Our Favorite Interior Designers…for Rescuing a Boring Office
Whether remodeling an existing space or starting someplace new, consider these Fellinis of furnishings, who’ve worked for clients like Uber, Airbnb and Google.
When Molly Martell, vice president of brand at San Francisco venture capital firm Headline, was tasked with revamping the company’s offices in 2021, she sought out a design that “felt like the antidote to Zoom” and could fulfill a mandate for a “cozy” space that wasn’t “cold, gridded boxes,” she explained. For a minute, she and Headline considered going avant-garde, perhaps buying and remodeling a house or even a boat. But they eventually settled on hiring designer Kendall Ermshar from Noma Design & Co., based in the San Francisco Bay Area, to outfit a new space in the Presidio, decking it out with dozens of white oak bookshelves, faux fireplaces, a pink lucite swing and a kitchen table with palm trees growing through it.
As many of us have settled back into a routine that involves the office and in-person work to a greater degree, startups and large companies alike are rethinking and remodeling their spaces to wipe away memories of how they looked before Covid-19—or what it was like to labor entirely over Zoom. With the help of interior designers like the ones below, they’ve tended to adopt a warmer, more residential aesthetic, with cozy spaces meant to entice employees to come in and hang out—rooms that feel more like private clubs or chic living rooms than sterile, glassy spaceships.