Despite being 23 years old, travel search engine Booking.com still wanted the offices of a young tech startup when it moved to new digs at Fosun International’s 28 Liberty Street in the Financial District.
The e-commerce company leased 63,000 square feet across the 28th and 29th floors of the 60-story office tower in November 2017. When it decided to leave its former home at 100 William Street, it enlisted TPG Architecture to design a hip, collaborative work environment for 262 employees at 28 Liberty. Booking.com moved in last October.
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Polished concrete floors, exposed brick, darkened steel railings and tables and light wood furniture help reinforce the startup vibe. The reception area features an exposed brick wall emblazoned with a blue metal “Booking.com” illuminated by tiny light bulbs.
But the most notable aspect of the design is the New York City-centric imagery running throughout much of the space. There’s a yellow neon sign advertising “New Amsterdam” across from the reception desk. (The company was founded in Amsterdam in 1996.) Each conference room or seating area is themed around a different neighborhood. The kitchen has aged leather booth seats, white tables and photos of Katz’s Deli, along with gridded, floor-to-ceiling steel shelving that allows for display and storage of books, plants and vases. In one conference room, a picture of the Coney Island Cyclone on a clear blue day occupies an entire wall opposite huge south-facing windows. Two other conference rooms are devoted to Downtown subway stations—Delancey Street and Bleecker Street—and have walls plastered with photos of the stations’ distinctive blue-and-white tile signage.
The office café incorporates a wide variety of seating, including dark leather and wood booths, brightly colored plastic chairs, Eames chairs and wooden stools and bleachers. Behind the blonde wood bleacher seats is a blown-up photo of the Nathan’s Famous hot dogs sign in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Other rooms have photos of the now-demolished 5 Pointz warehouse complex covered in graffiti, the green and gold ceiling of Grand Central Terminal, and a picturesque stretch of Brooklyn Heights.
There are also wildly colorful, patterned, street art-style graphics spray painted in the main work area, along with stylized graffiti designs with neon yellow, pink and blue elements on a black background in the elevator lobby—all done by TPG’s graphics studio.
“Booking.com’s New York office serves as their regional hub for the Americas and frequently welcomes employees from their other locations worldwide for training and company events,” said Shay Lam, TPG’s managing director, in a statement.
