All images © Jordi Adria

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Velcro? Snazzy sneakers? This guy? Well, the brand would have you know that Velcro is much more than fun and games. They’re into architecture and design, too! The company’s beautiful new European headquarters in Barcelona is a clean and minimalist with a few quirky touches and pops of color. Oh, lest we forget to mention, Velcro-covered walls. Luise Esalva Studio used the brand’s signature material as an inspiration for unique movable wall panels and custom-made lanterns that bring out the fun and function of Velcro we all grew up loving. Read more.

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Sometimes you just got to get out of the office, but that’s not always feasible (rain, work, lethargy). OpenAD attempted to solve this problem with their “green” office in Riga, what they call an “indoor greenhouse”. The design features an abstract white plane that cuts across the open plan, with an indoor “forest” of trees and potted plants embedded within it. The presence of the greenery not only engenders a more peaceful environment, keeping the office air clean and employees refreshed. Read more.

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Photography by David Barbour

With a name that has become synonymous with innovation and an omniscient presence that is neither rivaled nor questioned, Google is undoubtedly a leader in all things technology. So does Google lead the charge in contemporary workspace design–you know the type, comfy lounge chairs, micro-environments, arcade machines that all dial up the “adolescence” we’re all ostensibly pining after (see, for example, the company’s EMEA Engineering Hub in Zurich). The search giant’s newest station, the Engineering HQ at Victoria, London, is its third in the city.

Designed by PENSON, which also produced the ’60s-futuristic design for Google’s second London offices, the newest workspace delivers a drastically different, emphatically “English” experience. Continue.

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Zynga, the interactive gaming company connecting millions everyday with games like FarmVille and Words With Friends, recently released photos of their new 270,000-sf office space in San Francisco. Colorful, dog friendly, and fully equipped with laser light portals and whiteboards smothered in cartoons, the interior integrates an eccentric decorative sensibility within the functional spaces of a growing office. Click to see more!

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Film stills courtesy of the filmmaker

With 38 days left for our World’s Coolest Offices competition, we have been in a fever for innovative workplaces from around the globe. We were beginning to wonder if gaming tables and centerpiece furniture were fast on their way to becoming office design standards. However, a recent project by filmmaker Zaheed Mawani has brought us back to a grim reality. “Three Walls” is Mawani’s documented investigation of the life and times of the office cubicle. Click to explore the deeper issues behind one of the most banal yet potent architectural elements today.

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Semi-transparent conference room and office pets: check. Photo: Jasper Sanidad, courtesy of Studio O+A.

Coming down the pipeline following yesterday’s one-two punch of the AOL art installation at the High Line II and the Apple headquarters rumormongering, we’ve gotten word that AOL has opened a new West Coast HQ of its own. According to the architects, Studio O+A, the Palo Alto offices are “a spatial equivalent to the transparency that AOL was bringing to every aspect of its business.”

While we’re not totally buying the “transparency” thing, we have to commend the online giant for eradicating the “distinctly 1980s corporate aesthetic” of the 73,000-square-foot space.

Click through for details on the renovation, plus many more pictures.

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Great commentary from Aaron Betsky on the “mountain” meme emerging as a design trope, most recently via BIG’s new West Side project. [via Beyond Buildings]

The most pervasive emerging architectural meme, in our minds: The pyramid. Many of which grace the interior of Swedish jean brand Cheap Monday’s new office (a “modern day Giza.”). [via Fast.Co Design]

The U.S. Green Building Council says Chicago leads the country with the most LEED-certified structures, followed closely by New York and Washington D.C. [via Cityscapes]

The 2011 Palm Springs Modernism Week kicked off yesterday – organizers expect 20,000 mid-century oglers. [via MyDesert.com by way of A/N Blog]

The AIA has announced the winners of its 2011 Young Architects Award. [via Bustler]

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Google’s newly opened Pittsburgh office, image via Fast.Co Design.

Another factory becomes another tech office, this time in the old center of American industry. An iced out tower in Hong Kong, Prince Charles complains about being seen as old-fashioned, and calibrating space to reflect the lens through which it’s viewed. Click through.

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JFK has released the renderings for Delta’s new Terminal 4 and it’s got a whopping 46 gates — as A/N points out, bigger than some mid-size airports. Interestingly, Hal Hayes (the lead planner at Skidmore Owings & Merrill who designed the current Terminal 4 and previously at HOK when it consulted on Delta’s old JFK terminal) bemoans the loss of the soon-to-be-razed Terminal 3, calling it “superior to Pei, especially in terms of aviation architecture.” [via A/N Blog]

South Dakota is getting its first architecture program. South Dakota State’s first architecture dean will be Brian T. Rex, formerly of Texas Tech. [via Archinect]

For those of you who missed MoMA’s last boat tour around New York Harbor with the architects involved in Rising Currents, there’s another architectural cruise in town. For $75, expert guides from the AIANY will take you on an educational three-hour whirl around Manhattan. [via New York Times]

Group8 in Geneva pairs two oft-used design themes — shipping containers and all-white — to create an inventive office for its architecture firm. (For more fantastic offices, stay tuned, because we’ve got an upcoming competition that may be of interest… hint, hint.) [via Co.Design]

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