Sometimes a company will use an office as a means to stand out from the crowd, and it’s not hard to see why. Office design can have a big impact on employee motivation, and can give visitors that vital first impression of your business, so the design of the office environment should be interesting, and of course functional.
So what are the most impressive offices out there? There are too many to list them all, and too many aspects to consider to pick just a few that are great – so let’s assume that there are two key aspects that should be judged; the break areas and the work areas.
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Zynga
If there’s one thing I love it’s a dog-friendly office environment, and Zynga definitely ticks that box. There’s a break area specifically for pet-owners to meet and give their animals some socialisation time.
And of course, for those who are little less fond of spending their break times with dogs (despite the numerous benefits this can have on your mental and physical wellbeing) there are alternative break areas, including the typical canteen style break areas for food, coffee and such, as well as more creative arcade style break areas.
Of course the break areas aren’t the only good thing about Zynga. They offer varying working environments depending on the specific needs of the job. So the game makers for example (pictured) has a lot of desk space and a very open working environment to help communication and creativity.
While the artists have a more enclosed working environment that helps concentration, while still offering open space between the team members. As you can see they are given a specifically developed work space that is well lit and designed perfectly for art use.
Being such a huge company it is no real surprise that Google have the time, money and resources to put into their office designs – resulting in a unique working environment. And of course, being such a big company with so many offices, it isn’t surprising that each of their offices give a slightly different design. Of course most offer a break room with a pool table – ideal for socialising with a colleague and getting some time away from your desk.
It is also fairly well known that Google offer some somewhat unusual sleeping opportunities for their employees. There are certain perks to this; if you allow your employees to take a nap during the day they’re more likely to be willing to do some overtime hours, and it can help to keep their productivity up. But maybe offering a napping bath tub was slightly unnecessary.
And then there’s the working environment. Similar to what we saw with Zynga, Google offer a variety of working environments to meet the needs of their employees depending on the particular job roles. Some have fairly open plan spaces with typical office desk layouts that will allow the open communication and creativity, while still giving everyone their own space.
Then there are those who have a space completely of their own; more suited for private conversations with visitors and work that requires more focus. Of course – to keep things interesting Google have found some different methods of doing so. Such as these shed style cubical designs, which give a more decorative and personal feel to the office environment.
Mind Candy
For those of you who don’t know – Mind Candy is the company behind Moshi Monsters, and they’re an interesting company that encourage the childishness in adults that we all thought we were supposed to hide from our employers. They’re attitude towards the inner child is very clearly presented in the way they have designed their office. Nothing says ‘it’s okay to be a kid’ like a slide and bean bags.
That’s not all either – if you’re feeling a bit stressed out and need a way to calm down you can participate in the same childish activities that made you happy as a child – the office has a colouring-in wall, literally you get to go colour-in the wall. How great is that?
Okay – to be honest I’m not 100% sure which bits of this office are actual working locations. I mean this treehouse might be an office block, or it might be a treehouse. Who knows – either way I really want to find out. It even has its own tire swing.
And I’m quite certain that this log is actually a desk. But it’s still awesome. I can’t actually decide whether or not this office is functional. However – their games are a continued success, their employees are creative enough to continually produce new ideas and even new types of monsters and they do seem to enjoy their jobs; though who could blame them? I’d enjoy it too if I worked in a treehouse.