Despite function and utility being paramount when crafting workspaces, the architecture and design of office spaces, especially headquarters, have evolved significantly. These office buildings are conceived as tangible statements of ‘who we are’ as a brand, a corporation or a company. With a similar intent, this workspace by design practice Super Tomato strives to embody the corporate culture and spirit of its brand in its spatial expression. Located in Dongcai Industrial Zone, within the Bao'an District of Shenzhen, China, with an area of over 2500 square metres, the SMOORE Office aligns with the daily needs of its business while conveying the company's ethos.

Super Tomato, a design practice with a diverse oeuvre, provides design services and research in China as well as across the globe. They expand themselves in multiple spheres such as interior design, architecture, product design, installations, and interaction. The use of materials, spatial order, scale and proportion is carefully approached to inject unique connotations into projects and explore a range of interventions. In addition to projects in mainland China, Super Tomato has ongoing projects in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, India and Indonesia.

The original space that the design team began work with was decluttered and square—easing the new organisation of functions and circulation routes. The public spaces on the first and the fourth floors are the primary areas used for communicating SMOORE’s corporate culture. Black ceramic atomisation coil with metallic film, the representative product and technology of SMOORE, becomes the reference point for the project’s revised colour palette. The design team resorted to darker tones to define the ambience of the office—echoing the company’s product design and responding to the client’s needs. A series of greyish-black screen walls delineating the public area allows daylight to permeate the interiors while guiding the visitors into the office area.

As visitors enter the space, they encounter a striking corporate logo wall and the bright ‘fireplace’ in the entrance lobby—setting the tone of the office design. Featuring a water bar and a reception area on the side, this section aims to exude openness and serves as a place for the employees to relax. A brand logo wall made out of red bricks punctures the ambience of the dark-toned space with a relatively more youthful language. The rhythmic wall on the other face of the area features windows that bring natural light into the space; the recurring elements establish a sense of order in the overall composition of the lobby. A juxtaposition of varying elements comes into play across this area: the formal grey and dark tones of the interior design are equalised by relaxing pops of colour in the painting and the orange sofa; the natural daylight converses with the artificial lighting, complementing each other and emphasising the detailed textures of each component.

From the comfortable setting of the reception area, one moves to the meeting room and the more private reception tea room where a different spatial expression comes to the fore. Contrary to the darker initial tones, here brighter and minimal settings take centre stage. The well-lit, bright and decluttered spaces invite the users to concentrate their thoughts while engaging in discussions and communication.

Unlike the lobby on the first floor, the public spaces on the fourth floor are designed to cater to in-house purposes. The area conforms to the black and grey colour palette and has an adjacent staircase that leads to the terrace. The staircase design appears lightweight and dynamic owing to the overlapping blocks used to create it. A band of bright orange, running along the stairs, emerges as a visual focus amidst the dark colours, accentuated further by the light trickling in through the skylights. For the staircase, the interior designers also took cues from the black stone monolith in Stanley Kubrick's classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, speaking of precision and exploration.

With the spatial design of SMOORE’s office, Super Tomato strives to narrate an ethos of technological innovation, high quality and precision that guides the company’s products. In tandem, the design also communicates SMOORE’s humanistic approach and care towards its employees. For these interventions, the brand’s tenets become the touchstone; simple forms are contrived to play with an array of functions and the spatial experience is moulded to echo SMOORE’s brand identity.

Project Details

Name: SMOORE Office
Location: Building 8, Bao'an Avenue, Dongcai Industrial Zone, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, Guangdong
Client: SMOORE
Area: 2,520 sqm
Design firm: Super Tomato
Architectural design: Shenzhen Diagonal Architectural Design Co., Ltd.
Design development: Tomato Plus Design (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd.
Construction firm: Santu Group