Obscura Digital Offices – San Francisco
William Duff Architects (WDA) realized the office design for Obscura Digital, a Madison Square Garden Company, located in San Francisco, California.
William Duff Architects (WDA) unearths the old to create something new along San Francisco’s iconic waterfront for Obscura Digital, now part of Madison Square Company, a global leader in live entertainment. The San Francisco-based architecture and interior design firm revived an existing 25,000 square feet of office space at Pier 1, near the San Francisco Ferry Building. By uncovering and celebrating materials and structures that had been previously ignored or concealed, and re-establishing spatial connections, WDA designed an office that helps facilitate the impromptu interactions intrinsic to a creative environment.
The scenic setting inspired WDA’s design vision to create connectivity. The seemingly simple, yet impactful decision to remove partitions increased the spread of natural light into the interior spaces, while reconnecting open and individual work areas with each other and re-establishing the office’s contextual relationship to the San Francisco Bay.
WDA used materials to not only highlight client-facing and communal areas, such as a kitchen with counter seating, but also demarcate functions. The main circulation areas were articulated with polished concrete flooring, yielding to carpet tile work spaces where better acoustic attenuation was required. The brand’s signature color, black, inspired the color palette of gray scales.
WDA met the challenge of responding to existing building conditions, while making a new design statement suitably reflective of MSG’s brand and its modernity.
Design: William Duff Architects (WDA)
Photography: Patrik Argast
