Santa Monica, California, USA

Montalba Architects and Pamela Burton’s design for the meditation app Headspace convert an industrial building with a former parking lot cum-meditation courtyard that connects to the surrounding spaces in Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station arts complex.

The adaptive-reuse project won a 2020 American Architecture Award from The Chicago Athenaeum.

Reflective of their core values – focused, mindful, and dedicated – while fitting into the industrial vernacular of the building’s site, was a primary focus for the team.

The challenge was to find unique ways to bring Headspace’s new office to life by seamlessly juxtaposing group and individual spaces.

To honor the core values of the company, small spaces were strategically placed throughout the space, where employees could find a moment of personal solace that wouldn’t deter from the surrounding communal environment.

The main design gesture turns the previous unused exterior patio into a large, outdoor garden, which gets pulled through the workspace into the central courtyard on the second floor.

The open-air enclosure filters light and greenery into previously dark, isolated spaces and offers a moment of reprieve from the industrious energy throughout.

Creating a connection to the outdoors was a critical design consideration for the campus experience and meditation environment of the Headspace culture.

This was accomplished through a few design moves: exterior courtyard, bi-fold door and garage door to the courtyard, and the lightwell courtyard on the second floor.

The featured entry stair functions as a workspace that transitions into a large stadium seating for company-wide events, meditation, presentations, all hands meetings, or flexible working space.

True to Headspace’s brand philosophy, free-standing meditation pods and quiet meditation areas are available throughout the space to allow employees additional moments of solitude.

The material palette for most of the space was strategically chosen to be a sophisticated, neutral palette in order to allow for the Headspace AV graphics, furniture, and murals to bring brighter colors to the space.

For a tech company with the slogan, “Meditation and Sleep Made Simple,” it was pivotal that the office’s design “reflect the company’s core values of mindfulness, focus, and dedicated purpose.”

Now, as a unified network of flexible workspaces and outdoor areas, the office is where employees can work in a better headspace.

Architects: Montalba Architects, Inc.
Client: Headspace
General Contractor: Shawmut Design and Construction
Structural Engineers: John Labib Associates
Landscape Architects: Pamela Burton and Co.
Photographers: Kevin Scott