Infor Headquarters by VOA

Project Details

Project Description

Infor, the third largest business software provider in the world recently relocated its headquarters from Alpharetta, Georgia, to the Flatiron district in New York City, the new hotbed of tech companies. Enlisting the help of design firm VOA, Infor CEO Charles Phillips had a very specific vision to make the new office space as open to innovation as possible. The new collaborative layout brings a social essence to the floor, a core component of both Infor’s product capabilities and the way team members develop ideas. In fact, even Charles embraces this new structure by working on a laptop at an open table (none of the executives have their own offices) and inviting employees to work together to share fresh ideas alongside large, interactive monitors and modern architectural design elements.

Spanning two floors, the 48,000 SF space serves as the main customer sales center and corporate headquarters for the New York team. Upon entering the 4th floor reception, visitors are greeted by a large two-story media wall and a stair that leads to the conference center below. The state of the art conference rooms can be re-configured with pocketing walls and oversized sliding walnut barn doors. An adjacent breakout lounge below a large opening along 20th street provides a spatial connection between the conference center and the open office above.

The building, located at 641 6th avenue, was originally a department store, built over 100 hundred years ago. There were very few windows on the perimeter, and a very deep interior space. Before the redesign, as you can see, the space was a very typical office with poorly positioned offices lacking good ventilation and natural light. The result was more than just an office space, but a customer experience with a good flow of circulation and more natural light than before. In fact, Infor is reporting that 98% of the potential customers that come to the new headquarters eventually buy their software. Charles attributes much of that to VOA’s design and the collaborative effort that went into the design of their new HQ.