A Standout Gym Entices Employees Back to This Los Angeles Office

Design a post-pandemic workplace. That was architect Kristi Paulson’s first assignment for a confidential client when she landed at Behnisch Architekten. Fortunately for the client—and Behnisch—Paulson had already worked for the firm, when it had a previous L.A. studio from 1999 to 2011 (she was there from 2007 to 2011 as project partner). After a seven-year run at ZGF, she’s returned as partner-in-charge, her duties, in addition to designing the aforementioned workplace, also encompassing putting together a team and heading up the new L.A. operation with majority ownership—making the studio a woman-owned business.

The endeavor also marks Paulson’s first copiloting expedition with her husband, Behnisch director Daniel Poei. Further worth noting is when the client’s workplace project began: January 2020. Talk about timing. The confluence of the COVID-19 shutdown, working remotely, and a tight schedule from the client conveyed an unprecedented urgency. It meant two years of quasi 24/7 dedication. “We lived and breathed this project,” Paulson recalls. Fortunately again, the couple’s commitment and joint four decades of design experience is clearly evident in the end result: a bright four-story office that focuses on employee connectivity to each other and nature.

Design Considerations for This Post-Pandemic Workplace Centered on Collaboration and Wellness

The process began with the client introducing Paulson and Poei to its 110,000-square-foot “developer box,” Paulson notes, with a central elevator lobby. “Luckily, the owner opened the door for us to communicate directly with the sub-contractors, not just the contractors,” Poei says. “So we could get to the right people and figure things out.”

For the client’s small, low-density workforce valuing connection and operating on egalitarian premises, the Behnisch team’s first step entailed translating said connection to physical reality. Irregular cuts piercing three of the floor plates were means to that end, while simultaneously creating “an eccentrically shaped atrium on either side of the elevator lobby,” Paulson says. The resulting new territory sports “a diversity of spatial environments and visual connections between levels.” Moving up and down between them was crucial to collaborative success. She and Poei provided plenty of stunning options—make that eight of them. Four cantilevered, hairpin-turn staircases, a pair for each of the two atriums, connect the upper three levels, designated as office areas. Beyond, four spiral staircases, counter­acting the building’s rectangularity and its orthogonal layout, are two-story connectors. All are similarly constructed of matte black–painted steel cladding and white oak veneer for risers, treads, and inner balustrade paneling.

The Office Gym Features a 15-Foot-High Climbing Wall

As striking as the stairs are, there’s another showstopper standing front and center on the ground floor. A 10,000-square- foot gym adjoining reception is fully out in the open, not secreted away as is often the case. Outfitted with weight and cardio apparatus, it offers a plethora of choices for staffers. But their real challenge comes at the 15-foot-high bouldering wall, conceived to wrap around and conceal some of the existing building core elements. “Many of the buildings Behnisch designs worldwide have ground-floor amenities for connectivity. We think globally and share knowledge,” Paulson says, referring to projects by the firm’s other offices in Boston, Stuttgart, Munich, and Weimar. “Here, the client even provides its employees with free bouldering shoes.”

The Space Nods to Company Values With Custom Art Pieces 

Given Behnisch’s global reach, Paulson’s art program for the client, themed to geography, was a natural—literally and figuratively. Six continents, mapped out as massive oak wall sculptures, unfold two per floor across the office levels. Antarctica, the seventh, is on the ground floor. Meanwhile, conference rooms are named after rivers, like the Amazon, signifying movement and the flow of discussion, with cut-vinyl graphics for signage. The earthy theme continues with open lounge areas named after lakes to connote serenity. Which is, after all, an important vibe when venturing back to the office.

