Opella Offices – Morristown
Opella’s new headquarters in Morristown, designed by Gensler, emphasizes connection, agility, and employee well-being through a dynamic culture and consumer goods-inspired workplace with local materiality and flexible spaces.
Sanofi relocated to the heart of Morristown, New Jersey’s downtown as the new home base for Opella’s North American headquarters, its consumer healthcare business. With a desire to be part of the community, they selected 21 South Street, which offers proximity to the train station and myriad downtown amenities. The workplace comprises three levels, featuring a double-height lounge and town hall space with street-level views of the bustling sidewalks. The office embodies Opella’s culture and mission to create connection to patients and consumers through its personal healthcare brand products. Key goals of the design include creating a dynamic culture, promoting the look and feel of a fast-moving consumer goods company, and balancing high energy in a casual and comfortable environment. The workplace is meant to be an inclusive space that promotes agility, interaction, choice, and employee well-being.
At the corner street level, visitors are welcomed into a public coffee bar, “General Coffee & Co.,” which emulates a turn-of-the-century mercantile with local materiality including red brick, walnut wood cabinetry, and antiqued mirror glass. A textural brick wall separates the public from a private employee townhall gathering lounge filled with natural light, elements of biophilia, and full-height digital display screens. A communicating stair leads to the second-floor workplace with archways that reflect the building’s original façade and provide an overflow window to the meeting space below. Challenged with low floor-to-floor heights, the team cleverly exposed ceilings and designed decorative grid frames with pendant light fixtures to create an open and airy workplace. The second floor incorporates various seating choices: work desks, focus rooms, and enclosed meeting spaces for meaningful interactions and innovation. Built-in oak wood shelving brings hospitality and warmth to showcase Opella’s personal care products.
Just beyond the second-floor communal pantry, a metal mesh stair invites you up to the third floor quiet zone with individual focus booths, tea point, boardroom, and wellness rooms. 21 South Street offers proximity to Sanofi’s pharmaceutical workplace within walking distance of M Station at Morristown.
Design: Gensler
Contractor: SJP Properties
Photography: Robert Deitchler
