The Austrian office you might want to live in
Austrian architects heri&sally have designed a new office in Burgenland which focuses on quality of life for employees - including a climbing wall, swimming pool, kitchen, and garden.
Achieving the elusive work-life balance is difficult for many professionals - with most of us spending at least half of our waking hours at work.
However, a new office design by Vienna based architects heri&sally has envisioned the work space as a "living" space - with liveability built into the design from scratch. In fact, it looks so nice, employees may never want to go home.
Inside the lobby, there's a three-story climbing wall, and spaces to relax are embedded throughout the office. There's an on-site gym, a space to cook next to an outdoor terrace, a swimming pool in back, and even sleeping bunks if anyone needs to take a nap.
"From the beginning the concept of quality of life and leisure culture took a major part in the planning," said the architects. "The traditional aspect of 'going to work' therefore has received minor consideration."
The company that owns the office, FOB, designs façades for buildings. The outside of the office has a unique beam structure they can use to test out their designs, and when it's not in use, it doubles as another climbing gym for employees to play on.
The architects tried to make the office as sustainable as possible. Everything is constructed from wood, even the elevator shaft, and the building is ultra-efficient when it comes to energy use.
Solar panels on the roof provide electricity for the office, plus enough extra to feed back into the grid for the city. The swimming pool is heated from waste heat from the server, and the server is cooled with water from the pool.
Photo: Paul Ott During the planning phase the architects consulted the company's employees and explained the idea of a "work-landscape". Company cars will be replaced with e-cars and employees who live within 10km of the office will be given bikes. The remaining green space area of around 5000m2 will be used to create a vegetable garden, with room for donkeys, sheep, chickens, and geese. Employees will be able to spend some work hours in the garden and can harvest and take home the produce.
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Achieving the elusive work-life balance is difficult for many professionals - with most of us spending at least half of our waking hours at work.
However, a new office design by Vienna based architects heri&sally has envisioned the work space as a "living" space - with liveability built into the design from scratch. In fact, it looks so nice, employees may never want to go home.
Inside the lobby, there's a three-story climbing wall, and spaces to relax are embedded throughout the office. There's an on-site gym, a space to cook next to an outdoor terrace, a swimming pool in back, and even sleeping bunks if anyone needs to take a nap.
"From the beginning the concept of quality of life and leisure culture took a major part in the planning," said the architects. "The traditional aspect of 'going to work' therefore has received minor consideration."
The company that owns the office, FOB, designs façades for buildings. The outside of the office has a unique beam structure they can use to test out their designs, and when it's not in use, it doubles as another climbing gym for employees to play on.
The architects tried to make the office as sustainable as possible. Everything is constructed from wood, even the elevator shaft, and the building is ultra-efficient when it comes to energy use.
Solar panels on the roof provide electricity for the office, plus enough extra to feed back into the grid for the city. The swimming pool is heated from waste heat from the server, and the server is cooled with water from the pool.
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