STUDIO VALE: The new Headquarter experience
In the last years, we have had the pleasure of supporting the music streaming provider Soundcloud in re-designing their existing Headquarters in Berlin. In corona times, with the office as we know it at risk of existence, Soundcloud took the proactive step of acquiring an additional floor so that their employees could have more space. The complete new design of this rooftop floor - the Soundcloud Loft - was complemented with the re-designing and repurposing of several areas in the existing facilities, adapting to the past user experience and to a future-oriented workplace strategy.
The stage reception
Striving for openness towards their community, we have designed an arena for events, concerts, talks and product showcasing, with an almost theatrical atmosphere and surrounded by modular and movable seating elements, replacing a fixed built-in construction from their earlier interior fittings in 2014.
The Soundcloud Loft
The new office extension - the upper floor of the Berlin HQ - was a recent rooftop build-out stacked on the factory-like headquarters, and had a very clean touch in comparison to the existing industrial looking facilities. This was for us a key factor to play with. When you step into the Soundcloud Loft, the atmosphere has to change. This floor presents flexible rooms for collaborations, focus work, seminars and time-off moments, surrounded by sunlight and terraces.
Revisiting flexible work
Also within the headquarters, there was room for improvement in terms of work typologies. We created spaces with new identities that clearly distinguish themselves from the standard workspaces. These spaces invite quick collaborative moments, laptop isolated work or project work for temporary small teams, but leave the door open for a future adaptation as fully functional workstations.
Flexibility
Flexibility has taken on a very important role in office design in recent years, with ever-evolving design processes in a fast-paced economy. We created a user-configurable room that strives for longevity in use in such a way that it covers almost all possible usage scenarios. Several custom-made elements complement - such as a moving whiteboard wall and seating platforms - and provide an aesthetic coherence so that no matter what form the room takes, it always looks and feels as it was made for that purpose.
Experimenting with circular construction
The earlier office build-out of 2014 was still in great condition, design and quality; simply the needs it was made for did not match anymore. We repurposed several obsolete elements directly on the spot with the expertise of carpenters into new, still high-quality furniture and fittings, which required a careful study and documentation of the inventory and a good dose of creativity. Also new was the 1:1 re-use of acoustic insulation and glass sheets from demolished walls into new walls, since these are still in perfectly new condition at the moment of demolition.
