When renowned design-consulting firm Ziba Design sought an iconic new office that represented its company identity, they looked to Holst Architecture for guidance.  Ziba challenged Holst’s team to create a place that fostered comprehensive collaboration throughout a company defined by its multi-disciplinary culture.

Ziba World Headquarters incorporates 55,000 square feet of Ziba’s office space with 15,000 square feet of leasable retail and office space in a LEED Gold-certified building that serves as a model for the ‘modern workshop’.   

A simple, functional design was derived from extensive programming meetings between Holst and Ziba.  This programming directly informed the development of the design and allowed Ziba to remain intimately involved throughout the design and construction process. 

The floor plan is comprised of open studios, enclosed project rooms, and flexible corridors and social spaces.  A research library and two conference rooms look through a graphic ‘picture window’ on the west façade.  Three white, glass-faced boxes house sixteen project rooms, and subdivide the open work studio into teams that Ziba refers to as ‘tribes’. At the east, a two-story, semi-public use auditorium links the northeast site entry with an employee kitchen, dining area, and southeast roof deck with downtown views. 

A wide hallway, named ‘the Street’, links the lobby and library with the auditorium along the north façade. Its entire 177-foot length is built of double-height curtainwall and reclaimed Douglas fir siding, flooding the building with diffused north light and views towards the Fremont Bridge. 

The exterior is a simple palette: a metal panel and glass curtainwall box wrapped and supported with an FSC certified Cumaru wood podium.  The shape and material palette responds to both the unusual site and the changing urban/industrial context.  The building’s simplicity is extraordinarily powerful.