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Stay updated with our latest Ottawa architecture insights and projects in our News section. Engaging blogs await!

News From Award Winning Architects - Linebox Studio

In someone else's words.

News

You probably don’t remember when Adam Levine moved into John Mayer’s former house. Or Madonna into the Weeknd’s. Or Alicia Keys into Eddie Murphy’s. But there’s something about the vibes of a place once inhabited by greatness. It served them well. You never know, maybe a little of their talent and good fortune is left in a cupboard or two. Maybe some will rub off.

When we moved our offices onto a floor of the former Shopify offices, it was difficult to deny a certain sense of transcendence

Tobias Lutke, Shopify CEO, summed up the design we created by saying, “This is the best office we’ve ever had. It has succeeded way past anything we had expected.” If there’s one thing the Shopify founder knows, it’s what works. And the office space does work. While nested in these offices, Shopify became Canada’s largest business. 

30 Billion Dollars between these walls. Those stats don’t need a lot of parsing.

When we converted ten storeys of an office tower, we applied the best evidence-based principles of high functioning office design. The result wasn’t just an innovative workplace designed to maximize productivity. It was a space focused on employee health and well-being.

We employed the same approach that we rely on for any project. Part of that is ensuring sustainability. The unique needs of Shopify’s growing business were considered deeply. But something larger happens. We think about people. The staff, visitors, partners and anyone who spent time under the roof were the single most important consideration. They always are. It’s the only way to attain a sustainability that flows from one purpose to another, from one company to many. Design for people and the space will succeed.

Ottawa’s downtown is defined by a somewhat circumspect personality. Organizations bump shoulders with a land populated by civil servants. Federal leadership has been careful, people haven’t fully returned to work. Companies have shifted the way interactions occur. But there’s still a need to create engagement person-to-person. Working remotely has its benefits – and a great many limitations. The former Shopify offices at Elgin have been dubbed “

Ottawa's largest and most masterfully designed co-working space for businesses." The change from a single entity inhabiting the space to a co-working environment is one that makes a lot of sense. It allows companies to return on their own terms. The flexibility of being able to allow 1, 2, 10 or 50 people to return is the sort of advantage

 that companies can leverage at their own pace. Many teams are seeing hybrid returns as the path forward.

The site hosts work pods in an array of sizes. The outcome is appealing to start ups, established firms, and individuals. Having a mix of breakout rooms and dedicated workspaces outside of the pods allows workers to take calls or tuck away from their group for focused work.

The combination of unexpected zones for meeting rooms behind work pods or nooks and unexpected settings like the "cabins" or “sauna rooms” has the net effect of unanticipated productivity.

hen good design is imbued with lateral thinking like rent motility, we can make culture shifts that benefit every cog on the employment wheel. More and more people will be looking to gradually reintegrate in 2022. Spaces like the Elgin location that allow for rental on a daily, monthly or yearly basis removes the pressure on entrepreneurship and enterprise in general. It opens a window to collaborative work space that may help in alleviating a lot of mental health challenges that people have faced working in isolation. At Linebox, we’re enormous believers in the power of collaboration - seeing the space we designed used in a new way and promoting more of it brings a smile to our faces. It’s a reminder that philosophies of design are transferable. There is an immutability in those principles that can spur creativity regardless of who is occupying a space.

While we begin all of our projects by ensuring the identity of the inhabitants is infused in the design, there are always a core of elements that can be changed when new tenants move in. Our own work pod is getting a small makeover to instill our brand’s imprint.

It’s not so far removed from the empowerment that Shopify’s minds created for thousands of businesses while working under this very roof. Retooling the rules of commercial rental spaces means one of the lessons we learned from the pandemic can be realized more fully. The joy of not commuting was one of the few widely celebrated benefits of lock-downs. Companies are realizing that they can have offices on different sides of the city. The fifteen minute city is not only attainable, it’s here if we want it. An organization can champion work-life balance in a way that felt impossible not long ago.

150 Elgin is emerging as an intriguing incubator. Like its inhabitant predecessors, it doesn’t play by the normal rules. It’s destined not to nurture single businesses, but to generate networks within the city. This is the power of planning and design. It has a habit of leading to surprising evolution.

Every floor transports the inhabitants to a place quite apart from the scene beyond the windows. In something of a tribute to the grander panorama that the nation’s capital represents, one floor recalls Canadian motifs, materials, and references.

