Officeworks Showroom – Nashville
Gensler’s Officeworks Showroom in Nashville redefines trade-only spaces with its edgy design, spotlighting bold materials and inviting social areas that reflect the city’s vibrant culture and craftsmanship heritage.
Officeworks makes its debut into the Nashville market with a unique showroom that sets it apart from competitors.
As a trade-only furniture showroom, Officeworks’ storefront has the mystique of a social club with members-only exclusivity, piquing the curiosity of passersby. Having partnered with Gensler on its New Jersey location, the furniture dealer knew the Nashville team would be up for the challenge of delivering a showcase with attitude where the furniture takes center stage. The team choreographed an elevated, bold experience in a venue designed for hosting private client and designer events, envied by those looking in from the outside.
With Nashville’s building boom, Officeworks saw the opportunity to provide an alternative furniture dealership option. Embracing an edgy and gritty aesthetic with an urban outlaw, country music, rebel rocker energy, the design is expressed in exposed structural elements and polished concrete floors. Blackened end-grain wood and naturally imperfect spalted maple could be considered undesirable, but in the design team’s artful hands, the unique materials deliver an elevated elegance. Black quartzite, reused “heritage materials,” blackened metal, and stainless steel contrast the warm wood, black brick, and paisley/floral print stamped leather, exuding a craftsmanship quality. An expansive mural composed of street art, band posters, and advertisements celebrates the sign-making and screen-printing heritage of Nashville’s Printers Alley.
The café is the showroom’s spotlight moment. Its inviting u-shaped bar allows large groups to gather and faces the sidewalk corner making it look like a bar or club from the outside. The entry sequence leads to a stainless-steel pergola-style structure with a stretched backlit ceiling that creates the illusion of a lightwell and defines the greeting/presentation space. The radiused corners of the conference room are reminiscent of a jewel box. Along the floor-to-ceiling windowed perimeter, vignettes feature the various furniture lines Officeworks represents and are purposefully placed as a highly visible public attraction.
Design: Gensler
Contractor: Thomas Constructors
Photography: Stephen Walsh
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