Interior Design, Office: Honorable Mention

Blend’s office in San Francisco needed to convey the nimbleness of a new approach to an old process, while maintaining the sense of weightiness that buying a home entails. In other words, it needed to communicate both an innovative spirit and reliability, an openness to new thinking and respect for proven values. Home lending is an industry in which the customer is often under stress. Blend wanted an office that would work with their employees (and business model) to put the client at ease.
Comfort is a factor in every workplace O+A designs, but here it was embedded in the project’s underlying theme—specifically the comforts of home. The centerpiece of the design is the staircase that rises to a lounge area and fireplace. These stairs, which double as a lunch destination or stadium seating for all hands meetings, demonstrate the personalization all of us bring to our favorite spaces. Each step and riser is tattooed with a custom pattern abstracted from some builder’s detail.