Mobelux Offices – Richmond
BOB Architecture and software company Mobelux have collaborated to design new offices for Mobelux, located in Richmond, Virginia.
Mobelux is an an award winning digital product team based in Richmond, Virginia. Since 2008, they’ve been working with their clients to create amazing products that compete with the best in the world. In the years since Mobelux launched Tumblr’s mobile platforms they have expanded from a native-focused operation to a full-service collection of designers, developers, strategists, writers, and photographers.
To facilitate that growth, Mobelux’s founders began searching for a new home in 2015. That search ended when they crossed the threshold of Saunders Station; a WPA-era post office in the heart of the city. Opened in 1937, Saunders Station was a beautiful structure in an otherwise run-down part of the city that was on the cusp of expansion. Today, it sits in an area of Richmond poised for change.
After 78 years of public service, three renovations, and decades of neglect, the venerable building was in need of a full rehabilitation. Working hand in hand with BOB Architecture, they began rethinking how a facility formerly tasked with disseminating mail could be transformed into a modern, digital workspace.
Special care was taken in order to feather modern architecture into period architecture, all while respecting historic elements of the building under Federal protection, such as the carved eagle above the entrance, the inspector walkway suspended above the workfloor, and the original marble and terrazzo lobby.
Key to making Saunders Station function as a modern office was utilizing an open floor plan on the main workfloor with areas to relocate to throughout the day. A library built around the original vault. A boiler room transformed into a billiards lounge. A glass-enclosed mailing vestibule. And one of the most intriguing spaces: a basement locker room reformed into a theater, complete with tiered seating rescued from a local cinema before its demolition.
After two years of designing, renovating, constructing, and outfitting, Mobelux at Saunders Station was re-commemorated on the buildings’ 80th anniversary in May of 2017. No longer a run-down post office, Saunders Station was re-established as a modern, technology-infused place of work, primed for another 80 years of service.
Design: BOB Architecture and Mobelux
Photography: Ethan Hickerson
