The insta-awesome office.
To accommodate their success and rapid growth, Instacart enlisted us to design their new office in the heart of San Francisco. Their goal with the new space was twofold: to attract and retain talent while embodying their core values of humbleness and quality. So, we created a workplace centered around personal experience, social context, and serious fun.
Within our design were two large work cafes that featured full coffee bars inspired by neighborhood haunts near their original office and provide a warm and inviting place for people to work and meet with visitors. In addition, workstations, located on the perimeter, allowed everyone access to windows, daylight, and views, while meeting rooms and phone booths, located in the center of the floors, featured strategic glass-wrapped walls that allow for visual access from one end of the office to the other
INSTACART SF
LOCATION
San Francisco, California
SIZE
63,000 SF
SCOPE
Architecture
Interior Design
Furniture Design
Lighting Design
Environmental Graphics
PHOTOGRAPHY
Jasper Sanidad
Mariko Reed
To ensure we maintained the cheekiness of the brand through the aesthetic, we included clever carrot-themed quotes, veggie-inspired design elements and even transformed produce boxes into office storage.
The resulting office space was designed and documented in record time, just three weeks. And while it might be considered the “insta-project.” it was delivered on budget and without sacrificing quality or imagination.
“I don’t believe having a nice office space is any measure of success, but I do love that it allows us to highlight our culture. An office should remind a team why it’s here. For us, that’s to improve the lives of our customers, so we had customer and shopper stories built into the landscape here.”
APOORVA MEHTA, FOUNDER/CEO, INSTACART
Evolving the instacart office.
Having completed two floors for Instacart in the same building—as well as the on-line grocery delivery service’s Atlanta and Toronto offices—Blitz created an evolution of the previous designs, while maintaining a connection among them.
Playing off the corporate logo, a clean geometric theme permeates the visual elements of the plan, continuing motifs established on the 6th and 11th floors. All conference rooms mimic the Instacart carrot and are defined by two tones of wall covering—paint, cork, or fabric—bisected diagonally. Felt wrapped diagonally on divider screens brings the motif into three dimensions.
The designers were tasked with retaining existing cherry-wood finishes in the board room and a conference room that was converted into a library. Keeping with Instacart’s practice of naming spaces after food types (the other floors have fruit and vegetable references), it was determined that the 3rd floor would use spices.
The board room was dubbed “saffron red” and covered in dark hues to embrace the conference table’s tones. The library sports the same charcoal-colored felt ceiling panels to correspond with deep tones of the cherry wall paneling
The space was designed with zones representing the journey of food—from farm to table—wrapped around central seating configurations.
Each zone has a defining alcove, wall, or color blocking to distinguish it from the next: primary-colored walls and wood-toned, flower-shaped light fixtures bring to mind the farm; black wood tile and shelves supported by pipes connote industrial shipping; triangular wall tiles represent movement and direction of transportation; a butcher-block cart with overhead lighting creates a demonstration kitchen; and residential finishes define the pantry.
