5871 Glenridge Drive

Atlanta, GA

Our Home Away From Home

After a series of moves, Corcoran Ota finally found our forever home in late 2017 in a custom buildout at 5871 Glenridge Drive. Here, we were able to custom design spaces match made for our work and culture, and provide our team with all the comforts and technology they deserve.

Blending Life & Work

We shaped suite 200 in the firm’s philosophical image – collaborative, practical, and full of smart details designed to amplify the experience for everyone who enters the space, from designers and partners to interns and clients. The result is an office that represents our coming-of-age and introduction to the southeastern architecture world as a first-class firm creating real, livable and workable spaces for everyday people.

Drawing inspiration from the suite’s spacious, open layout as well as challenging angles and interesting nooks, we designed an entry approach that gives guests a serene “landing pad” in which to pause before entering our home. A dramatic, glass-enclosed main conference room wows right upon entry with carved out, casual meeting spaces and a centerpiece communal kitchen following suit. The semi-open office area was planned to give our young professionals both their own personal space and the room to support spontaneous small-group meetings right at their desks. The latter represents a break from today’s trendy, packed-out but wide-open office concepts, and was consciously made to help staff feel comfortable and have some privacy, but still room to collaborate.

Lesson Learned

Designing for ourselves required a good amount of introspection: How does our team work best? What kind of lighting feels most natural? What should we borrow from our previous office spaces and what should we leave behind? From our moves we had learned a few things about building out a workspace (don’t create a situation where the first thing guests see is a big, red fire extinguisher), but mostly about ourselves as a group—how we work, gather, interact, and make the best of our time together, and how a smart space all our own can support great design and meaningful collaboration.