Brooks Headquarters

Seattle, WA

In today’s rapidly evolving corporate real estate market, growing companies must balance a clear sense of identity with the ability to adapt as teams, technologies and business needs change. Brooks Running's headquarters is designed with this flexibility at its core. Like a favorite shoe, the workplace is also designed to be both comfortable at the onset yet malleable over time—with shared infrastructure walls consolidating electrical, data and plumbing systems so surrounding walls can be easily moved or removed. This hyperflexible canvas allows team areas to reconfigure quickly as needs change.

Within this flexible framework, the design reflects Brooks' culture and connection to the running community. From a spatially interconnected design workshop to shoelace-inspired art installations and bespoke graphics, the workplace celebrates the spirit of performance running while strengthening connections between employees, their work and one another.

Features

To begin each day, employees move beside a two-story rotating art wall that emulates a morning run along nearby bodies of water. Dappled daylight, shimmering reflections, and warm sunrise colors prompt a delightful transition from busy street entry to design workshop above. The space also uses materials (reflections, color), graphics (track lines, floor numbers), and shapes (rounded edges) to imply speed and continuous movement.

Underscoring a commitment to excellence, a materials library (shown here), as well as a sewing studio and three season display wall, are intermixed with collaborative spaces to ensure transparency and alignment around developing the best products. Stocked with a myriad of fabric samples and vibrant materials, the light-filled materials library is a highly visible hub that supports the exploration process.

Echoing an “essentialism” design mindset, the building works hard to be solely what is needed and nothing more. Its shared infrastructure walls that house electrical, data and plumbing systems allow spaces to be reconfigured with ease for seamless future transitions, saving resources and time. Prioritizing planet and occupant health, the mass timber structure and one of Seattle’s few “living buildings” also uses interior materials that are 95% red-list free.

Project Details

Client Name
Brooks

Square Footage
113,000

Program
Workplace, three-season display wall, materials library, sewing studio, kitchenette, three-story gathering space, branded installations

Services
Interior design, environmental graphic design, lighting design

Sustainability
Living Building
95% Red-List-Free Materials

Phase
Completed