The use of unconventional materials, spaces, and textures achieve remarkable spaces that spark ideas. It’s a semblance of factors that establish a place as a hub for ingenuity.

Acoustics and lighting are meticulously planned. It’s incredibly important for the circulation or limiting of sound and light. The same is true for circulation of people through every space. The obsession with these details is what drives us. When all these elements work together, we can maximize quality of space. The Elgin offices have quality of space in abundance.

Each floor has its own theme. Though an ocean away, it’s a Scandinavian feel infused throughout the office that promotes a calmness in the middle of an urban centre. In an internal mirroring of this duality, there are “nooks” tucked away behind work pods where people can come together or work alone in a comfortable setting. A mixture of open spaces, semi-private nooks and alleys tucked into pockets along exterior walls, is the secret to encouraging engagement for all types of work activity, whether concentrated or collaborative.

Communal areas are common – we mean there are a lot of them. This isn’t accidental. The happy incidents it leads to are invaluable. At Shopify, whether in a kitchen or an open meeting space, the ability for people to come together without planning was central to creating a larger environment where people from different departments would meet spontaneously. Now the same force is working in the same way to engender a flow of people from a mix of companies and industries. The exchange of ideas merely intensifies.

On one floor, brightly coloured pairing pods, inspired by the cheerful fishing villages of eastern Canada, host two people side-by-side. Creating the vibe of such an office space might be challenging on a budget normally set aside for a smaller company. One space conjures the feel of a prohibition time speakeasy. There’s just something about an era evocative of restriction that makes you defy barriers. All of the meeting rooms were ahead of the curve, equipped for virtual meetings, expanding the scope of their reach from downtown Ottawa to the rest of the globe.

Detailing throughout the space was important. How materials come together in a practical and beautiful way. It’s interesting; it’s exactly what we’ve always demanded architecture and design to do for the people who pass through our buildings. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to be part of the next chapter in this office space’s story.

Adding One More Theme To Shopify’s Former Offices - Flexibility

Andrew Reeves was on vacation in the Caribbean a few years ago when he had a revelation about why he experiences the world differently from many people.

The Ottawa architect and owner of Linebox Studio is sharing his experience about discovering he lives with dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that affects a person's ability to read accurately and fluently.

Reeves, 45, gave a talk at TedxKanata and spoke to CBC Radio's 

host Hallie Cotnam about the condition he sees as a gift.

Discovering the "gift" of dyslexia at 42

Discivering the "gift" of dyslexia at 42 - CBC

In a time when we’ve all done so much to regain what sense of community we can, it feels somehow incongruous to be publicly trumpeting an award we’ve won. Let alone two. We’re incredibly honoured. And immensely proud. Don’t get us wrong.

The Platinum Award and the Grand Prix du Design we’ve been awarded are humbling. Since 2007, Grand Prix du Design 

recognizes designers and architects having distinguished themselves through exemplary practice. Thirty countries are represented. A thousand projects are considered. 

Linebox was honoured to receive the Platinum award for the larger than 54,000 sq. ft. office category. We also won the Grand Prix du Design award for being one of the 50 best Quebec projects in all categories.

It’s a massive recognition. We’d be remiss if we didn’t pass the recognition on to those who equally deserve it. Without the incomparable clients who collaborated with us, we couldn’t have captured these wins. Like a lot of the greats, GSoft is a leading edge company for a set of reasons well beyond the incredible tech solutions they produce. They took the opportunity to redefine how work gets done before the onset of the pandemic. The new space we built with them is one that energizes the staff that inhabit it. We’re unbelievably grateful to have been able to work towards realizing their ideal headquarters in a partnership.

Obviously, without the Linebox staff whose diligence, creativity, experience and vision exceeded the goals of the GSoft team, the awards would have been equally impossible. Those relationships, that skill and the mandates that underlie the experience is what will remain. That’s the stuff we take forward.

Creating avenues to link various factions within a company will promote interaction and engender a sense of shared purpose. GSoft staff are connected in their new headquarters by an unusual strand of ramps, banks and paths. The culture at the tech firm is inextricably tied to skateboarding.

