Quirky office spaces: These companies are redefining the workplace

Wife Creative Agency, Mumbai;  Image: Photographix India / Sebastian Zachariah

A new meme is doing the rounds that talks about employees and officegoers being ‘sick and tired of 30-minute weekends’. It implies employees spend most of their time at work, with hardly any scope for recreation. Work stress, long meetings and burnt-out employees are inevitable in modern corporate culture. According to a research by Gettysburg College, an average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. When one is ‘trapped’ in one place for so long, it’s essential that these spaces are comfortable and lively. 

The typical assumption of an office space is that it’s boring, noisy and crowded. One can’t wait to get out of there. However, that’s changing. Spaces, big and small, are experimenting, innovating and evolving. Offices are not dull anymore; instead they are ‘cool’ places to be at. For instance, the Dream Sports office in Mumbai has a 200-metre indoor power-walking track that runs through the working arena and The Half Arc office in Kolkata—built in a heritage building—provides a Nordic-Scandinavian look and feel to it.

 Forbes India takes a look at some quirky and out-of-the-ordinary spaces that are redefining the look and feel of a typical office.

Wife Creative Agency, Mumbai

Area: 4,500 sq ft 
Built in: 2022
Designed by: Neha Mewawalla, co-founder | Wife

Located in a quiet corner of Versova, the office space—converted from an old, residential bungalow—has an outdoor seating area with wooden picnic tables and bright chairs. It can accommodate 70 people. The space is gifted with natural light and height, and each office zone has an identity of its own. Neha Mewawalla, the brain behind the creative agency’s design, and co-founder of Wife, turned around the place in just one month, depicting disparate styles, textures, colours and personalities, which speak of the people, and the identity of the organisation. Mewawalla was enamoured by its “charming rawness”—broken walls, steel crates lying around and trees growing inside the bungalow.

Amsoft

Amsoft, Gurugram

Area: 22,000 sq ft
Built in: 2006
Designed by: Incubis Consultants (India) PL
With a brief to create an office space that reflected the spirit of the IT solutions company, Amit Krishn Gulati, founder and director, Incubis Consultants (India) PL, and his team chose the intersection of several concepts that encompass principles of modularity, neural networks, metamorphosis and progression, cellular work groups and dynamic organisation design. The result of days of ideation was a space that is a metaphor of the organic Indian town and street architecture. The quirky office space appears as a floating steel mezzanine with hardwood floorboards created in the form of twin intersecting triangles—inspired by the geometry of the space overlaid with ‘Mandalas’ or Buddhist devotional images. It has many such design elements taken from historic Indian forms, design and architecture.

Nureca Inc;  Image: Ashish Sahi

Nureca Inc, Chandigarh

Area: 8,000 sq ft
Built in: 2022
Designed by: Noor Architects Consultants
The Indian office for New York-based wellness enterprise Nureca Inc, parent company of Dr Trust, Dr Physio and Trumom brands, was envisioned to set a benchmark in well-crafted, sustainable boutique offices. According to designer Noor Damesh Singh, the space, rich in natural light, has beautiful skylight features that are brought in the centre of the narrative, and treated in a rich terracotta tone in the entry foyer combined with terrazzo floor. The terracotta-hued floor is impregnated with coloured chips that makes the space more vibrant. The features are accentuated with an introduction of colour vocabulary of ‘neel blue’, albeit in a subtle restraint manner, which brings the modernist material palette of terrazzo blend alongside the vernacular Indian forms of arches as well as the modernity of the 1960s Chandigarh.

Also read: Inside the world of designing luxury homes

Trilegal;   Image: Avesh Gaur

Trilegal, Gurugram

Area: 19,000 sq ft
Built in: 2020
Designed by: Studio Lotus
The law firm’s office celebrates and promotes artisanal skill sets, demonstrating how architects, designers and other stakeholders can find meaningful ways to engage craftspersons. The honeycomb-inspired office layout designed by Studio Lotus functions as a hybrid between an open office and a cubicle, enabling focussed work as well as interaction between co-workers. Through its design, use of timeless materials and vivid storytelling, the Trilegal office acquires an identity of its own: A balanced expression that unites the company’s roots in Indian culture with the egalitarian spirit and aspirations of its new-age workforce. Diverse arts and crafts traditions from all over India are brought together for the interiors of the office, in collaboration with artisans commissioned by Jaya Jaitly of Dastkari Haat Samiti, to create distinct spatial identities.


The Half Arc;   Image: Ishita Sitwala

The Half Arc, Kolkata

Area: 2,200 sq ft
Built in: 2022
Designed by: Spaces & Design
Located in a prominent heritage building in Kolkata, The Half Arc office is unlike a typical workspace, exhibiting grandeur and juxtaposition of design sensibilities in a thoughtful way. With a portal-like passage leading up to the entrance, the reception and the waiting areas have a world map installation as the backdrop—complementing the Nordic-Scandinavian look of the space. As much as the office is suffused with Scandinavian design themes, Pooja Bihani and her team at Spaces & Design thought it was crucial to maintain the historical character of the space through sensitive treatment and seamless integration of design elements. The colour scheme comprises light and milky white shades incorporated through textured materials. The furniture is bespoke, and the layout is such that the office does not look clumsy. The terrace, with its picturesque views of the Hooghly river and the Howrah Bridge, is the highlight, offering a space to hold informal meetings and relax after a long day’s work.

Dream Sports;   Image: Courtesy Dream Sports

Dream Sports, Mumbai

Area: 70,000 sq ft
Built in: 2022
Designed by: Space Matrix Design Consultants
Dreamsters, the employees at the Dream Sports office, which they refer to as ‘The Stadium’, describe their workspace as sporty, playful, collaborative and thriving. According to them, the Dream Sports office exemplifies how space can influence emotions and elevate the working experience for employees. Every corner is infused with sports references, paying homage to the most-recognised sports organisations and teams, with over 40 meeting and conference rooms named and styled after local and global sports teams, leagues, clubs and personalities. Reflecting the company’s commitment to a sporting lifestyle, the office has an indoor 200-m power-walking track that runs through the working area, and a fully equipped gym on both floors.

Spotify

Spotify, Mumbai

Area: 16,000 sq ft
Built in: 2021
Designed by: M Moser Associates
The idea behind the Spotify office was to create a social hub where the team can collaborate, create and socialise together in a way that reflects the personality of the platform or what they call the “dynamic workplace”. The workspace consists of two main components: Neighbourhoods and common areas, where the former represents dedicated working areas for business units and teams, and the latter are designed for socialising, relaxing or supporting specific workplace needs—meeting rooms, performance spaces, wellness and training rooms. While certain walls in the office have quirky, colourful designs and props, others are plain and grid-like, with just the company logo.

Hermès India;   Image: Courtesy- Ultraconfidentiel Design

Hermès, New Delhi

Area: 3,600 sq ft
Built in: 2012
Designed by: Ultraconfidentiel
In 2012, Ultraconfidentiel designed and executed the head office of Hermès India in a beautiful heritage building in Connaught Place, New Delhi. This office, marking Hermès’ entry into India, is a true representation of refinement and sobriety of the space. The meeting rooms are decked with out-of-ordinary paintings, and the office space, representing minimalism, has quirky seating, and working areas, with hues of orange complementing the majority white adorning the walls. Not only the indoor space, but the outdoor working areas at the office also provide a luxurious, quiet and chic areas with wooden benches, pebbles and plants for employees to enjoy an-almost sea-side feel while working. Ultraconfidentiel believes it represents a contemporary European look and feel in an Indian heritage building.