Eolian Energy Offices – Burlingame
Axelrod Architects designed the offices of Eolian Energy in Burlingame with an exposed grid of load-carrying columns forming a network of connections and a linear graphic system across the floor, creating an organism-like space that is almost invisibly separated into fresh, clean, and calm spaces.
Axelrod Architects realized the vision of Eolian Energy in the design of their offices in Burlingame, California.
Eolian accelerates the uptake of energy generating and storage solutions, increases solar and wind generating capacity, reduces carbon emissions, and grows the reach and resilience of a clean electricity grid.
The space extends over one 1,500 sq. ft story of a building that had a grid of load-carrying structural steel columns. By leaving the columns exposed and detached from the wall system, Axelrod created a visual grid that forms a network of connections in much the same way that energy generating companies connect to their users. The grid traverses the elements and functions within the overall space in a visual connection emphasized through a linear graphic system across the floor and echoed in the lighting system in the ceiling.
The workstations, furniture and functions in the space exist regardless of the position of the columns, which gently trace a path through them. The columns serve as signposts drawing the eye onwards as they traverse, turn corners, vanish behind a partition, and then reappear on its other side, playfully revealing the position of the next column.
Each column is marked with coordinates pinpointing the location of the company’s turbine fields spread across the United States.
Designed as a white bubble, the space is pure and uniform in appearance, while housing various centers of activity, such as office units and open workstations, meeting spaces, private offices, public seating areas, and a dining area, with all areas – public and private alike –interconnected by the grid of columns into a kind of organism in which each element has an equal role to play.
In the same way that the company combines innovative technology and raw natural resources, so too the architectural design creates a continuum of form that is almost invisibly separated into fresh, clean, and calm spaces. A transparent partition system encloses office spaces with minimal use of built walls so that the space retains a sense of openness, allowing the physical and functional connection between diverse spaces to be seen in a single glance.
To enhance employees’ sense of connection to every aspect of the company’s work, the architects went beyond the layout of functions in the space, and the natural flow between work areas, and chose clean wall finishes that allow them to function as huge screens on which dynamic information is projected on Eolian’s many projects across the country.
Sculptor Wayne Shaffer drew on turbine blades for his ceramic artwork which dramatically soars across the main wall to represent harmony between nature and technology.
Acoustic wall cladding reminiscent of topographical land surface images and a delicate green growing wall add softer and more organic touches to the otherwise pristine look of the space.
Design: Axelrod Architects
Design Team: Irit Axelrod, Orit Tsabari, Nogga Segev, Ryan Keerns, Yana Ronin
Lighting Design: Orly Avron Alkabes lighting design
Photography: Joe Fletcher