behnisch architekten: tony gonzalez; vera tian; laura fox; erik hegre; apurva ravi; victoria oakes

ockert und partner: graphics consultant

loisos + ubbelohde: lighting consultant

spmdesign: art consultant

john a. martin and associates: structural engineer

acco engineered systems: mechanical, plumbing contractor

morrow meadows: electrical contractor

spooner’s woodworks: millwork

washington iron works: metalwork

dpr construction: general contractor

diamond perforated metals: staircase panels (atrium)

california sheet metal: staircase soffits

Dinesen: wood flooring

stone source: stone flooring

Gubi: coffee tables (break-out areas, atrium)

knoll: chairs (break-out areas, lounge)

caesarstone: sectional tabletops (break-out areas)

spinneybeck: sectional leather

unisource solutions: custom sectionals (break-out areas, gym), parson’s table (meeting area), coffee table (lounge), benches (gym), table (conference room)

krc rock: custom rock bed (lounge)

sistemalux: pendant fixtures

Arup: Consultant for Fire/Life Safety, Acoustics and Audio Visual

blå station: chairs (lounge), sectionals (conference room), sofas (break-out area)

sorensen: chair upholstery (lounge), sectional upholstery (conference room)

Fritz Hansen: chairs (atrium)

walltopia: climbing wall panels (gym)

climbmat: mat

beta-calco: spotlights

mondo: floor­ing

carl hansen & søn: chairs (break-out area)

kvadrat: sofa fabric

leland: stools (meeting area, cafeteria)

eureka: pendant fixtures

daltile: wall tile (cafeteria)

concrete collaborative: flooring

Dupont: tabletop material

west coast industries: table bases

flor: carpet tile

Maharam: wall panels

conwed: wall system

schüco: glazing system

vibia: flush-mount fixtures

lumenpulse: downlights

CertainTeed: suspend ceiling grids

assa abloy: door pulls

guardian glass: glass

vista point: paint

HOK Creates a Streamlined Office for a Freight Rail Operator in Atlanta

Transportation company Norfolk Southern Corporation traces its history back to 1827. But today it’s firmly rooted in the 21st century. Its subsidiary, Norfolk Southern Railway Company, which oversees 19,000 miles of train tracks across 22 states, relies on technology to ensure safety, move goods efficiently, and reduce fuel emissions. But to be innovative and nimble—and attract top coders and engineers—NS needed to consolidate into a state-of-the-art headquarters. For decades, the corporation was based in Norfolk, Virginia, but its operations and technology teams were in Atlanta. In 2018, NS decided to bring everyone together, and HOK won the bid for the interiors of a new 750,000-square-foot complex in Midtown Atlanta’s Tech Square.

“The client didn’t want this to be treated like a train museum,” HOK firm-wide director of interiors Tom Polucci begins. “The existing buildings had beautiful models of locomotives, but NS said, ‘No, we’re more sophisticated than that.’” Betsy Nurse, HOK Atlanta’s director of interiors, adds: “Norfolk Southern sees itself as a tech company, not a railroad company.” The client envisioned a timeless concept where track workers and administrators alike would feel at home, with ample flex spaces to help the 3,000 on-site employees meet and collaborate. Robust amenities—fitness center, food hall, game room, childcare center—would help the company compete for talent against the likes of Google.

With architecture by Pickard Chilton, the ground-up headquarters is composed of two office towers (10 and 17 stories tall) joined by a five-story podium, which houses the lobby, amenities, and parking. HOK was at the table from the beginning and helped shape some of the architectural solutions, especially in the podium. The parking deck constrained the volume that would become the lobby, which could have been one to three stories high. “We studied different options and how the floors wove together,” Polucci says. The team landed on a 32-foot-high lobby that’s open to loungelike collaboration zones on the second floor and creates energy and buzz. This gave HOK the opportunity to create a monumental circular stair, the defining element of the interior.

The firm conceived of the stair as an iconic sculpture that would make the headquarters unique. Its ribbon of Corian-clad steel twists from the ground floor to the fourth, but the white-oak treads only begin on level two. In the lobby—detached from the stairs for security reasons—the Corian curls to wrap the reception desk. “Our goal was a pure form,” Polucci says. “The ribbon is consistent all the way up; it doesn’t flatten out at each floor.”

The stair grew out of the idea of movement, the guiding theme of the project. “Norfolk Southern was looking to celebrate the idea of motion in subtle, special ways,” Polucci notes. Outside the building’s entrance, a site-specific sculpture evokes tunnels and curved tracks in weathering steel. Nurse points out that the artwork is right outside the lobby, where you can see its relationship to the stair: “One is super refined, the other is raw.”

