A Bold Model Office Designed to Lure Employees Back

What does the office of the future look like? Since the global upheaval of the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic, the answer to this question is, frankly, still a little fuzzy. As companies in the West grapple with return-to-office policies, employees in China are fervently back at their desks, eager to regain the social and professional benefits that office life brings. However, there’s no denying that the world of work has changed significantly, and many, particularly from younger generations, require extra motivation to come in every day.

Chinese businesses are therefore increasingly hunting for facilities that will inspire employees of all ages, provide a sense of identity and belonging, and foster new ways of working for this decade and beyond. So that’s what Ippolito Fleitz Group has presented inside the show office at Max Zone Technology Park, a new research and development campus for tech companies on the outskirts of Shanghai. Similar to a model home in a residential complex, the show office demonstrates how prospective tenants might use the space and helps them to better envision occupying it. “You’re not selling the property, you’re selling a dream, a vision,” begins Peter Ippolito, who, with Gunter Fleitz, is cofounder of IFG, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, and an Interior Design Hall of Fame member.

Explore This Show Office Designed to Spark New Workplace Visions

To entice innovative tenants, the 10,800-square-foot office needed to be bold and forward-thinking. IFG’s Shanghai team pushed and expanded the current notions of workplace to create a vibrant landscape that’s not only visually compelling but also attempts to answer our initially posed question. “We really like the word landscape, because it implies experience,” IFG project director Patrick Wu says. “It helps people meet each other, communicate, and start ideating together.”

How Behavioral Science Impacts Workplace Design

Designing for a fictional tenant, Ippolito, Wu, and team began by identifying the core functions of everyday work: concentration, communication, collaboration, and contemplation. They then assigned these functions to the office’s five levels, using each to guide the layouts and types of spaces provided. Without a real company’s predetermined visual identity to follow, the freedom to apply color in relation to the four “C”s was granted, as Wu explains: “If an area requires group meetings with more people involved, we use a warmer, energizing color. If it’s more for solitary heads-down functions, then the color is cooler.”

The studio’s “journey through how we work together,” as IFG puts it, starts, as you’d expect, in the lobby—a welcoming area that Wu describes as “an extroverted space.” A central circular orange element serves as both reception desk and seating, creating a continuous flow around its perimeter. Overhead, some 2,000 rods of varying heights form an undulating canopy across the ceiling, and a looping band of light traces the room’s circulation path from above. Also here is a standing-height surface for, say, responding quickly to an email on a laptop, as well as an introduction to the project’s ample live greenery.

Bold Hues and Spaces Designed for Chance Encounters

Rather than integrating too many tech-focused elements, which, Ippolito notes, “age quickly,” the project instead explores several ways to personalize the office experience—what IFG feels is key to driving progress. “A decade ago, the work would follow the space… Now it’s the other way around,” he continues. “I think a contemporary office follows the work.” The one of the future, it appears, will be shaped by its users.

Inside a Shanghai Model Office Designed by Ippolito Fleitz Group 

ippolito fleitz group: halil dogan; chen dong; leo luo; steven shangguan; frank wang; yu yan; aaron ye; dirk zschunke.

Ippolito Fleitz Group Fills a Shanghai Apartment With Color

When Ippolito Fleitz Group was commissioned to transform the marble-clad interior of a five-bedroom, six-bathroom model apartment in a Shanghai high-rise, the addition of color was a certainty. After all, IFG, which was cofounded in Stuttgart, Germany, by Interior Design Hall of Fame members Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz and today has additional studios in Berlin and Shanghai, is well-known for punchy interiors, whether residential or commercial. Further layered with varied textures, a fluid floor plan, and charming built-ins and architectural recesses, the 7,500-square-foot penthouse is as unique as the art collector family that quickly purchased it.

“We feel lucky to shape people’s lifestyles through design and let them live in that story,” Dogan adds. In the end, the residents—a married couple and their young son—moved their personal collection of art and heirlooms into the dedicated architectural spotlights and have begun creating their own storylines. They were so inspired by IFG’s concept that they bought the apartment turnkey—green paneled wall and all.

Inside a Colorful Model Apartment by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Tom Dixon: pendant fixtures (media room)

gabriel: navy headboard fabric (bedroom)

gt.deco: custom furniture workshop

adding plume lighting design co.: lighting designer

Biomorphic Forms Define This Restaurant by Ippolito Fleitz Group

2022 Best of Year Winner for Casual Dining

A 15th-century description of the nearby Bantang hot springs inspired the fluid shapes of this 95-seat restaurant in eastern China by Interior Design Hall of Fame members and Ippolito Fleitz co-managing partners Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz. The historical text noted that there were two separate springs, one hot and one cold, whose waters merged as they flowed down a mountain. The team conceived of a three-story plan that takes visitors on a similar route. Entering the wavy 15,000-square-foot building on the top floor, guests can take one of two paths that branch off and then converge at the dining room on the lower level. There, bands of gray or white concrete course across the floor, separating walkways and seating areas, and tropical plants surround tables. Curved niches and undulating ceilings up to 46 feet high echo the caves that are the source of the spring water. The organic forms—constructed of reinforced concrete and steel—make it an otherworldly place to dine on dishes like spring water eggs with truffles. “The space arises from the interplay of nature and culture,” Ippolito says. A floor-to-ceiling window with views of the lush surroundings reinforces the restaurant’s connection to the outdoors.

