While the whole concept of “office space” had begun to shift pre-pandemic–from individual offices to a more communal, collaborative approach–the last few years both confirmed and accelerated those changing ideas. As organizations now begin to ask team members to abandon their work-from-home setups and return to the office, employers are seeking to create workspaces that feel welcoming, productive, comfortable and collaborative.

Tangram Interiors specializes in creating such environments. A commercial interiors firm with several locations across California and Texas, Tangram has produced innovative, connected, supremely workable spaces for clients such as Hulu, Imagine Entertainment, Kawasaki, Pacific Life, The Trade Desk and Ticketmaster.

As you can imagine, these professionals not only curate fabulous offices for their clients, but they also perform these feats for their own team members. One of the best examples of this is the company’s office in Newport Beach, California, by Susie Tashiro, partner with architecture firm MOZU, which for many reasons ranks high on the list of Spaces We Love.

Like many of the best-designed offices, this location is an ideal representation of the company itself, in what the firm calls its “hacker” sensibility–to be constantly researching, experimenting and exploring the boundaries of what’s possible, testing ideas internally before offering those ideas to clients. This concept of ‘testing what’s possible’ is perhaps most apparent in their Newport Beach office’s wide-ranging mix of different areas, spaces and styles.

In their offices, there are personal areas where individual, focused work can happen. These can take the shape of roomy, private offices with a mix of solid and glass walls, or smaller spaces sectioned-off with fabric panels or shelving units. Each space allows its user to have a quiet place, away from more populated parts of the office, where they can zero-in on a specific task.

The collaborative spaces are for brainstorming and sharing ideas. There are several of these locations around the office, from a table and chairs in an open area that can be delineated with the simple pull of a curtain, to various booths and high-top table setups where team members can congregate with their laptops and tablets to connect on a project.

Social spots provide space to take a break and mingle. The large, open kitchen complements their numerous couch-and-coffee-table combos dotting the office.

The private meeting areas are available for presentations and purpose-driven group meetings. These are usually separate rooms that have a table and chairs along with audio/visual capabilities to optimize the virtual meeting experience for remote team members and guests.

Such dynamic spaces create a clean break from the offices of yesteryear as well as the makeshift feel of most teammates’ home offices. Tangram believes these unique interior solutions play a vital role in helping define a company’s culture and unlocking the potential of the organization and its team. These are spaces that have proven their worth in Tangram’s offices and therefore have earned their use in many of their client’s spaces as well.

There are some overarching features of a comfortable workspace that Tangram has incorporated into its Newport Beach location. Borrowing from some of the latest trends in interior home design, Tangram aims to ease its employees back into the office by bringing familiar features from the home office environment into the new workplace while leaving behind many of the distractions and confines that exist while actually working at home.

The warm and inviting environment with seating and collaborative areas play a role here, as do the high ceilings and large windows that bring in plenty of natural light. Just like so many home renovations seek to remove walls and create expansive, gather-together-type rooms, the Tangram office utilizes glass walls, low-slung structural elements, and open-concept furniture designs. This creates clear sight lines of the interiors, skyline and trees, and supports the space to feel less claustrophobic than more traditional office spaces, while fostering relationship building and ultimately a stronger culture.

All these techniques–creating different environments for different work, giving team members more unique settings in which to operate, and bringing a “homey” feeling to the workplace–are ingenious ways to make any office a welcome, comfortable, and inspirational place. The tasteful and strategic way that Tangram uses these techniques in their own Newport Beach office is just another reason we can’t help but love this space!