Artwork populates the interior, as well. In the ground-floor café, which is open to the public, there’s a 19-foot-high mural by HOK’s Experience Design team of a train on a track under a golden moon. Nearby, a painting by local artist María Korol hangs at the end of the main elevator lobby.

On the fourth floor, the stair terminates in front of the network operations center, which is like an air-traffic control room for trains. “From a visitor experience, it tells a story, because you land at the heart of the facility,” Nurse says. The room vividly channels the concept of motion with angular pendant fixtures and 2,000 feet of recessed LED strips that streak across the ceiling and down the walls. The center, which operates 24/7, also glows with blue lighting chosen to be soft on the eyes of dispatchers staring at screens all day.

Employees come together in the fifth-floor canteen that doubles as an all-hands meeting space. Designed like a food hall with six different vendors, it sits between two outdoor terraces; one has a retractable glass wall so the spaces can flow together. Totaling 55,000 square feet, the outdoor areas include another terrace by the gym on the floor below, where employees can do laps on circular walking paths. “Movement is also important to Norfolk Southern from a health and wellness perspective,” Nurse states. Glass-walled stairs in both towers further encourage physical activity.

While the array of amenities might seem like a post-pandemic bid to lure workers back to the office, the program had already been in place. The headquarters was mid-construction in March 2020, and Norfolk Southern stuck to the plan—even keeping a permanent desk for each employee. “That was a key tenant from the beginning,” Annie Adams, Norfolk Southern’s chief transformation officer, says. “It was important that everyone have a space to call their own.” The company, which had a phased move-in that began last fall and was completed in April, had always planned on accommodating hybrid work; meeting rooms are wired to connect remote participants seamlessly. Adams estimates that the headquarters is typically at 80 percent capacity. For her, the project’s success goes well beyond its anticipation of flexible work schedules. “The design reflects who we are and where we’re going,” she says. The future of freight rail, it seems, is right on track.

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HOK: danielle schmitt; kay sargent; diana stanisic; vivien chen; richard saunders; weronika cichosz; francesca meola; crystal latham; valerie roosma; irina sai; erin ezell; emily payne; bethany foss; claire pellettiere; matt mcinerney

HKS: architect of record

OJB: landscape consultant

HOK Experience Design: custom graphics

one lux studio: lighting con­sultant

uzun + case: structural engineer

integral consulting: mep

onsite woodwork corporation: custom fabrication workshop

hitt: general contractor

masland carpets: rug (lobby)

hbf: sofa (lobby), chairs (café)

luum: sofa upholstery (lobby), chair fabric (lounge)

shaw contract: lvt (break room); rugs (break room, lounge), carpet tile (daycare)

Courtesy of Davis Furniture: tables (break room)

jamie stern design: custom banquettes

pollack: banquette upholstery

mortensen woodwork: custom screens (lounge)

curry sawmill co.: custom table

Andreu World: chairs (lounge, café)

Holly Hunt: chair (reception)

art & associates: custom light fixtures (gym entry), custom wallcovering (gym)

wolf-gordon: wallcovering (gym entry)

Bentley Mills: carpet tile (conference center)

russ bassett: workstation (operations center)

lambert & fils: pendant fixtures (café)

nydree floor­ing: floor tile (canteen)

martin brattrud: tables

sandler seating: stools

ton: chairs

nanawall: folding glass wall

atomic 50: ceiling panels (game room)

flor: carpet tile

CB2: ceiling fixtures

hightower: red chairs

ofs: ping pong table

big ass fans: fans (gym)

pliteq: floor tile

flos: track fixtures (daycare)

ef contract: lvt

Dupont: corian

basaltite: stone flooring

kährs: wood flooring

axis lighting; genled brands; hubbell; led linear; 3g lighting; usai lighting: lighting

decoustics; ritz acoustics; usg: acoustical ceilings

benjamin moore & co.: paint