In the “blueberry muffin” conference room, the walls are, naturally, painted blue. Not just any blue — it’s the calming color you might find a baby’s bedroom, what the paint can refers to as “sea to shining sea.” Anchoring the room is a table, red and oblong, adorned with fake succulents in purple pots. Nearby is the “fruity” conference room, with “razzle dazzle” red walls and vintage chairs upholstered in yellow pineapple printed cloth. Down the hallway is “maple waffle,” the room where the company holds its more serious meetings with investors. There, the walls are a subdued shade of brown. This is the office of the cereal brand Magic Spoon, which was introduced in 2019 and, starting in 2020, called its roughly 50 employees back to in-person work, at least two days a week. At Magic Spoon’s SoHo space, which was designed right around the company’s return-to-office push, the conference rooms are meant to feel like cereal boxes. “One of our core company values is, ‘Be a Froot Loop in a world of Cheerios,’” said Greg Sewitz, a Magic Spoon co-founder. “We wanted the office to underline that.”
Their space also reflects what designers, executives and workers describe as a trend that’s not entirely new, but is now becoming the go-to among certain start-ups, tech companies and other moneyed employers vying for young talent. It’s what might be called the Envy Office — what happens when companies try to combine the comforts of a living room and the glamour of a vacation. These spaces — often characterized by colorful walls, upholstered furniture, and carefully curated coffee table books — lure workers in with plenty of opportunities to fill their social feeds with photos taken at the workplace. “It’s taking cues from home, from hospitality, from Pinterest,” said Jordan Goldstein, a co-managing principal at Gensler, one of the world’s largest architecture firms, where clients have lately been asking for greenery and soft seating. He cited, as an example, the new headquarters of Marriott, which Gensler redesigned to incorporate banquettes, library nooks, and a tree growing through the middle of the lobby. Gensler has also recently redone offices for Barclays, Pinterest, and LinkedIn in this style. To some employees, all the fake plants, accent walls, and stylish dog beds sometimes seem designed to mask the inconvenience of space-conserving arrangements like hot desks, where workers no longer have their own assigned workspaces. Before the rise of remote work, the designers behind Magic Spoon’s office, Laetitia Gorra, 41, and Sarah Needleman, 33, were the designers for the women’s social club the Wing, a hallmark millennial-pink-drenched palace of throw pillows and color-coded bookshelves, which shut down last year. In 2020, Ms. Gorra founded the design firm Roarke, with Ms. Needleman running its operations. The duo helps executives figure out what an office should look like in a moment when many workers aren’t convinced they need to go to one. “Our pitch is very much about employee retention,” Ms. Gorra said. “We came from working on our sofas in yoga pants — what can we do to make your employees want to come back to the office?”
It’s a cycle that American workers have seen before. When working norms change, the design of the office goes with them. In fact, a survey of some 14,000 workers around the globe conducted by Gensler last year concluded that nearly 40 percent said their employers redesigned their offices during the pandemic. “If you’re looking at the history of the office, you’re looking at the history of changing attitudes toward what constitutes work, who workers should be,” said Craig Robertson, a media historian and author of “The Filing Cabinet.” “The design of an office is shaped by dominant social values.” As with each previous iteration of workplace aesthetics, including this latest trend, many managers are also trying to achieve a more straightforward goal: get people to spend time at the office.