Since a work environment can influence productivity, employees' happiness and ultimately, a company's bottom line, more and more are putting an added emphasis on the design of their offices, as they move away from traditional (and boring) models.
Throughout 2017, Chicago Inno toured some of the most well-designed and unique office spaces that house Chicago tech and startup companies. From Glassdoor's spacious and modern office, to Reverb's instrument haven, below are some of the city's coolest and most interesting offices.
Here are the 10 we envied the most:
Facebook's 15,000 square-foot office at 191 N. Wacker Drive was designed through employee feedback. The office has an open layout with flexible workspaces, with the goal of fostering collaboration across the office’s many divisions. There are no closed off offices, though there are 17 conference rooms for calls (whose names are picked by employees and include “Fly the W” and “Kingston Mines”).
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Photos via Michael Vallera
The workplace review site opened its new 52,000-square-foot space in November. It currently holds 200 Glassdoor employees, and the company said it plans to expand its Chicago presence further. Glassdoor said last year, when it announced plans for the new office, that it expects to grow its Chicago headcount to more than 400 employees in the next five years.
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Photos via Glassdoor
The Chicago payments company relocated their office to a customized space built to fit their fast-growing needs this year. The office was renovated and designed by Fitzgerald APD and Clune Construction.
Photos via Patrick Brady and Savills-Studley
The Chicago logistics and SaaS technology startup's office, on the 32nd floor at 105 W. Adams St., is full of live plants, fish tanks and abundant natural light. The office features full-size windows and floor-to-ceiling walls donned with real plants.
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Photos via Project44 and Wenjing Yang
The startup, which provides an online marketplace for buying, selling and learning about music gear, is located at 3345 N. Lincoln Ave. The two-story office is an open space with tons of real instruments within arm’s reach, including guitars, a stand-up bass and a full drum kit.
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Photos via Reverb and Wenjing Yang
Founded in 2010, the marketing technology company moved into its fourth headquarters early this year, subleasing from online lender Avant. Located at 222 N. La Salle St., the 27,000-square-foot space currently houses about 150 employees.
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Photos via TK Photography
The company's new office, located on the 7th floor of the Citadel Center at 131 S. Dearborn St., is a move just three floors down from its previous space on the 10th floor. It’s occupying 64,500 square feet, and the new office comes with 320 workstations, 20 conference rooms, and 18 open lounge areas for collaborative work.
Photos via Sprout Social
The e-commerce company, which sells T-shirts and other merchandise showcasing artist-submitted designs, occupies 11,000 square-feet at 406 N. Sangamon St. The space features multiple giant murals and plenty of its colorful products throughout, including a wall to hang the top ten best-selling tees of all time.
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Photos via Wenjing Yang
The cybersecurity company teamed up with Chicago design firm Partners by Design to create a space that reflected the company’s culture of "openness and transparency." By mid-2018, Trustwave will occupy more than 100,000 square feet at 70 W. Madison St., its home since 2007.
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Photos via Tom Harris Photography
The predictive analytics startup, which employs about 800 people, has an office that takes up roughly 134,000 square feet spanning three different floors at 600 W. Chicago Ave., a building that’s also home to Uptake CEO Brad Keywell’s other ventures, including Groupon, Echo Global Logistics and Lightbank.
Photos via Uptake
