2014 BOY Winner: Small Creative Office

Aston Martin and Lamborghini are not words usually associated with the buying, selling, and leasing of residences and commercial space. But this brokerage has smashed the real-estate paradigm. Imagine a branding, marketing, and public relations agency. It produces high-caliber events with luxury brands, and almost every property represented benefits from a full-on social-media campaign.

In keeping with that philosophy, the company turned to another master paradigm-breaker, Interior Design Hall of Fame member Hagy Belzberg, to renovate a new headquarters. “Real-estate transactions are typically hush-hush. Agents whisper into their phones behind closed doors,” Belzberg says. Instead, he compressed private offices at the perimeter of the 8,600 square feet and brought everything else out into the open with a flex-space at the center. Its primary feature—an innovative solution for oases of semiprivacy when occasionally required—is a pair of seating pods, tepeelike forms in CNC-milled MDF lacquered white on the outside and lined with felt in the corporate crimson. They’re linked by snaking gray felt-covered seating that encourages employees to linger and exchange ideas. The setup “signals all sorts of community,” he says. It also accommodates guest lectures and cocktail parties. 

Project Team: David Cheung; Ashley Coon; Andrew Kim; Susan Nwankpa; Chris Sanford.