There are sad offices with monotone rows of desks for their battery chicken employees to peck away at a grey computer all day.

There are some with well-designed multipurpose functional zones, engaging colour filled collaboration spaces and those essential quiet places (ahem… our speciality).

Then there are some which are rather out of this world ……

 

Inventionland – Pittsburg, USA

When it’s your job to be super creative and inventive coming up with new things the world wants and needs, then you must be mentally stimulated in your workspace. Inventionland has nailed that with bells on! With office zones more like film sets, their ‘think tank’ is a pirate ship, the kitchen a cupcake, and the crafty cottage looks like Hanzel and Gretel’s edible one.

All too much stimuli? Sneak off to the creative cavern, a rock grotto surrounded by water for some tranquil contemplation or the Disney-esque pink beauty boutique for some product testing and general self pampering.

Surely you’d relish going to work every day, bursting to brainstorm and have fun with your workmates.

 

Selgas Cano Architects office – Madrid

Architecturally designed by Spanish architects Jose Selgas and Lucia Cano for their own architecture firm Selgascano. This striking tubular office, a converted bunker, lays low into the forest floor just outside Madrid, Spain.

With full glazing just at eye level, the inhabitants gaze onto the calm of the forest floor, genuinely embracing the cool stillness of the immediate forest environment, a world away from the bustle and heat of Madrid.

With half the office openly glazed to feel part of nature and provide natural and ecologically free light, and the other south side is covered in specialist clad insulation to protect from the heat of the Spanish sun. The end window is also attached to a non-powered pully mechanism to ventilate the building naturally.

Sustainable Zen-like calm amongst the leaf litter – perfection.

 

Lego – Billund, Denmark

The home HQ of games guru’s Lego is almost exactly what you might expect. Walls apparently made of bricks, bright and primary Lego colours, lots of huddle zones for creative brainstorming, and an obvious informality that seems to make working seem more like playing.

Oh, and of course it has a slide, a fun and efficient way of getting downstairs very quickly!

 

 

Pallotta TeamWorks – Los Angeles, USA

Formed from an intriguing combination of a meagre budget and a strong desire to have a sustainable workspace, this incredible shipping container office filled warehouse manages to exude inviting charm. In LA where the average daily temperature is around 29°C, the warehouse has forgone mass air conditioning in the vast space in favour of individually cooled areas contained under tent structures, handily hitched to the shipping containers for support.

With re-use in mind charity Pallota Teamworks has also created a highly replicable office structure which can be moved and adapted with ease and with an absolute minimum of environmental impact.

Pull up a beanbag and change the world for the better.