F5 Headquarters Tenant Improvement, Workplace Strategy and Design

Seattle, WA

Change management can be difficult, especially when relocating a legacy tech office from an outer urban neighborhood to a major city center. To create a seamless process and collaborative workplace for F5, a global technology company that builds software for public cloud infrastructure, NBBJ’s workplace consulting team provided a strategic, innovative approach to optimize workspace planning, change management and employee engagement. By analyzing the company’s workplace conditions and understanding their aspirations through audits, observations and interactive workshops, the team developed a design that progressively rethinks the challenges of working vertically while also supporting in-office and remote work.

Originally designed to encourage face-to-face interaction and connection between employees and customers, the workplace evolved to support work in a post-pandemic world. F5 was able to release space and improve utilization by adopting a hybrid work model, and the spaces and experiences that support a range of work modes—from a continuous 28-story central stair to a variety of spaces for heads-down and collaborative work—continue to help F5 fulfill their organizational goals. The resulting design overcomes the potentially isolating nature of an elevator-dependent high-rise and small, irregularly shaped floors to heighten connectivity between F5 staff, customers and visitors.

Features

Appreciating the importance of solitude for a focused workforce, yet understanding the segregation a high-rise office can reinforce, F5’s workplace concept enables employees to seek out the way they work best. Each floor offers team focus areas separated from main circulation and elevator lobbies to minimize distraction. These are located at the building’s corners to provide long perspectives down Seattle’s streets rather than static views of neighboring buildings.

The workplace also features socially engaging spaces, with a central 28-story stair that connects the entire F5 workplace from its lowest floor to its highest. The connecting stair is arranged in four-story stacks that, similar to a low-rise campus, encourage multiple-floor relationships while prompting staff to skip the elevators for health benefits. These four-story stacks pinwheel around the tower, creating a built-in wayfinding device as they spiral to unique urban views.

To better link employees to the impact they have on their customers, the stairs and major meeting spaces are infused with stories. At each stair landing videos, images and statistics demonstrate F5's impact on its clients' businesses. Unlike many corporate workplaces where brand expression is only experienced from the inside, this message is also visible on the exterior as well, where the illuminated stair winds around the entire tower to project a strong message of a unified F5 outward to the city.

Project Details

Client Name
F5, Inc.

Square Footage
515, 518 SF

Program
Workplace, amenities, meeting rooms

Services
Architecture, interior design, landscape design

Phase
Completed