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A Look Back at 10 Best of Year Project Winners from 2021

Don’t miss out on an opportunity to submit your top products and projects for Interior Design‘s Best of Year Awards—the design industry’s premiere design awards program honoring work by designers, architects, and manufacturers around the globe—by September 7, 2022, or sooner! Early bird pricing ends August 12. To gear up for the upcoming awards, here is a look at 10 project winners from last year.

TriBeCa Apartment by Enze Architects

Winner for Small Apartment

The Londoner by Yabu Pushelberg

Winner for Boutique Hotel

Early Childhood Authority by Roar

Winner for Small Corporate Office

Valle San Nicolas by Sordo Madaleno Arquitectos

Winner for Beauty/Spa

Lunar by Sò Studio

Winner for Hospitality – Casual Dining

Bay Area Discovery Museum by Olson Kundig

Winner for Kids’ Zone

David Yurman 57th Street by Gabellini Sheppard Associates

Winner for Small Retail

Aktion Mensch Headquarters by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Winner for Social Impact

Bamboo Canopy by LLLab.

Winner for Outdoor Space

Alchemy by Studio Paolo Ferrari

Winner for Dispensary

Interested in submitting projects or products for this year’s Best of Year Awards? Get submission details here.

Ippolito Fleitz Group–Identity Architects Creates a Vibrant Coffee Bar for Gen Zers in Munich

Young and dynamic. Straightforward yet detailed. That was the atmospheric goal—and result—for Ippolito Fleitz Group–Identity Architects at New Era, a coffee bar in Munich. Situated in the city’s Schwabing district, a vibrant student-populated neighborhood, Interior Design Hall of Fame members Gunter Fleitz and Peter Ippolito and their team strove to attract the Gen Z set starting from the street. Through the storefront’s glazing, passersby can catch glimpses of the rhythmic ceiling, a geometric landscape of gray, yellow, and teal cubes, actually printed and folded Forex boxes—a solution that’s at once chic, lightweight, and budget friendly. The energy continues to the wall-color palette, a spirited mix of lavender, peach, and royal blue, the latter reappearing on the café’s upholstered lounge chairs, placed in arrangements that suggest rooms within a room. Verdant live plants and barista workshops round out the 900-square-foot café, its offerings in step with its name.

Ippolito Fleitz Group Creates an Inclusive and Accessible Office for Aktion Mensch in Bonn, Germany

2021 Best of Year Award Winner for Greater Good: Social Impact

With this headquarters, Interior Design Hall of Fame members and co-managing partners Peter Ippolito and Gunter Fleitz and team prove that an accessible workplace can be attractive and inviting. The mission of Aktion Mensch is to provide aid for projects that support people with disabilities, and to advocate for equality and inclusion in society as a whole. In fact, the nonprofit’s motto is “Together we win.” The renovation of its five-story, 46,285-square-foot office puts those values on display, neutralizing disabilities while also celebrating them. It’s a place where differences are normal. So, in addition to transitioning from closed offices to open-plan, improving acoustics, incorporating up-to-date digital technologies, the project also took into account the specific needs of the nearly 15 percent of Aktion Mensch employees who have disabilities themselves. Color plays a huge role in functionality: High-contrast hues make it easier for those with visual impairments to delineate between spaces and allow for a simpler wayfinding system for the learning impaired. Also adding liveliness is a system of modular acoustic panels that each staffer can configure for their own workstation to suit their aesthetics and level of privacy. Purposefully designed to be charmingly asymmetrical, they’re a metaphor for the organization itself. “The shapes have their own personalities,” Ippolito notes, “resembling a gathering of diverse characters, doing something great together.”

Ippolito Fleitz Group: Michael Bertram; Marlene Court; Gunter Fleitz; Pilar Huerta; Peter Ippolito; Christian Kirschenmann; Tim Lessmann; Lea Luckenbach

5 Best of Year Project Winners from 2020

Interior Design‘s Best of Year Awards submission deadline is around the corner, so be sure to enter your projects and products by September 22. To gear up for the upcoming awards, here is a look at five project winners from last year.

Wörwag Headquarters by Ippolito Fleitz Group

Conrad Washington D.C. by Herzog & de Meuron and Rottet Studio 

Maison Louis Vuitton New Bond Street by Peter Marino

Blue by Alain Ducasse Designed by Jouin Manku

Hong Kong Residence by NC Design & Architecture