The radiant Buddha om-ing into a headset that is Zendesk’s logo provided conceptual inspiration for the office upgrade we developed at their San Francisco headquarters. You might say it set us on the path.
Zendesk is a cloud-based company that helps businesses achieve order and serenity in their customer service functions. We took the happy fellow that Zendesk’s in-house graphic designer created and made him the presiding spirit of our design. The office was already an attractive space– formerly HQ for SMWM Architects. We added finishes, furniture, partitions to diversify the conference areas and a unifying concept: order and serenity.
Using different terms from the Buddha’s journey we gave each conference room its own zen designation: Dojo, Roshi, Bodhi, etc. While these rooms are flexible in their functionality, we like the idea of setting new directions in the Dharma room, ironing out problems in Nirvana or discussing consequences in a Karma conference. The furniture from our sister company POD Office is properly minimalist. And throughout the workspace whiteboard walls assure that no pilgrim’s epiphany will go unrecorded.
And no phone number…
Photographs by Jasper Sanidad
