Carson Design Associates

Our Texas team worked with FICO on the design of their new 24,000 square foot corporate office space in Austin. We provided them with the design, construction oversight, move coordination, and furniture design services for the project.

Over 100 employees work in this Austin office from three different teams, including Engineering, Sales and HR.  We created an office that provided an open and collaborative space for the sales team, while offering pockets of private/quiet spaces for the engineering and HR teams.

The following include the highlights of the redesign:

The Collaboration Zone: We designed a collaboration or activity zone — an open space with casual seating options — where people could get away from their desks. Here we included eight hoteling desks where out-of-state employees could work from when traveling to Austin. We also incorporated collaboration rooms for up to six people — flexible for both small internal meetings, as well as a medium-sized conferences.

Kitchen & Breakroom: In the breakroom, we added stadium seating, which offers employees another type of space for socializing other than the traditional tables and chairs one sees in so many corporate breakroom settings. We also incorporated bar height tables and built-in nooks so employees could choose to sit with smaller teamsor alone.

Transparency as a Value: As a core value, FICO strives to maintain complete transparency with their employees and customers. Because of this, we added substantial full height glass throughout the building to symbolize openness and trustworthiness.

Opportunity for Connection: In order to connect these social and meeting areas within the office, we created an expansive wood element that begins at the entrance, linking collaboration zones (complete with a company branded mural) to the conference room and built-in nook seating lastly ending at the open break room area with stadium seating feature.

Security Systems: Because of the nature of FICO’s work, there needed to be a Network Operations Center with optimal security features. We added three rows of tables and chairs, with everyone facing directly toward their monitors, which also boast live feeds. Because these employees intake credit card information and take calls all day, the live feeds allow the team to track any issues that may arise.

Lighting, Acoustics and Furniture: We took advantage of the height throughout the office by exposing the existing structure in the open office areas. We added pendant lighting throughout the space at dropped acoustic clouds over the actual work settings.  The exposed deck was kept clean and painted white, keeping mechanical and other elements hidden where possible.

We were most cautious about sound traveling in the open areas of the office, so we chose a higher sound rating tile and used light fixtures that serve as an acoustic element, absorbing some of the sound.

We chose furniture with a soft wood tone to bring warmth into the open areas, as well as individual workstations. Each employee has a roll-up, cushion-top mobile pedestal for impromptu meetings in their workstations. Finally, because FICO focuses on employee health and wellness, we designed each workstation into an L-shape with a mid-high panel, allowing natural light from the windows to feed into the open office spaces.