MullenLowe Ad Agency Office in Winston-Salem, US by TPG Architecture

There’s a reason we all want to work in advertising agencies. And it’s not just because of the uber-cool clothes they get to wear. Rather, it’s because of fit outs like this. Who doesn’t want to work in an old tobacco factory with ceilings nudging just over 4 meters high?

The 3,500 square meter floor plate, designed by TPG Architecture has been left mostly raw and exposed. It’s essentially a concrete lovers’ haven. What they wanted to achieve for MullenLowe advertising agency was a design that respected the original structure. And how did they do that? By leaving it be. They pretty much left everything untouched. Unedited. The spaces they created inside the structure are free form, specifically designed to be free standing of the walls and ceiling. Rectangular boxes. Spaces within spaces. A series of boxes within a box.

It’s got a lot going for it this hotted up, sexy design. Mesh partitions, tempered with charcoal grey, triangular lights. A stunning reception with feature lights that look more like neon paper clips dangling from the celling. And acres of space. It’s more contemporary LA gallery than any office.

Original paint makes a big statement in this design too. The structural columns and beams were left coated in almost a century of layered paint. Walls were lightly sandblasted, not to remove the paint but merely to reduce the peeling. The architects’ thoughtfulness in this regard has left the space with a lovely aged feeling, one that is a beautiful backdrop to the clean edges of the plywood and dark grey boxes.

The perimeter walls are a series of original, oversized, metal-framed windows. The entire floor plate is light and airy. Sunlight throws shadows from the square glazing onto the polished concrete floors and casts a tilted square pattern onto the aged walls. It’s so effortlessly beautiful you could just lie on the cool, grey floor watching the different shadows it casts as the sun moves across the building.

If these are the type of digs advertising agency people hang out in, it’s enough to have you signing up for ad school. Not to mention buying a whole new wardrobe to go with it.