Designing the Contemporary Workplace
For a financial firm's new workplace in New York's NoMad district, Float Studio reimagined the contemporary office through openness, flexibility and carefully considered furniture. We spoke with the studio about designing spaces that encourage collaboration, how furniture shapes behaviour, and why comfort begins with understanding the people who use it.
Images by William Jess Laird.
Located in New York’s NoMad district, Float Studio’s latest workplace project rethinks the traditional financial office through openness, flexibility and a strong sense of place. Referencing the building’s 1970s architecture, the interiors combine custom-designed elements with carefully selected furniture to create spaces that encourage both focus and collaboration.
From the sculptural reception desk inspired by Vittorio Introini to the town hall organised around a Hem table by Max Lamb, every decision considers how people move, gather and work together. We spoke with Brad from Float Studio about the ideas behind the project and the evolving role of workplace design.
Petrus: Your studio has worked across workplace design for more than a decade. What ideas are shaping your practice today?
Brad: We’re in a growth period right now. After spending the past four years focused on one large project, we’ve opened up to a much wider range of work, particularly in AI and financial services. While the projects have changed, the values at the heart of the studio remain the same: supporting creative companies, helping startups grow, and building culture through space.
Lately we’ve become obsessed with efficiency. We still believe good design takes time, but staying competitive means finding smarter ways to deliver without compromising the thinking behind the work. AI has helped us visualise ideas much faster, keeping the process moving. We’ve also started working with a robotics company in San Francisco, exploring how to design spaces where robots and humans can work alongside each other, a completely new challenge for us.
Petrus: Which architects, designers or movements continue to influence your work?
Brad: We’re inspired by careful craftsmanship, minimal forms, optimistic 1970s design, and the authenticity of the spaces we work in. Early on, however, it was studios like Studio O+A, Design Research Studio and Rapt Studio that shaped how we think about workplace design. They pioneered offices that felt radically different from the cubicle culture most of us grew up with. Fourteen years later, much of that design language has become the norm. We no longer reference those projects directly, but they’re the reason this kind of workplace design exists today.
Petrus: What do you look for when specifying furniture for a project?
Brad: I always judge a piece against two questions. Does it support the design concept and express the feeling we’re trying to create? And does it genuinely support the way people will use it?
Comfort isn’t universal. A financial firm and a startup often define it very differently. Understanding how people actually work determines what comfort means in each space. The same applies to desking, we’ve learned that height-adjustable desks aren’t simply about standing, but about accommodating different bodies and working styles. Furniture that adapts to real people has become one of the most important things we look for.
Petrus: How can furniture influence the way people use a space?
Brad: Variety shapes behaviour by giving people different ways to work. One of my favourite examples is the six-person bar-height table in the town hall. It’s constantly in use, not only socially but for working lunches and informal meetings. Sitting on a stool encourages a more active posture, making it easy to move between conversation, sketching on a whiteboard and returning to the table. A soft lounge chair invites people to settle in, while a stool keeps them engaged. Small design decisions like these have a real influence on how spaces are used.
Petrus: Financial firms have long communicated status through their interiors. How did you approach that legacy?
Brad: We see today’s workplace as an opportunity to express something different: openness, collaboration and confidence through transparency rather than hierarchy. Our goal wasn’t to design a space that communicates power, but one that enables people to do their best work together. That meant creating environments where ideas move easily across teams, where leaders are accessible and where clients experience the firm’s culture firsthand. The most compelling workplaces today don’t reinforce status, they foster connection, trust and shared purpose.
Petrus: Where do you see the strongest relationship between architecture, furniture and culture within this project?
Brad:It happens in the shared spaces. Architecture defines the moments, and the furniture gives them purpose. The town hall became the heart of the office, positioned between phone booths, meeting rooms and private offices, with several paths naturally leading through it. We never want to force interaction, but we do want to make it effortless. Even a brief conversation or passing smile becomes part of the culture expressed through both the architecture and the furniture.
Petrus: Was there a piece that became the anchor for the project?
Brad: The sofa became the anchor for the entire town hall. Positioned at the lowest level facing the presentation screens, it established the visual centre of the room. Behind it sits a communal table anchored by a Hem table designed by Max Lamb, followed by a bar-height seating area. Everything was organised around that one piece. In shared spaces, the sofa often becomes the gravitational centre that defines how the room works.
Petrus: Are there interiors you find yourself returning to time and again?
Brad: Cranbrook, without question. I went to school on Eliel Saarinen’s campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and it still appears in our inspiration boards today. On this project, its influence can be seen in the way paint moves through thresholds, the architectural line work and the geometry of the carpets. They’re contemporary interpretations rather than direct references, but the source remains the same place that shaped my understanding of design at an early age.
Petrus: What role should contemporary furniture brands play today?
Brad: Flexibility comes first, closely followed by timelessness. I’ve never believed in chasing trends. What matters more is honesty in materials, products that are healthy to manufacture and live with. Sustainability is equally important, not only in the materials themselves but in their embodied energy. Whenever possible, I’d rather specify locally produced furniture than ship something halfway around the world.
Petrus: Finally, what question are you most interested in exploring right now?
Brad: I keep coming back to one question: what is the office actually for now? People no longer come in simply because they need a desk, they come because they need each other. That changes what workplaces need to provide. AI will undoubtedly reshape those requirements even further. I don’t have the answers yet, but it’s the question I find myself returning to again and again.
