large painting in a lobby area
Panels made partly of recycled paper are in the lobby and throughout, reflecting a commitment to sustainability that has earned the office LEED Platinum certification.

June 30, 2025

Words: Rebecca Dalzell

Photography: Eric Laignel

Inside A Workplace That Embodies The Spirit Of NYC

For a financial services firm, Macquarie Group is unusually invested in design. Glass pods project into an atrium at the Australian company’s futuristic headquarters in Sydney, while a slinky red staircase unifies its London office. It even has an in-house global design director, Andrew Burdick, a licensed architect who previously specialized in civic work. “Design is part of Macquarie’s business strategy,” he explains. The firm aims to be open, innovative, and human-centered—and believes its workplaces should be too.

So when Macquarie issued an RFP for its new Americas headquarters in New York, it wasn’t a typical problem statement, but a design document. “It was about the human experience the office should deliver,” remembers Kate Thatcher, principal and CEO of Architecture Plus Information, which won the bid in 2022. Macquarie envisioned a flexible, sustainable workspace to promote collaboration and informal interactions, bringing together groups that were siloed in its old location. It needed to function, Burdick says, as “a machine for business,” where 1,100 employees come together to create—that is, like a small city.

Architecture Plus Information Crafts A Human-Centered Hub

man walking by a set of stairs
A statement connector is a feature at most of the worldwide offices for Australian financial services firm Macquarie Group. For the company’s 260,000-square-foot Americas headquarters in New York, by Architecture Plus Information, the coloration of its stair, which connects floors 10 through 16, from the perforated-brass panels and oak treads, along with that of New South Wales artist Christopher Zanko’s painting, is meant to evoke the city’s sunsets, helping tie the project to its location.

Working closely with Burdick, A+I conceived elevated, welcoming interiors that draw on urban design. “The narrative arc is that you are occupying a microcosm of New York City,” says A+I principal and chief strategy officer Peter Knutson. Macquarie’s 260,000-square-foot office occupies nine floors, seven of which, 10 through 16, are contiguous; it has an additional 25,000 square feet of outdoor space on multiple terraces. The plan and palette quietly reinforce the urban narrative at every turn.

The site, 660 Fifth Avenue, had some distinct advantages. Constructed in 1957, it was renovated in 2022 by Kohn Pederson Fox, which replaced the existing aluminum cladding with a curtain wall made of 11-by-19-foot glass panels to maximize natural light. Low ceiling heights, though, were a downside.

NYC Views + Welcoming Interiors Bring This Workplace To Life

large open space with a view of the whole company
Floor 12 was made double-height, the Pullman acoustic chair pods taking full advantage of the 11-by-19-foot windows, which are framed in steel and fitted with live plants.

“The first thing that stood out was how amazing the views were—and how challenging it was when you stepped back from the windows,” Knutson recalls. The question was how to open up the space without creating a multistory atrium, which would trigger burdensome mechanical requirements. A+I needed to cut holes in the floors so the workplace felt lofty and impressive, yet could still be segmented with fire shutters. “Job one was to figure out where the holes would be and how to make them as small but impactful as possible,” Knutson adds.

The solution was a communicating stair that A+I dubbed the “Avenue,” its location shifting across the floor plates. It effectively runs on a diagonal, like Broadway, from the west side of the 16th floor down to the east side of the 10th, ending at a town square that faces the office’s largest terrace overlooking Fifth Avenue. “The stair is a sort of drifting atrium,” Thatcher explains. A visitor can stand at the bottom and see almost all the way up. “There’s a sense of grandeur without being overwhelming,” Burdick notes, because the low ceilings, cafés, and lounges around it give it a human scale. “They allow you to be a protected individual connected to this larger entity.”

Pops Of Color Enliven This Manhattan HQ

A living room with a couch and a staircase.
There’s a lounge on the stair’s 12th-floor landing.
A man sitting on a green couch in a room.
Timo Ripatti’s U-lights form a constellation above Alfredo Häberli’s Dado sofa in the town square, which adjoins the largest of the HQ’s five terraces.

Perforated-steel panels painted a warm brass make the stair pop. Macquarie has colorful staircases in other offices and sought to continue the tradition here. A+I chose a hue that evokes the city’s sunsets and ubiquitous brass detailing: “It’s subtle but feels familiar and germane to the location,” Thatcher says. An LED strip under the handrail enhances the glow.

The site had one other hitch: The curtain wall’s large glass panels have no mullions. “Essentially, it meant that closed rooms on the perimeter had to be the minimum of the structural grid,” Thatcher says, or about 20 feet wide. The constraint forced A+I to use the perimeter for open workstations and large meeting rooms, but not private offices. “It democratized access to light and air,” Thatcher says. And it led the team to embrace the grid throughout.

Embracing The NYC Grid Through Design

two people sitting at the green chairs
The town square, on floor 10, is for casual one-on-ones or collaborative work at Muuto’s Linear System table.

