Offices are all about Berber carpet, dropped ceilings, and oat-colored walls. Right? Well, they used to be. Arcturis principal Margaret McDonald says St. Louis’ new startup culture is rippling into commercial interior design—even in conservative industries like law and financial services. When she and her team designed a 90,000-square-foot space for Wells Fargo Advisors that united three work groups into one call center, they didn’t go all-out funky. But they did go with tangerine-colored chairs and splashy green walls, as well as a gorgeous basket-weave partition built from gypsum board, which provided a necessary visual barrier while letting in natural light.
McDonald and her team paired form and function, installing back-painted, magnetized glass panels that can be written on with dry-erase markers or used to tack things up. Work spaces are compact and efficient, but the glassed-in bridge between the campus’ E and F buildings was converted into useful common space, including partially screened nooks with desks and flat-screen monitors where people can hold small meetings, collaborate, or just take a mental break. “It used to be, we’d have our home environment and our work environment,” McDonald says. “Now, those worlds are blending together.”
