Commercial · Office fit-out · Workplace design
18th-Floor Collaborative Workspace
Albany, NY
Project overview
A full-floor workplace built around choice: focus rooms, shared offices, lounges, and a bar — so every kind of work has a home.
This full-floor fit-out replaces the rows-of-desks office with a neighborhood model: shared offices for teams, conference rooms for structured work, corridors that double as casual meeting space, and a main lounge with a bar that turns into the floor's social engine.
Daylight is treated as a shared amenity — the perimeter belongs to common space and glass-walled rooms, so light reaches deep into the plan instead of being captured by a lucky few.
Material and lighting choices dial the atmosphere by zone: crisp and bright where focus lives, warm and layered where people gather.
Case study
Client goals
The client wanted a full floor that would pull a distributed team back to the office by choice — offering better focus, better collaboration, and a social heart no home office could match.
Challenges
A deep floor plate hoarded its daylight at the perimeter; the acoustic needs of focus work and social energy pull in opposite directions; and the design had to flex as team shapes changed.
Design strategy
Daylight became a shared amenity: glass-walled rooms and open commons claim the perimeter, so light reaches deep. Neighborhoods of shared offices, conference rooms, corridors widened into meeting places, and a lounge-with-bar social core give every work mode a home address.
Results
Attendance rose without a mandate, the bar area became the floor's decision-making venue, and the demountable strategy has already absorbed one reorganization without construction.
Materials & systems
- Full-height interior glazing
- Acoustic ceiling and baffle systems
- Warm wood and lounge textiles
- Demountable partition systems
- Zoned lighting controls
Timeline
Ten weeks of design, sixteen of construction on an occupied building's schedule.
What this project taught us
People return to offices that offer what home cannot: gradients of energy, chance encounters, and rooms that fit the work. Amenity follows architecture, not the other way around.
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