Continuing our coverage of the recent explosion at a tech firm’s headquarters in San Francisco, here’s a look at the offices of the online property rental service Airbnb, which offers rooms modeled after eight of the company’s listed apartments (+ slideshow ).
Airbnb currently offers rental units in more than 34,000 countries cities, but the company’s very first listing was an apartment in San Francisco. So the team’s internal designers decided to turn part of the interior into an exact replica of it.
They bought items from various countries to furnish the spaces and even put a bed in one of the bedrooms.
Other sections of the headquarters mimic properties in various other locations around the world, including Reykjavík, Bali, Amsterdam, and Paris, and are filled with relaxed seating areas where staff can interact.
“We asked ourselves how to create the sense of travel in an office? Explained Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb. “Just having pictures of announcements and distant places was not enough. It’s not just about recalling the memories, but feeling that you are there.”
The offices occupy part of a renovated century-old industrial building, named 888 Brannan.
The office canteen features long communal tables where staff can hold informal meetings, while the walls are lined with more than a hundred sketches relating to different employee experiences.
“We wanted to create a space that encourages our employees to move, to interact between disciplines and to see movement and activity,” said Chesky.
There is also a conference room modeled on the war room from Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove, as well as a green wall that extends to one side of the main atrium.
Here’s Brian Chesky’s full design statement:
888 Brannan
The opening of 888 Brannan is an exciting time for Airbnb because the building embodies what we value as a business: creativity, community engagement and thoughtful design.
Joe, Nate, and I started Airbnb when we saw the potential for something others had overlooked: free space in our apartment. Likewise, we saw huge potential in 888 Brannan. The building is a century-old city landmark that had been all but forgotten, but we saw the opportunity to make it the perfect space for our growing business and community.
The first time we entered the atrium, we imagined looking and seeing a cross section of the homes that are featured on our site – knowing immediately, without seeing any logos or signs, that you were at Airbnb. We have invested a lot in space, discovering its history and transforming it from any building into a physical representation of who we are and what we believe.
At the heart of Airbnb is the connection between people and spaces. In designing 888 Brannan, we asked ourselves how we could use space to encourage connections between people. Too often, office design doesn’t consider collaboration, creativity, or spontaneity. At Airbnb, we wanted to create a space that encourages our employees to move, interact across disciplines, and see movement and activity.
To achieve this, we wanted as many sightlines as possible, both inside the building and outside the neighborhood. Not only is it visually interesting, but we believe it inherently makes connections. We have also created spaces for these connections to develop. In an open floor plan, you typically have two types of spaces: offices and meeting rooms. We also focused on creating a third shared space. The sofas scattered among the offices, common dining room and project rooms with long standing tables all offer our employees the opportunity to have informal conversations, spontaneous collaborations or informal meetings.
Another key goal for our new home was to create a truly comfortable place for our employees, whose hard work is fundamental in everything we do. We believe that investing in them is the basis of our success. Many companies underinvest in their offices, and therefore underinvest in their people and their growth. We believe that if our team works in an inspiring and creative space, they will be inspired to create a better product and service for our hosts and guests.
An exceptional aspect of the new space is the ability to travel without leaving the building. We asked ourselves “how do you create the sense of travel in an office?” It was not enough to just have pictures of advertisements and distant places. It’s not just about bringing back memories, it’s about feeling that you are there. We’ve replicated some of the most unique places on Airbnb to create that feeling. Every room, from Milan to Reykjavik, from Bali to Amsterdam, not only celebrates our global community, but also allows everyone who visits them to truly experience a different place.
In designing Airbnb’s new home, we wanted to create a place that would bring our mission to life, a place where people could instantly see what is at the heart of our business. At 888 Brannan, we create a space not only for our employees, but for our guests and travelers, our neighbors and friends. Airbnb creates a world where you can be at home anywhere, and everyone can be at home with Airbnb.
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