Best of Year: Large Office

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 12/1/2010 2:55:00 PM

Project: Clive Wilkinson Architects
Firm: Macquarie Group
Location: Sydney, Australia

"Australians are feisty. They're a different breed," Clive Wilkinson says. So is he: an Interior Design Hall of Fame member born in South Africa and based in Los Angeles. with multiple high octane ad agencies in his portfolio. At Macquarie, his debut in the financial-services arena, he was asked to provide not buttoned-up banker's offices or a bull-pen trading floor but the model known as activity-based working. Unlike "hoteling," that means there's a place for everyone, just not a fixed place. Wilkinson had to get people traveling through the 10 levels of the central atrium. Jutting into it on every level are an assortment of meeting pods, their boxy forms a reference to the shipping containers of Sydney Harbour, just blocks away. Wilkinson's boxes, however, are fronted in clear glass. Call it design's contribution to transparency in banking.

Merit Winners:


Project: Trading firm
Firm: Gensler
Location:  Chicago.
Standout: A café and lounge with furnishings by Piero Lissoni and Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni help to attract top talent.


Project: APX Alarm
Firm: Pollack Architecture
Location: Provo, Utah
Standout: Eye-candy furniture and lighting and a witty graphics program, built on black-and-white photomurals, all prove that “hip” exists in a Mormon stronghold.


Project: Panduit
Firm: Gensler
Location:  Tinley Park, Illinois.
Standout: Slim furniture and a spare materials palette of glass, granite, and reclaimed redwood convey the efficiency of a cutting-edge technology developer.