A Sense of Community: Shanghai Advertising Agency Office by Yatofu Creatives.

It’s not often an employee’s sense of happiness, freedom, and inspiration takes top billing in a workplace design project, but that was exactly the brief Shanghai advertising agency Inmedia shared with the Helsinki-based studio Yatofu Creatives. The designers took up the project with enthusiasm, concocting a space that offers varied and dynamic ways of work as well as reflecting the agency’s forward-thinking spirit.

The workplace is now located in the Shanghai district of Hongkou, an area known for its condensed alleyway housing called Lilongs. Influenced by this and its vibrant counterparts in Southern Europe, Yatofu looked to bring this same sense of community into the office setting.

The interior was split into two zones representing the ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ of the alleyways. A wood-clad structure, which houses the private office and meeting rooms, draws inspiration from the residences that line bustling alleys, with windows opening into the interior to offer a glimpse of the activity inside.

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The exterior area references materials often found in an alleyway and is clad in glossy crimson tiles, paired against the rawness of the exposed concrete. Custom table lamps—directly inspired by pedestrian street lamps—line the “table alleys” as if illuminating narrow passageways.

Throughout the space, opportunistic seating arrangements are created through winding paths that offer privacy through the creation of corners, resulting in dynamic possibilities for different formats of work.

By referencing a different architectural typology, Inmedia’s workplace steers away from generic office configurations to create one that promotes spontaneous interactions and blurred boundaries between the individual and the shared space. It’s interactive, and informal and promotes a sense of community and combined purpose.

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[Images courtesy of Yatofu Creatives.]