New Coast, New Approach: Studio O+A Opens Office in New York City
After 25 years in San Francisco, Studio O+A marks its first expansion with the opening of a New York City office location at 215 Park Avenue South. Neil Bartley—previously a senior project manager and design lead on projects such as ARTIS Ventures, Giant Pixel Corporation, and Yelp—will serve as director for the new office.
The office opens with projects underway for clients including Kimball Office and Brooklyn-based agency Big Spaceship and will offer workplace design services encompassing commercial interiors, branding, environmental graphics, tenant improvements, and design consulting.
Led by co-founders and Interior Design Hall of Fame members Primo Orpilla and Verda Alexander as well as Perry Stephney, O+A started as a two-person space planning firm in Silicon Valley. In recent years the more than 40 person firm has worked with clients such as Facebook, Uber, and Yelp. Responding to the changing paradigms of what constitutes a successful work environment, O+A’s projects utilize design to address the changing nature of work, driven by the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Recently awarded the 2016 National Design Award in Interior Design from the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City, the firm’s move follows many of their entrepreneurial clients that volley back and forth between the West and East Coast. “This is the realization of a long-time goal,” explains Primo Orpilla, principal and cofounder of the firm. “Many of our clients have a presence on both coasts, and they have been asking us for years to open a New York office to better meet their needs.”
Bartley adds, “The excitement is that there are companies in New York that want to work differently and look at many of the tech companies we’ve worked with in the Bay Area as precedents of a new way of working. We have the opportunity to understand new clients and to find out how it’s going to be different; there will be a regionality and vernacular to our New York projects that differs from what we’ve done in the past.”
