NORTH Office by Skylab Architecture

Architects: Skylab Architecture
Location: Portland, USA
Project Year: 2007
Site Area: 929 sqm
Client: NORTH Advertising
Photographs: Skylab Architecture

NORTH is a team of designers, writers, creative directors, film and music makers that asked Skylab Architecture to help them to create a space that is not an office. The design responds to alternative social interactions that inspire creative work. Workstations are replaced with modular structures, furniture and equipment defined around activity.



Based on the idea of a polar research expedition to the frontier, a 10,000 square foot basecamp was designed. The design responds to alternative social interactions-cooking, eating, lounging, and gaming-that inspire creative work. Workstations are replaced with modular structures, furniture and equipment defined around activity. Collaboration is based on portability and a cluster-on-demand breakaway from the traditional static office.



Pine paneling, raw steel and a carpet tile mural on the floor are the predominant interior features. Like an expedition that collects equipment that can handle the unknown challenge, the eclectic materiality of the movable office is selected for the ability to tackle different solutions to the design problem.



The basecamp tent, a white existing building shell, is left untouched. Interior walls and structures come to the edge, but are not fixed to the shell. A single connection point provides fiber cable and utility function. The building, a former home to a printing business, is on the National Register of Historic Places.



A cantilevered think module is vertically stacked in the center of the space. It reveals a newly articulated view of the West Hills through clerestory windows in the building. Similar to the NORTH creative process that reveals something about a client’s brand that may have always been there but not yet communicated, this view required elevation but was always there. Floral drapery and camouflage Fatboy beanbags allow for reflecting ‘around a campfire’.