“Rooms that front the Avenue borrow language from the exterior windows,” Knutson says. “They tend to be column bay to column bay with a similar surround as the windows on the facade.” Black panels made partly of recycled paper mimic steel frames around glass-walled meeting rooms. Planters along the windows further blur the boundary between inside and out. “One of the most successful things the team did was really value the asset itself,” Burdick says. “The 1957 structural grid becomes the character-defining aspect of the Avenue space, and that is both purposeful and required.” The floor plan also alludes to Manhattan’s grid, helping employees instinctively navigate the space.

Along the Avenue, each floor is segmented into neighborhoods, or sections of the business. Some are behind information barriers to comply with regulations, so A+I thought of them like the city’s stoops; they’re semiprivate but linked via the stair. Color palettes subtly demarcate these spaces. Terra-cotta tones, referring to brownstones, signal work zones, while live plants and shades of green fill common areas along the Avenue. Every inch is conceived for productivity: Employees can plug in on the terraces, in high-backed lounge chairs, or at café tables. People from different business units inevitably meet.

A view of a city from a high rise.
Employees can work from the 10th-floor wired terrace, which also hosts events and includes a small kitchen garden.

Since the HQ opened in October, hybrid workers are coming in more often. Employees are bumping into new colleagues, taking calls outside, and hosting impromptu happy hours. “It looks and feels better as architecture with people in it,” Knutson says. Buzzing with activity, it’s practically a sidewalk ballet.

Tour Macquarie Group’s HQ By Architecture Plus Information

large painting in the lobby area
Panels made partly of recycled paper are in the lobby and throughout, reflecting a commitment to sustainability that has earned the office LEED Platinum certification.
A yellow wall with a white and gold pattern.
An LED strip integrated in the handrail enhances the glow of the brass.
A black and white room with a large sign.
In reception, a terrazzo slab tops the ebonized white-oak desk and wall graphics depict Macquarie’s infrastructure investments, all custom.
A man laying on a green couch.
Nearby, Pebble Rubble seating by Front rests on a custom rug.
A large office with plants growing on the walls.
More recycled paper panels surrounding a meeting room mirror the steel frames on the curtain wall, and greenery heightens the illusion of an exterior window.

Taking Steps In The Right Direction

A woman sitting at a desk in an office.
A communal worktable with integrated lamp anchors the library, where Hollis+Morris Constellation pendant fixtures light custom booths.
A long couch in a large room.
Francesco Rota’s Plus sofas line ebonized white-oak panels in the guest relations reception, where the ceiling is also paneled in recycled paper and the Eames Molded Plywood chairs were reused from a previous Macquarie office.
A black and white door with a number 14 on it.
Another sustainability effort was retaining the original polished concrete flooring, replete with scuff marks, which dates to 1957.
A book on a table with a book on it.
Altherr Désile Park’s Ghia side tables stand on a custom rug in the town square.
A staircase with a wooden tread.
The ceiling and structural columns have been exposed.
A long table in a room with a view of a city.
With Dela chairs by Brandon Walker, the library, like other spaces along the perimeter, is the width of the mullion-free glass panels on the curtain wall.
PROJECT TEAM

ARCHITECTURE PLUS INFORMATION: ELIANE MAILLOT; CHRIS SHELLEY; JENNIFER WICHTOWSKI; JESS WANG; ANDREW MCBRIDE; CHERYL BAXTER; VICTOR GALLOWAY; BRENTON SMITH; VANÉ BROUSSARD; RINA SEBASTIAN; NICO MARTIN; MING BAI. BLONDIE’S TREEHOUSE: LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT. LIGHTING WORKSHOP: LIGHTING DESIGN. TYLIN: STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. AMA: MEP. MILLERBLAKER: MILLWORK. M COHEN AND SONS: STAIR FABRICATOR. DRIVE 21: CUSTOM WAYFINDING SIGNAGE. JT MAGEN & CO.: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

PRODUCT SOURCES

FROM FRONT MOROSO: SEATING (RECEPTION). MOHAWK: CUSTOM RUGS (RECEPTIONS, TOWN SQUARE). NAUGHTONE: CHAIR PODS (12TH FLOOR). DIVISON TWELVE: BLUE CHAIRS. COALESSE: TABLES. DESIGNTEX: GRAY SOFA FABRIC. CRÉATION BAUMANN: CURTAINS (MEETING ROOM). WATSON FURNITURE: COMMUNAL TABLE (LIBRARY). HOLLIS+MORRIS: PENDANT FIXTURES. BLU DOT: SOFA, SIDE TABLES (LOUNGE). WEST ELM: COFFEE TABLE. LAPALMA THROUGH M2L: SOFAS (GUEST RECEPTION). VICCARBE: TABLES. ANDREU WORLD: SOFA (TOWN SQUARE). AXOLIGHT: PENDANT FIXTURES. ARPER: SIDE TABLES. PEDRALI: TABLES (TERRACE). UHURU DESIGN: CUSTOM TABLETOPS. ISIMAR: CHAIRS. STYLEX: CHAIRS (LIBRARY, TOWN SQUARE). MILLERKNOLL: TABLE (TOWN SQUARE). THROUGHOUT RICHLITE: BLACK PANELING. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.: PAINT.

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