature Details Create a Fresh Legal Space
Designers incorporated simple forms with classic material choices, balanced by distinctive design features. These elements, coupled with the playful constellation of lights and identifiable repetition of the signature Taft forward slash, create a space that is fresh and exclusive in the legal profession.
Transparent Design Enhanced by Acoustic Precision and Iconic Graphics
Understanding the sensitivities of the business that Taft conducts, and their desire to maximize the glass within the conference rooms, the design team worked closely with CSO’s acoustician to design an all-glass system that maximizes acoustic benefits. This resulted in nearly uninterrupted walls of glass, which terminate at a back-printed glass panel that features downtown’s iconic Monument Circle.
Inviting Street‑Front Café
The café space, which is strategically located to incorporate a street-front presence, offers an inviting urban feel with a natural palette.
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Clif Bar
A Workplace Shaped by the Natural World
Biophilic Design was crucial in creating an interior and exterior that would be an invigorating and comfortable environment for workers who spend long shifts indoors. Drawing on inspiration from the native Indiana geology, the building is clad in rough limestone detailed to express horizontal strata, and utilizes shading devices which draw upon the complexity and order of natural patterns, creating a soft play of light similar to that of a deciduous woodland.
Thoughtfully Designed Interiors Balance Gathering, Retreat, and Equity
These themes of prospect and refuge continue inside, offering dynamic double-height spaces in which to host all-hands meetings, as well as intimate nooks for private rest and respite. By express intention, every single employee has the same arrival experience and amenities. Bakery staff and office workers alike are intermixed in social spaces under skylights and at critical building zones. Given prominence due to the people it serves, the employee breakroom occupies the outer portion of the second floor. It is afforded sweeping view of the outdoors, and is uniquely branded to reflect the spirit and diversity of Clif Bar’s employees.
Design Guided by Data, Research, and Proven Biophilic Strategies
CSO’s design process was enhanced through workplace research data provided by DORIS Research as well as input on biophilic design features from Terrapin Bright Green, who has developed biophilic design strategies for other Clif Bar facilities.
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MJ Insurance Corporate Headquarters
Redefining the Insurance Office Through Open, Collaborative Design
While many companies in the insurance industry build offices with high walls, MJ Insurance set out to buck norms. They moved to a highly collaborative open office environment unique to their industry. In order to support this culture-promoting design decision, the team included conference rooms, enclaves, and focus rooms of many shapes and sizes to ensure that both morale and productivity would increase in the new space.
Design and Leadership Alignment Reinforce a Balanced, Open Work Environment
Designers worked to provide the right furniture solutions to support an open work environment with a strong need for both collaboration and privacy. Company leadership showed their commitment to the design by joining the employees in open office workstations.
Translating Core Values into a Cohesive Workplace and Brand Identity
The culture at MJ Insurance centers around six core values: Passion, Leadership, Personal Development, Incremental Growth, Innovation, and Fun. These values drove the entire design – from the open office configuration to the centrally located social areas – but they are most evident in a consistent branding concept.
A Branded Art Installation That Visually Connects Leadership, Culture, and Growth
MJ’s boardroom connects to the lobby with a glass storefront, which allows a branded art installation to span the two spaces. At the far end of the conference room is a white grid with vibrant yellow plus signs at many of the intersections. That grid becomes a series of extruded white-and-yellow plus signs of various heights and sizes, suspended from the ceiling and streaming into the lobby until they end over the monumental stair. The grid represents the discipline required for leadership, personal development, and incremental growth while the shape and color of the plus signs connect to MJ’s values of passion and fun. The company instantly connected with the installation and used the concept to relaunch their national brand.
Strategic Use of Materials and Branding Adds Energy and Personality to the Space
MJ Insurance asked for an infusion of fun in their space. Sliding felt panels, a carpet pattern developed, and a unique series of branding elements did just that for this hard-working group.
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SEP Corporate Headquarters
Nature-Inspired Facade
Key architectural features, such as the random rhythm of the facade’s vertical lines, mimic the complexity, order and rhythms found in nature. This design statement allows the building to become one with the site while simultaneously establishing a strong brand presence to passing traffic on US 31.
The building stays visually tied to native landscaping.
In addition, the large ribbons of glazing provide views and capture reflections of the adjacent protected wetlands and wooded surroundings, reinforcing the connection of SEP’s “forever home” to nature.
CSO designed the project holistically, integrating the building’s design with its rolling site and context. The parking fields were strategically scaled and designed as a series of smaller areas of paving separated by stands of native plantings and grasses. This site master stroke, which mimics natural sedimentary rock outcroppings, worked with the site’s topography to minimize the visual impact of parking and to provide a creative opportunity to address storm water management.
Shaped by the Site
The gentle bend in the building’s footprint also responds to and leverages the natural features of the site by nestling the building against the woodlands and pond in order to maximize views for the building’s inhabitants.
Workstyle as Inspiration
Designers found inspiration and drew a connection between the view-accenting architecture and the company’s preferred style of work: scrum. In this method, employees will apply large numbers of post-its to walls. The shape of a post-it on a wall mimicked the shape of the building footprint, and designers used this connection to influence key design features
Biophilic Design on Display
The design team worked seamlessly from exterior to interior to further enhance the user and visitor experiences. The symbolic rhythm found on the façade was “tuned” in order to contribute in specific ways to the various interior work environments – enhancing collaborative spaces, piquing curiosity, and inspiring ingenuity. Biophilic design intentionally introduces nature into everyday spaces through calming, restorative options.
Visibility and Comfort
The biophilic concepts of prospect and refuge work together to create spaces that feel both open and secure. Prospect refers to the ability to see across a space or landscape—providing awareness, orientation, and a sense of opportunity. Refuge offers a place of enclosure or protection where one can feel sheltered and at ease. When thoughtfully balanced, these elements mirror environments humans have historically sought in nature, such as a protected spot overlooking a clearing.
SEP’s unique brand is on display throughout the design.
Upon arrival visitors will notice an artful series of back-lit metal tabs peeling from a feature wall. This artistic expression pays homage to the scrum process while serving as a subtle branding component of the design. The design team further embraced the holistic design approach by crafting one-of-a-kind furniture pieces from timbers sourced from the SEP site.
Nature + Technology
The unapologetic blend of nature and technology is evident within the new SEP headquarters. Today’s technology infuses a sense of hustle, and SEP challenged this notion by creating a space to be present within. It is a space in which to relax and find refuge. It is space in which to collaborate and nurture new ideas. It is space in which to entertain and to welcome clients and friends. It is a space that is uniquely SEP, and in their own words, it is their “Forever Home”.
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