Skateboarding has a history of divisiveness, not of its own creation, but of being kept on the outside by defensive architecture and officials. But the sport carries a message larger than itself. In Philadelphia, there was a park (JFK Plaza) overrun by drugs and gangs. Then skateboarders discovered the marble ledges and smooth pavement. When the skater kids felt safe enough to use the space, workers looking down from nearby buildings started feeling safe too. Pretty soon, almost everyone was going again. But eventually, after the more affluent visitors arrived, the city council enacted a park ban on skateboarding. The founder of the park, a past city-planner, protested the ruling and skateboarded through the park. (He was 92 – and happened to be Kevin Bacon’s dad.) But the skateboarders lost. And today, the revamped park, criticized as characterless and unoriginal, has been called a “featureless plateau”.

What we learn from this isn’t truly about boarding at all. It’s the value of bringing different people together in a venue. It’s the mix of varied approaches to seeing the world that enables creativity and produces something bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s true of the parks. It’s true of office spaces, too. Built to host their staff. In commercial architecture, creating an environment that supports people’s ability to work together is the foundation of good design. There are decisions that can be made to draw together elements of organizations that might otherwise be divergent. We made everything rideable. It links the enormous square footage in a way that’s dynamic and fun. But it also makes impromptu connections with workers from varying departments more frequent.

No GSoft employee feels they belong to a single delineated space within the walls of the headquarters. They don’t have to be tethered to any particular workspace on any given day. This can only serve to remind the staff that they are sharing the catch. Organizations are finding that creating office space that allows more interaction between departments is a winning proposition. The same companies are discovering that designs that permit a variety of work requirements, from highly focused to paired and larger meetings, are an essential cog in the road to productivity. The GSoft offices host nooks for working individually, amongst larger spaces that allow greater engagement. Staff can choose to work at a desk, cocooned in a cozy alcove, mingle in an onsite café or brainstorm in a meeting space. They are not shackled to one zone.

What we’ve learned from the pandemic is that the ability to control the conditions of our work are more important to us than we realized, and more flexible than many had deemed possible.

We’ve also learned that despite our attempts at modesty, it’s pretty great to be able to shout about a big win like this. Maybe there’s a time to let humble slide. We’re indebted to our clients and Linebox’s incredible Montreal office. We’re also so thankful to the Grand Prix du Design for creating and administering the awards. But mostly for choosing us. Twice. We’re going to pop a cork or two, and maybe work on our 360 varial kickflip.

A Big Win. Skateboard gentrification. And Another Big Win.

Your workplace. It’s changed. Sure, you don’t work where you used to. If you do, it’s wildly different. There are fewer people. More rules. Stifled interaction. But over the course of the pandemic, all 561 days of it – 13,464 hours of it – we’ve learned that the expected conventions of work are not so static as we thought. Certain comforts have crept in, there are schedules that are more freeing, methods that actually enable more concentration, and ways to manage the work-life balancing act that stray far from the boilerplate developed over the last half century. Maybe the term work-life balance is entirely missing the point. Work is part of our lives. An integral part. The restrictions that a global pandemic thrust upon us have raised a critical question. Why do we insist on dividing work from the rest of our existence rather than striving to create ways to include it? Strangely, a set of intense restrictions have opened up an enormous host of possibilities.

It’s an exceedingly exciting time in workplace architecture and one that promises a lot of truly positive change. We need to learn from what we’ve been through and adapt.

When lockdown measures fractured our norms, we made offices out of our bedrooms, our kitchens, even our closets. Some have resorted to the self-containment of a shed in the backyard. All have their benefits. And their detractions.

Plant-life and touches of home are a definite plus. There are scores of others: a kitchen an arm’s length away, opening a window for fresh air, a dog with its head resting amicably on our feet. A home office has given us the convenience of interacting with our immediate surroundings, our neighbourhoods. Aligning ourselves with the environment around us is key to capturing some of the benefits we’ve found in this altered work world. Business leaders must remember that the pandemic has allowed workers to bring a laptop outside or take a call while counting our 10,000 steps.

Our new, isolated work silos have stolen the accidental face-to-face interactions with our coworkers that we need in order to create a sense of connection, of common purpose and to spark ideas that seem to arise from the ether. These are so difficult to generate from a two-dimensional office; the screen is a wonderful tool, but its limits are marked by its intangibility.

The future of work is not about simply abandoning the out-of-home office. It is about finding the elixir that blends some of the freedoms and inspiration we’ve discovered with the structures that motivate, focus and drive collective work ambitions.

