SmithGroup General Motors, Vehicle Engineering Center Workplace Transformation

This eight-story, 2.3 million gsf workplace transformation project is ongoing, impacting thousands of employees thus far. The new space shifts the paradigm from traditional office design with high-wall cubicles and individual space, to one that leverages mobility paired with an activity-based workplace. The result is a space that fosters idea sharing and increases opportunities for serendipitous interactions between cross-functional teams. The importance of efficiency and capital conservation has been augmented by the drive for innovation, capturing the spirit of a forward-thinking modern workplace. The key design question in this office transformation is how we transform the environments that were created during the previous era to achieve the goals of this critical cultural shift. This new workplace design provides a series of neighborhoods, each with hackable, individual workspace that allow users to customize and reconfigure teams as needed.