Project Description
Sport performance brand ASICS brought their footwear apparel, equipment, marketing, digital and commerce teams together under one roof. ASICS now holds a significant bicoastal presence in the US, in both Irvine, California and Boston.
Designed by IA, the space, dubbed the Creation Studio, creates a space-efficient, high-performance workplace for departments with varying needs that would also function as a product showroom and tool for recruiting the region’s top creative talent. Additionally, the interior design tightly aligns with the brand’s identity and name, an acronym of the Latin phrase anima sana in corpore sano, meaning “a sound mind in a sound body.”
Strategically located in the heart of downtown, near South Station, the 22,000-square-foot, second-floor headquarters spans five contiguous buildings that were combined into a single floor plate. Challenged by a tight timeframe, IA was charged with creating workspaces for approximately 100 staffers as well as multi-tasking meeting areas and community-building amenities including a café, a wellness room, and a whiskey bar (with prized bottles displayed against gold-dusted mirror paneling).
The new space was designed to epitomize the brand’s Japanese craftsmanship and attention to detail, and use of natural, neutral materials and colors that confer simplicity and serenity. Precision and connection are recurring themes. A thin gold band that wends through the poured-concrete floor references Kintsugi, the ancient method of repairing broken pottery with gilded lacquer in a manner that celebrates the suture. The layout takes cues from Zen rock gardens via fluid circulation paths and a system of undulating white wall louvers that recall the organic striations of raked sand. The CNC-routed louvers—all carefully spaced and bearing a unique curvature—are a byproduct of advanced technology and hands-on collaboration with the millworker. Each louver was milled separately, numbered, and brought to site for a laborious and painstaking piece-by-piece installation.
Branding moments, both physical and digital, are integrated into the architecture. Stepping off the elevator, guests encounter the company emblem in the form of a custom light fixture, the signature ASICS stripes overlaying a backlit, perforated wood-veneer ceiling. In the adjacent public zone on the building’s north side, a digital display is projected onto a glass shadow box embedded into one wall. Above the café’s main countertop, a living vertical garden spells out the brand’s spiral “a” logo in greenery. Even the restrooms have a showcase moment, courtesy of a 25-foot-long infinity-mirror shoebox housing a seemingly endless array of the brand’s footwear.
The workspace proper, spanning the south side of the floor plate, supports both employee interaction and focus. Workstations are arrayed in pinwheels rather than as linear runs, a configuration that creates an organic pathway between team members and allows for maximum collaboration. For more intense group sessions and product reviews, staffers head to one of the eight product workrooms, each customized for a particular team. Threshold signage near the doorways declares words like practice, patience, and balance. Clever built-ins maximize square footage: Behind the custom sliding-slat wall panels are generous storage cavities with drawers below.
Located near the entry, two main showrooms utilized for client presentations, training, and product display read as “carved-out” spaces thanks to consistent material treatment inside and out. Every surface is designed to be utilized for display, and an operable partition dividing the two spaces ensures maximum flexibility.
Lighting design was integral to the scheme, with special emphasis paid to the workrooms and showrooms, in which occupants need accurate conditions for their work. In the open office zones, large circular pendants hung at various heights suggest radiating water ripples, creating a tranquil glow overhead. In the workrooms, an illuminated display ledge ebbs and flows from one end to the other. The whiskey bar’s soft round pendants evoke river rocks.
The ASICS brand is reflected in the precision of each intriguing detail, which fosters innovation and provides a dynamic canvas for the products. “The design not only pays homage to ASICS’ founding principle—a Sound Mind in a Sound Body—but enables creativity and collaboration for our teams to drive this brand forward,” concludes Gene McCarthy, president and CEO of ASICS America Corporation.