Top 10 Coolest Offices in the World

All the most innovative and beautiful office spaces you’ve been dreaming of working in.

8 min readApr 15, 2021

The coolest office isn’t always about size.

Every business needs space, facilities, and style. This is because it represents the values, mindset, culture, and future goals of the company. That’s why large corporations, such as the likes of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, spend billions creating brand identity through some of the coolest office spaces around the world.

However, tech companies aren’t the only ones who have a kick-ass headquarters: we’ve seen over the years that any startup — from co-working space operators to digital marketing agency — can create truly awe-inspiring office designs too.

If your company is in the market for an office upgrade, you’ve come to the right place. Check it out below:

1. Warehouse turn Human Resource Startup

Formerly known as the Union Iron Works machine shop, this warehouse on San Francisco’s Pier 70 is a high-ceilinged building that survived the 1906 earthquake through World War II, which was used to construct and repair ships at that time.

A startup that makes human resources software for small businesses moved into the building in 2018, where it collaborated with architecture firm Gensler to create a working space filled with the “stuff you would see in a living room” — where working desks are mixed among couches, area rugs, poufs, and coffee tables, while preserving most of the industrial elements intact, including the lifts, cranes, pipes, and beams overhead.

An added benefit: The floors are heated to keep workers warm on cold Bay Area days.

2. The “Temple of Light” — A Personal Growth Education Company

Inspired by the jungle gym playscape and the stained glass in Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, this online learning education company in Kuala Lumpur features a multileveled workspace bathed in polychromatic light that shifts throughout the day. The space uses natural light to produce a kaleidoscopic effect of “colored shadows”, painting the space in colorful hues.

Designed collaboratively with IDEAWORKSHOP, the entire architectural design features simple but innovative components to counteract a desk-bound lifestyle, including standing desks and pull-up bars to its dynamics to increase user experience as well as productivity.

An added benefit: As a workplace that values user comfort and health, hypnotherapy rooms and power nap facilities are also provided.

3. Office for Both Humans and Dogs

Designed by architecture firm NBBJ, this New York-based company produces toys and treats for canines. A rooftop terrace and an indoor play area are among the features this Columbus office has to offer.

A once deprived district in the Franklinton neighborhood is now being revitalized with this awesome workspace concept catering to both employees and their pets.

This office also features a range of unconventional workspaces, including “amenity bars” that resemble bunk beds, work-and-play lounge, and living-room environments, where their pups can run up and down a ramp, slip into a hiding spot, and frolic in an open area with toys.

4. University Theatre turn Cybersecurity Company

The building in Cairo, Egypt was originally a university theatre built in the 1960s. It was later leased to a technology park in 2013 where it was modified and leased as office space to several companies. In 2017, it was redesigned by an accredited Egyptologist assisted by a Cybersecurity professional to become a comfortable workplace for an internet security company.

Part office and part cultural experience, the office pays homage to ancient Egypt in everything from the lighting, furniture, layout, to color palate & fittings; while covering modern-day security and encryption approaches in its business.

Bonus: The basement floor also houses a multipurpose cybersecurity museum which includes a renovated stage turntable — typically used as a theatrical element to assist in changing scenes — just in line with the company’s architectural inspiration and concept of traveling to the past.

5. Hospital turn to Co-working Space

Originally built as a health care facility for sick German immigrants, and later turned into the Lenox Hill Hospital, this 19th-century 4-storey building in New York’s East Village has been given a new lease on life as the headquarters of female-focused co-working space.

The office also has 10 conference rooms named after books, games, and women’s schools, like Radcliffe college in Massachusetts and Atlanta’s Spelman.

There are also a number of facilities including the kitchen, lactation room and a quiet room for working moms. Employees also have access to an outdoor patio.

6. The Largest Invention Factory Bringing Innovations to Life

The Pittsburgh-based company invents more than 2000 items per year, licensing out one new product every three days.

The facility is designed with 15 different sets — ranging from pirate ships, race tracks, and faux caves, to red carpet walkways, a castle, or a giant robot for educators, designers, business professionals and inventors alike. Not only does the space have fun, creative decor, but the facility also has a state-of-the-art sound, video, animation studio and fully-equipped workshops for creating working prototypes of inventions.

Added perks: The employees are known as “Creationeers” and get to wear lab coats.

7. Shipping Container turn Fundraising Company

What used to be a large warehouse in the Atwater Village area of Los Angeles, is now a charity event production company that runs bike races and other events. The event company worked with Clive Wilkinson Architects to come up with a solution for creating an inspiring new headquarters inside the warehouse on a tight budget.

The result is a shipping container city topped with white tents to create “breathing islands” for each department in order to minimize the volume of air-conditioned space.

Map tables, brightly colored walls, fountains, skylights, open spaces — these functions created a lively, inspiring, and energy-efficient warehouse work environment despite a low construction budget.

8. Nuclear Bunker turn Internet Service Provider Hub

Literally 30 meters underground, far beneath Vita Berg Park in Stockholm, architects from AF-LA transformed an old nuclear bomb shelter into a one-of-a-kind office space, with a distinctly “Bondesque” feel.

This rock shelter is now home to a Swedish ISP, an internet provider which hosts server halls and data center offices under granite rocks. As far as power supplies go, the office space adopts a Cold War theme and installed diesel engines that were originally designed for submarines around the space.

Bonus: their space designs are crazy unique, as their computer lab is lit with fluorescent black lights.

9. Architecture Firm bringing Man and Nature Together

This is an architecture firm and not a company office. The Selgas Cano Architecture firm is rightly a brilliant masterpiece. Half of the building built into the ground, surrounded by trees, the view of falling leaves, animals, and wildlife passing by, this firm makes working in the woods a real thing.

The office takes the form of an aerodynamic tube, with a long window on one wall that extends into part of the ceiling. Acting as both a window and a skylight, the glass wall/window floods the office with light.

This unique proximity to nature is both cozy and inspiring as employees get a bug’s eye view of the forest floor!

10. Office like College Campus

Meetings in gondolas, working in jungle lounge, perpetually full refrigerators: this mega-campus in Zurich is home to a multinational technology company. Employees can retreat to egg-like nooks in the jungle lounge to make phone calls or switch off.

There’s also a water lounge area with several leather loungers and a bathtub, where employees can have a nap.

Added bonus: Employees can also relax in the massage room, free of charge.

BONUS: Industrial Area turn Creative Community

With the growing demand for places to work, eat, play, and rest all under one roof —entrepreneurs and employees alike are free to step away from their desks and explore the space such as the lounge facilities and coffee area.

Bouldering facilities, health centers, a childcare center, a ping pong play area, and claw machines — are a few of the support services you can expect renting this office space in Petaling Jaya at a discounted rate.

Added benefit: Employees can bring their pets to work and eat as the whole area is earmarked as pet-friendly including all the restaurants in this space.

Having a well-designed office space definitely helps to keep employees happier and inspires them to be more energetic and creative in their work.

Want to work in one of these coolest and most well-designed office spaces in the world? Come and have a chat with us to know what Jaya One has to offer!