Laserfiche, a global software development company, will be able to move into its new headquarters space after it was recently completed by architecture firm Studio One Eleven. The new 102,840 square-foot headquarters building is located in Long Beach’s Bixby Knolls district and is intended to accommodate the company’s growth, as employees are projected to double from 300 to 600 by 2025.
“Laserfiche came into a building that was already there, and they started to grow really fast,” said Michael Bohn, senior principal with Studio One Eleven. “It has just become a really nice, creative corridor. I think what’s happened with Laserfiche is almost like the crowning jewel as the first new building to be built in this quarter for probably over 30 years, and it’s right next to the freeway where half a million motorists see it every day. It’s going to become this iconic gateway piece to this corridor.”
Located at 3443 Long Beach Boulevard, the building is designed with sustainability, flexibility and hybrid work in mind. The building stands four stories with 20,000 square feet floor plates. According to Studio One Eleven, the building also stands the same height as an adjacent historic office building by well-known mid-century architect Edward Killingsworth, allowing it to fit seamlessly into its surroundings. The building also features a ground floor patio space and garden and includes setbacks at the upper levels to provide shade to the lower levels.
The building was designed in partnership with RDC Interiors, with the interior of the building showing flexibility and versatility throughout. The building provides a number of open space working options with opportunities for collaboration. Each floor features both large and small conference spaces for employees to work together or individually. The first floor also contains multiple spaces that can accommodate company-wide training and events, including an indoor-outdoor cafeteria with landscaping from Santa Barbara-based architecture firm SALT.
“There’s breakout areas where people can work by themselves near the kitchen in more of a hospitality environment, maybe on a soft couch or a cushion where you’re by yourself, and you don’t have to hear your co-workers working. There are areas for small breakouts of three to five people,” Bohn said. “…One thing that we’re looking at, be it an advertising firm or our office or this office, is flexibility and flexibility of furniture. Things are on casters, they’re moving around. The table might work as a bench for one person one day, and the next day, it might be combined with other benches to create a conference table. It’s really about flexibility.”
The office space is also configured so that the service core of the building is pushed to the far western edge, providing a more open work environment. In the center of the building, however, the building features a large staircase which acts as a design element while also promoting a culture of health and wellness.
“What we’re trying to do is just promote people to use stairs and not use elevators. The bright happy stairwell is a way to do that. We’re lucky that this firm, even in their old, more generic office building where they had interior stairwells with no windows, people were using them for health and wellness. Now we’ve taken that and just put it front and center. I think it’s going to be integral to their whole culture,” Bohn said.
With health and wellness built into the core of the building, the building also features a number of outdoor amenities. The building provides employees with multiple decks for working outside. Other additions include a topfloor ideation room with view of Long Beach.
The building is also compatible with U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Gold and WELL Platinum certifications. Sustainability features at the building include the cantilevered upper levels providing shade to the lower floors; circulation located on the west side, leveraging flexibility within each floor plate; and less windows on the west-facing portion of the building to minimize heat gain.
“I think connecting people to nature, be it at the top level, looking out at a forest, or at the ground floor patio where you dine… To us, it is very important – psychologically, mentally, calmer for us all. I think it makes us just more productive when we feel like we’re connected to nature. We like to be connected to cities and all the hustle and bustle, but you also want to be connected to greenery, to wildlife. I think that has been an important design element since day one,” Bohn said.
Laserfiche has been part of the Long Beach community since 2001. The company was founded approximately 46 years ago and also holds offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Guadalajara, Hong Kong, London, Shanghai and Toronto.
