Medical Mutual Insurance Offices – Brooklyn
Bialosky consolidated multiple locations of Medical Mutual Insurance into one large office located in Brooklyn, Ohio.
Formerly scattered across Northeast Ohio, the insurance giant’s 1,350 employees now share one home. With floorplates the size of football fields, the design challenge was the overwhelming scale: to design and populate the massive structure – humanely.
The given somber and dysfunctional building demanded a comprehensive transformation. The design solution employed traditional town planning principles for an interior space creating an overlay of central squares, pocket parks, and small-scale neighborhoods.
Major amenities live on the first floor. Previously closed to the outdoors, the dining hall shed its heavy exterior wall for an all-glass curtain that pulls in daylight. The massive space now feels approachable. Textural ceiling baffles and warmly lit globes give the sense of a vast tree canopy in an urban park. The space overflows onto an inviting open patio with cityscape benches and a wrapping metal pergola.
On upper floors, a Central Square, anchored to the city grid, is a communal place to gather, lounge, and eat. Plazas are signaled by warm natural wood slats, a touch of nature in the urban environment, which emulate tall urban trees and canopies. Alleys are bold, geometric pathways with graffiti-like supergraphics that aid in wayfinding. Departments are designed as neighborhoods of the greater city system, interconnected by plant-lined boulevards. Each neighborhood has a tailored Pocket Park that is scaled and designed appropriately to the department’s operational culture.
The aesthetic is metropolitan inspired with slate grey textiles, glass “storefronts”, metal detailing, and strong, linear architectural elements. The project achieves its purpose of redefining the user experience within the behemoth building as an intimately scaled community workplace.
Design: Bialosky
Photography: Christian Phillips
