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Innovative Design for Skype Headquarters in Palo Alto

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Almost everyone around the world uses Skype. Its headquarters are situated in Luxembourg and it has offices in London, Prague, San Jose, San Francisco, and Tallinn. Recently, another branch was opened in Palo Alto, which is the unofficial capital and the historic center of the American Silicon Valley.

Innovative, Creative and Functional Skype’s Office in Palo Alto

Innovative Skype's office in Palo Alto, California.

Skype’s office in Palo Alto, California

The North American central office of the company in California was designed by the architectural firm Blitz. They have designed an equally creative and functional workspace. Office interior is custom-designed and reaches the main goal – to encourage employees’ interaction and spontaneous activity. It also meets the specific acoustic requirements the company needs, as its workers actively use audio-visual equipment.

Blitz had a task to create a high-class office that would differentiate the company among the competitors and allow to attract and recruit the most gifted employees. The task resulted in creation of an amazing innovative office space of 5,000 square meters with ceilings of about 5 meters high. All this certainly creates inspirational atmosphere for effective and fruitfull work of 250 employees of the company. The project was certified LEED Silver, which marks the green environmentally friendly construction.

According to the developers, the created workspace reflects the typical Skype spirit of innovation, provides a high level of functionality, encourages creativity and teamwork.

The company encourages “impromptu meetings” and so-called “living thinking” (the influence of the environment on the thought process), which is the company’s philosophy. To do this, the developers set up special “islands” that facilitate encounters and help with the generation of ideas.

Closed meeting rooms are reliably soundproofed and provide access to audio-visual equipment. “Islands for impromptu meetings ” are next to them, allowing participants of the meeting find each other and a place for talks. This is especially convenient for foreign and temporary employees.

There are white boards everywhere around the office . Their goals are to provide more opportunities for informal meetings. They can be used to quickly write up a sudden idea that came to mind.

The so-called “zones for thought” are spread out in an open space as lounges, sometimes with seamless transition from one to another.

The designers arranged open areas with desks around the periphery of the room, the place full of natural light and provides low noise level. Public areas (meeting rooms, coffee vending machines and “white board” zones) are allocated in the center of each level, which encourages staff to literally “meet in the middle”.

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Alicia Kim

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