I can't file that, Dave.

September 15, 2011 2:21 PM

An office space right out of sci fi by Kubrick. Apparently, the employees at SuperGroup are all science fiction fans. So they hired a design firm to turn their office into something out of 2001 A Space Odyssey and Star Trek.
posted by Bunny Ultramod (43 comments total)

No weapons systems? Defensive force fields? Inertial dampeners?

First Klingon space tug that comes along is going to tear that office apart.
posted by Celsius1414 at 2:30 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

That is about eleventy billion times more awesome than the recent redesign of my crap offices, although I don't know how I feel about all that orange.
posted by elizardbits at 2:31 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

What the hell are G4 imacs doing there?
posted by zjacreman at 2:32 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

What the hell are G4 imacs doing there?

What, you never heard of an accent piece?
posted by theodolite at 2:33 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

It is puzzling, as, in 2001, they used iPads.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 2:33 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Everyday, I would spend all my willpower resisting the urge to either:

1) Choke people and ask them when they would find those damn droids
2) Jump off the wall and plant a knee in someone's face Mirror's Edge style.
posted by yeloson at 2:34 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hm.

I hate marketing people and marketing. Despise them. That Bill Hicks routine about how they should kill themselves, where it's not even a routine, really? I think it's Hicks anyway, I'm terrible with celebrity names. But you all know the routine.

I love it. I don't - not really - want a bunch of people to kill themselves. But I wish beyond all belief that advertising was wildly different.

If I were the sort of person to want to work in an office space, though, I would want it to be that office space.

I loathe marketing, but I like its trappings, is I guess what I'm trying to get at here.
posted by kavasa at 2:35 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

This looks great, but it must be a pain in the ass to clean. I hope their custodial staff is well paid.
posted by spiderskull at 2:36 PM on September 15, 2011

Well, at least the customer will be able to see where all the over-billing goes.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:36 PM on September 15, 2011 [4 favorites]

I imagine it's mostly Roombas.
posted by Bunny Ultramod at 2:36 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Thank you for mentioning that Bill Hicks routine. I had not previously heard about it, as I have missed every single MetaFilter thread even slightly related to marketing, ever.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 2:37 PM on September 15, 2011 [21 favorites]

I wish there was a male model who looked like a cast member from Enterprise in the picture because the dark haired woman who seems rather useless to the rest of the scene is really inspiring me to make a Counselor Troi reference but they're all coming across as more sexist than I want, especially since I don't want to be sexist at all and instead just want to make some jokes about how half-empaths are often useless bridge officers.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:47 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Good thing they didn't base their office design on an actual space station.
posted by perhapses at 2:47 PM on September 15, 2011 [7 favorites]

I've found that the utility of office spaces is generally inverse to their attractive design. All those hard shiny surfaces are going to be noisy as hell and difficult to maintain. Plus the amount of waste space there is ridiculous.
posted by octothorpe at 2:55 PM on September 15, 2011

"Sudo open the pod bay doors, HAL."

"Okay, Dave."
posted by alby at 2:56 PM on September 15, 2011 [12 favorites]

As much as I like looking at things like that, I couldn't ever work there... It just looks so...uncomfortable. So cold and sterile and lacking in anything that makes it seem like a place you want to be in.

And I don't even think I could hire any company that worked in an office like that. I want to see what makes the company do its thing - I want to see what toys people have on their desks. I want to see the ridiculous post-its on the fridge telling people not to use all the milk.

Hell, sometimes, I even want a Comic Sans sign up telling people to do something.

I want it to look lived in. I want it to be the kind of place where you know people aren't just filling in data and trying to decide what gradient looks best.

So, yeah, it's awesome. It's damnedly awesome. But as a working environment? Hell no.
posted by Katemonkey at 3:03 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

If I worked in an office like that, I would feel crushing disappointment every day upon walking out of the office and finding that no, I am not actually on a spaceship, and now I have to brave the hellish commute in my shitty car.

Also, I would always feel out of place what with not being in a Starfleet uniform.
posted by yasaman at 3:05 PM on September 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

It's beautiful and fascinating and all, but I think my head would implode if I had to go from that office to stepping around pee puddles on the subway. Maybe if there was some kind of teleportation system to get me home and back?

They wouldn't let me work there anyway. I suck at the clean desk policy, as the three coffee cups, a pie plate, a bottle of water, a glass of water, four random sculptures (one of which is broken), a stuffed skeleton bride, a rubber goldfish, two lotions, a chapstick, three plants, a fork, a spoon, seven scribbled upon, but now useless postits, various postcards, dustbunnies, and stacks and stacks of books everywhere proclaim loud and clear.
posted by chatongriffes at 3:12 PM on September 15, 2011

I want to go to there.

Good thing they didn't base their office design on an actual space station.

I also want to go to there.
posted by BrashTech at 3:16 PM on September 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

They wouldn't let me work there anyway. I suck at the clean desk policy, as the three coffee cups, a pie plate, a bottle of water, a glass of water, four random sculptures (one of which is broken), a stuffed skeleton bride, a rubber goldfish, two lotions, a chapstick, three plants, a fork, a spoon, seven scribbled upon, but now useless postits, various postcards, dustbunnies, and stacks and stacks of books everywhere proclaim loud and clear.

You'd love my office. Its more of a Firefly class.
posted by hal9k at 3:37 PM on September 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

that white is going to look so goddamned grubby and marked up after like a month
posted by The Whelk at 3:42 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hell, sometimes, I even want a Comic Sans sign up telling people to do something.

