Nike Tiempo and Zoom Vapor
Through a series of projects over a period of years O+A developed a common design vocabulary with Nike’s Workplace Design and Connectivity Team. Grounded in Nike’s core values, it emphasized clean lines, timeless materials, freedom of movement, active imagery. That form is again apparent in the newest work environments from Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. And the partnership has never been more eloquent.
Through a series of projects over a period of years O+A developed a common design vocabulary with Nike’s Workplace Design and Connectivity Team. Grounded in Nike’s core values, it emphasized clean lines, timeless materials, freedom of movement, active imagery. That form is again apparent in the newest work environments from Nike’s headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. And the partnership has never been more eloquent.
City Beaverton
Year 2017
Size 69,256 sq ft
Team Mindi Weichman, Patrick Bradley, George Craigmyle, Rita Radley, Donald Koide, Steve Gerten, Jennifer Habelito, Vic Amutan, Sarunya Wonglodsri, Renee Lauput-Mendoza, David Hunter
Photographer Jeremy Bitterman
The Spirit of Sport
A consistent aim in Nike offices is that space pay tribute to sport. Each of the two buildings in this new project is named after an iconic Nike shoe—the Zoom Vapor worn by tennis great Roger Federer and the Tiempo, which brought Nike into the world of international football. Each design celebrates the specific geometry of its sport and each represents the particular kind of genius necessary to excel in solo or team competition.
Ligaments and Bone
Every Nike design, whether shoe, apparel or work environment, is a celebration of modern sport. In interior design terms that means finishes and fixtures with the toughness and resilience of a body in peak condition. It also means spaces that embody the creative tension between heritage and the future, purist and rebel, art and science. The yellow staircase against a black wall, the broad-shouldered cabanas with high-backed banquettes, the trim seating terrace all capture the dichotomy of a company with a storied past moving confidently and creatively into the future.
Walls that Move
The extraordinary wall graphics in these offices were created by Nike’s Brand Studio. O+A’s role was to develop spaces in which these vivid images could blaze. “We give them the pitch and they bring in the players,” says O+A Designer George Craigmyle of the process. In international football “the pitch” is the playing field and the more robust the action, the sturdier the field must be. These super-kinetic graphics resonate against the muscular architecture that surrounds them because two creative teams—Nike’s and O+A’s—worked closely together not only to do their own best work, but to bring out the best in each other.