Businesses that retained their leases can still participate equally in fostering an inclusive approach to their community. Element AI, cutting-edge Quebec-based artificial intelligence experts, understand the need for a connection to a sense of place. My architectural firm, Linebox, designed their Montreal offices before anyone had heard the term COVID-19. Still, there was a collaborative sense that the city – and specifically, the Mile End neighbourhood around them – had to be brought into the building. Strategically placed windows showcase views of the myriad nearby church steeples. But the flavour of the neighbourhood is brought inside, too. The office library is housed in a cabin-like structure featuring a dramatic vaulted roof and slatted windows looking out to the lobby. It resonates with visual cues to those same churches. An on-site espresso bar incorporates the character of a couple of the local coffee shops.

The “new office” isn’t going to be delineated by one single vision. Those in charge need to implement as many changes as possible to remain competitive in the field of creating liveable workplaces. Using natural materials anchors us. Designing a mixture of spaces for casual as well as structured meetings gives staff a variety of settings to approach the results businesses seek. Diversity is key.

There is all the evidence in the world to suggest that creative brains are stimulated by active bodies. We’ve learned that we want to be moving, but not by car. We’ve also discovered that movement need not end when you reach the office. Work can be combined with activity. The pandemic-scape has sprinkled the side streets and parks with distanced meetings. People amble, walk and jog, earbuds ensconced, speaking animatedly into their phones everywhere you look. Yet so many offices of the past are set up to hold us in a sedentary state for eight hours a day.

GSoft is a company with the prescience to imagine how integral the idea of movement is in a workplace. Linebox designed their new office spaces mid-pandemic. GSoft recognized the value of a space that allowed both interaction and mobility. Skateboarding is inextricable from the fabric of the tech brand’s culture. Every office and every meeting space is designed to be ‘rideable’. Ramps, banks, and paths pave the way to allow skateboards, scooters, or just fun, active movement from one place to the next. It’s worth noting that this is a company that creates software to enable smarter workplaces, yet they’re still heavily invested in the physical setting of their own workplace.

Okay. So maybe every office isn’t destined to be ‘rideable’. But there is a lesson from this time away from the office that we need to embrace. An active life need not be reduced to the gym. Gyms, too, should be incorporated into more and more workspaces - but designs that encourage walking and momentum are essential for the workplace that invites a progressive future.

It’s true, some staff may never return. Many have moved away – to the countryside or to another province. Others have changed their lifestyles in a manner that will prevent an easy re-entry. The future office-scape has to anticipate what this looks like and offer a path to include these permanent remote workers. As videoconferencing has become commonplace and verbs like Zoom have entered the vernacular, there is a need to create or adapt spaces that allow a more fluid interaction between those who are physically present and those who are not. Video booths, or rooms designed with sound-abatement must afford privacy when required, and the power to induce lively discussion amongst multiple participants at other times.

This new work lifestyle is re-emerging into a landscape that hasn’t yet had the chance to evolve. A successful workplace return means resisting the human inclination to fall back into old habits. People have built new ones. While technology and the power of the internet have certainly changed the way we work over the past couple of decades, its effect on our physical spaces has been subtle. Now is the time to realize the vast scope of how the advantages of the advent of widespread virtual work can really meld with the tried-and-true benefits of on-site efficiencies.

Andrew Reeves is Principal Partner and Senior Architect of Ottawa-based Linebox Studio.

Work is More Than a Desk and Other Pandemic Learnings

The Gsoft office designed by Linebox Studio has been selected as an A+ Awards Finalist in the Architecture +Workspace category! It is recognized as one of the world's best projects this year. From over 5,000 entries across 100+ countries.

Linebox Shortlisted Among The World's Top 5 In Office Design

Linebox Shortlisted Among The World's Top 5 Office Design

Linebox has been shortlisted again by Le Grand Prix du Design 2021, for 

Once again, we are very proud and grateful to everyone involved in this amazing project !

Gsoft Wins Le Grand Prix du Design 2021

A second award by Le Grand Prix du Design 2021 for Linebox !

Kirchoffer is our most award winning residential project. At Linebox we are doing great design when it's about your work space and even better when it's about your home

Kirchoffer Wins Le Grand Prix du Design 2021

Nestled between the Lachine Canal and the St. Lawrence River, Montréal’s urban Pointe-Sainte-Charles neighborhood reflects the city’s industrial past while housing modern businesses, such as GSoft, a locally founded software development company now situated in the historic Nordélec building. 