Project Challenge

An office full of developers in San Francisco expanded from the first floor to the third floor of a vintage downtown building. The company had a desire to create a unique work environment — one that would help them attract the right talent.

During initial discovery with the client, they made it clear that they wanted to focus on the mission of the office – innovation. Although we cautioned that this was not necessarily an original theme as it had been used in other technology organizations as well as schools, this did not dissuade the client.

Design Approach

Research revealed that the building was originally occupied by a chocolate manufacturer. Playing off of the chocolate manufacturing process, the first concept included naming meeting rooms for pieces of machinery utilized in the making of chocolate. Schematic drawings of these machines would serve as the basis for artwork to be placed on the exterior walls of meeting rooms. These schematic drawings inspired a second concept — one more directly connected to innovation. 

Innovators/inventors throughout history were researched, with special attention to any one inventor who contributed to the field of computer science or math, as to relate that much more to the application development work going on in this office. After much research, a list of inventor names and most significant contributions was compiled and presented to the client so they could select those of greatest interest. With artwork focused on patent drawings of the inventors, we began creating the designs for each room.