Boy, do I have a job for you! I'll even throw in tons of beige, florescent lights, no windows (it's kind of like no tea) and soul-crushing ennui!
posted by entropicamericana at 3:52 PM on September 15, 2011

Is no-one else noticing that that woman is a clone?
posted by arcticseal at 3:55 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hm. I kind of think it fails because it mixes languages. The aesthetic of 2001 and of Star Trek TOS aren't anywhere close to compatible; the only thing they share is the idea of "space".

I mean, compare these two interior shots from 2001. They are completely different "styles" of interior design but they share the same language--of panic, loneliness, and oppression.

And then take a look at any still from any set from TOS. They're supposed to be alien planets and space stations thousands of light years apart, but they all reflect a unified worldview--of optimism, cheer, and potential.

2001 is how I'd want my augmentation clinic to look; Star Trek is how I'd decorate my nightclub.
posted by danny the boy at 3:56 PM on September 15, 2011

It looks just as cold, sterile and inhuman as Kubrick wanted the 2001 sets to be.
posted by jiawen at 4:17 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

If I'm a client, all this crap makes me think is that I'm being soaked. Fancy offices are always a bad sign.
posted by rusty at 4:28 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I look at fancy offices and wonder how much of my bill is to pay for their uncomfortable designer chairs.

And no windows! I got claustrophobic just looking at those pictures. Let me out!
posted by WorkingMyWayHome at 4:54 PM on September 15, 2011

Wow, I'd hate to see the bill for the Windex. That's a LOT of glossy surfaces.
posted by leotrotsky at 4:58 PM on September 15, 2011

Am I the only one whom notices how little use cozy spaces like they've set up in the corner get? In my, admittedly limited, experience when people are at work, they work. Not sit around in comfy chairs reading books and chatting.
posted by Canageek at 5:42 PM on September 15, 2011

clearly you've never worked in marketing
posted by LogicalDash at 6:04 PM on September 15, 2011

Love it. I love that they considered the experience and not just the aesthetics of the space. I don't think I'm alone in this, but I'm very aesthetically oriented and when it comes to a workspace, I tend to work much, much better in a space that I enjoy and that is well-designed and not just flourescent-lit cubicle hell. I would even venture to guess that employees are less likely to miss work if they work in a space that they really like. I can recall working for one company (on contract, so I made my own hours and didn't have sick leave), the office was in such a dingy, gross building (complete with druggies in the bathroom) and I was much more likely to call in sick or whatever because I just hated going into the place. Then, we moved to a bright, naturally lit, modern space with clean facilities and kitchenette and I almost never called in sick/worked from home because I actually wanted to leave my dingy apartment and go to work. It was nicer there than at home.

Anyway, I'm sure there are a few studies in there somewhere. Thanks for posting.
posted by 1000monkeys at 6:22 PM on September 15, 2011

They need the custom-designed cardboard boxes.
posted by ovvl at 7:34 PM on September 15, 2011

I think that it's only fair to make an office look like a Next Generation set, given that the NG bridge looked like a hotel lobby.
posted by happyroach at 7:46 PM on September 15, 2011

> What the hell are G4 imacs doing there?

Local fileservers? In addition to super cool redesigns, they also seem to be able to clone nubile young women.

Excellent, I still have one of those. But how do I start making clones?
posted by homunculus at 8:13 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Hunh, yeah, I guess that previous comment of mine was pretty tiresome.

If it helps it didn't seem that way at the time? I think my internal monologue was a more self-aware acknowledgement that I'm envious of parts of the mythical Marketing Person Lifestyle, which makes my emotional reaction to advertising sort of unattractively hypocritical, not least because it means that it (i.e.: marketing) has worked on me to some extent.

Coming back, none of that really came across. Oops.
posted by kavasa at 8:22 PM on September 15, 2011

Oddly, my immediate peg for this office wasn't the intended science fiction, but another movie entirely (a kind of fantasy of its own) -- Scorsese's King of Comedy. The offices where Rupert Pupkin (Robert DeNiro) repeatedly tries to get in to see Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), deflected by an officious secretary and patronizing assistant Shelley Hack, are (like Kubrick's 2001 vision) intended to present an image of power and technology that wall off any hint of possible human welcome from over-the-transom strivers like Pupkin. Visible here (at 0:55+).

Demographically, most of us here are too young to remember when this was actually a thing. But there were offices -- even homes -- designed like this. That's where the aesthetic comes from. Strangely, for me, it's more nostalgic to that time than to "the future". Many times when this sort of thing appeared in movies it was either taken utterly seriously, as in 2001 (albeit for functional narrative reasons), or lampooned, as when Number 2 in The Prisoner spun around in his egg chair.
posted by dhartung at 8:56 PM on September 15, 2011

It just seems very cold to me. I'd prefer a place designed after Bag End in the LOTR movies. Now that looked comfortable.
posted by Ber at 9:06 PM on September 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'd like that for the first hour or so...
posted by bz at 9:12 PM on September 15, 2011

If I worked in Bag End, I'd never get anything done apart from smoking a good pipe.
posted by arcticseal at 2:03 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

So like in Logan's Run when the staff get about 3 months older and are no longer cool-looking enough to work there they get recycled as nutrient pellets?
posted by epo at 3:54 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've got a good friend who works for Supergroup and toured these offices once. It's an impressive set up, for sure. They've also got tons of old video game cabinets and other toys lying around everywhere.
posted by saulgoodman at 6:43 AM on September 16, 2011

Is no-one else noticing that that woman is a clone?
posted by arcticseal at 3:55 PM on September 15 [1 favorite +] [!]

I thought that was a feature of the office design? Future space office staffed entirely by clones.
posted by FatherDagon at 10:56 AM on September 16, 2011

I've worked with the architect before and was curious in which building this was. It appears it's mostly marketing companies in a building that caters to them. In my experience, nobody is more insecure than a bunch of marketing types together.
posted by skest at 11:32 AM on September 16, 2011