After nearly four years of planning and more than a year of construction, SmartWool Corporation has completed a $2.2 million renovation of three offices, including the Global Headquarters in Steamboat Springs, CO, The Design Center in Boulder, and the Development Center in Tennessee. With its modern indoor-outdoor aesthetic, each office was designed to embody the soul of the Brands DNA: its passion for the outdoors, its people and its community.
Renovating one office in one year is a major task, but renovating three was quite an undertaking, explained Mark Satkiewicz, SmartWool’s president. The spaces are open, modern and energizing. The net result has been phenomenal in terms of invigorating the team while elevating our ability to do more innovative work and giving us room to grow.
Rooted in Steamboat Springs, CO, the new Global Headquarters space allows for as much as a 30 percent increase of the SmartWool employee base. This target accommodates the companys long-term growth plan for the next decade.
We also wanted to increase our work space efficiency and be able to get outside easily, explained Satkiewicz. Rather than bring the outdoors in, we focused on bringing the indoors out to create more opportunities for our team to collaborate outside of a traditional meeting room.
The new aesthetic includes floor to ceiling windows and a modular floor plan that allows the company to create several floors plans inside that also extend to outdoor meeting areas. The result is a modern, modular space that has improved overall work space efficiency by nearly 60%.
Each remodeled space is infused with state-of-the-art technology that will allow the company to collaborate more effectively between its global teams and partners. All conference spaces offer wireless video capabilities which will help increase personal collaboration between offices and offset significant corporate travel. The nine new video conference facilities will help reduce the companys inter-company travel by as much 20%.
The company also took every opportunity to reduce, recycle, and reuse items in ways that were in alignment with the companys philanthropic endeavors. More than 300 books and 40 computers were donated to local schools, along with the volunteer hours to set them up. All furniture was either reused in the new space, given to employees or donated to local community non profits. A new recycling center was installed, including a full composting center that will help to fertilize the new SmartWool community gardens.
In an effort to reduce future waste, a filtered water faucet was installed to reduce the use of plastic water bottles. The old carpet was donated and the original concrete floors have been polished as the primary flooring throughout the space. Energy efficient lighting was installed; saving more than 500 lightbulbs over the next seven years. The new phone system utilizing power over Ethernet will help to further reduce carbon emissions.
Oz Architecture from Denver, CO, created the overall design and aesthetic for the three offices with construction partners of Drahota Construction in Steamboat, Krische Construction in Boulder and local woodworking artisans in Chattanooga.
SmartWool Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The VF Corporation.
