The Beginning – 164 South Park Avenue

Twitter’s first office was originally located within the offices of Obvious Corp., the company Twitter was born from. The space was a warehouse with tall ceilings and the classic startup look. At this point, Twitter hadn’t been around very long and many people were wondering just what the heck it was and why anyone would want to use it.

Growth Phase 1 – 539 Bryant Street

After some time, Twitter moved into its first office located just around the corner on Bryant Street. This space was similarly raw in nature, though with a style quite it’s own. Wall decals, huge amounts of natural light, and a set of green deer which would continue to inhabit their future spaces.

One important thing to note about this space is that it marks one of the company’s most trying periods that was full of huge service downtimes due to their spectacular growth.

Though Twitter moved out, Xobni has since moved in and made the space it’s own.

Growth Phase 2 – 795 Folsom Street

With their growth, Twitter once again upgraded spaces. While still a startup, they enlisted the help of designer Sara Morishige to help make the space playful, useful, and sustainable. Wall decals are used again, though much more company specific, with the use of a flock of birds. They also used a number of designs from local businesses.

Though the space initially seems fairly sparse in terms of decor and flavor, the space is given another upgrade that fills in many of the gaps. Both sets of images are below:

The Future – Market Square

What’s next for Twitter and its employees in terms of office space? Well it seems like the company decided to stay in San Francisco after famously receiving a tax break as well as agreeing to moving its offices to a less-than-popular part of town.

Their space will be some 200,000 square feet, gives them room for around 1200 employees, and gives them the option of snagging another 200,00 square feet if necessary.

Quid designs software that allows users to import, manipulate, and understand complex sets of data. And do so in a beautiful way. Visitors will undoubtably have a sense of this after entering their lobby, which is home to a large wall graphic with a colorful display of data points and lines based on actual Quid customer infographics.

Another important element is the library which was designed to be used and enjoyed, not just added as as afterthought. Denise Cherry from Studio O+A adds:

“Library spaces are proving increasingly important to our workplace design – open plan is great for collaboration but can leave people without anywhere to concentrate. We create libraries as a respite for concentration and focussed work. Regardless of book quantity, the very connotation of “library” means people understand the concentrative aspect of the space.”

The main office space has perfect spacing of features, and when combined with the additional workspace areas, give an uncrowded clean appearance. One such area, dubbed ‘The Meatlocker’ is a casual collaboration area that is visually separated from the rest by dark-tinted plastic panels. Another is a bar-height table. Employee workstations are in 2-4 person rails that offer ample deskspace.

With the variety of influences including the founders’ Oxford educationa nd British spy movies, the Studio O+A team dubbed the space’s style as “Stanley Kubrick meets Isaac Newton meets John Le Carre”.

Photos by Jasper Sanidad.

If you’ve not seen their other spaces: Stockholm and Vienna – you should definitely check them out.

Located in the dogpatch area of San Francisco, the space is housed in an impressive old brick-walled warehouse. The warehouse style allows for high ceilings that give a nice openness to the office, while allowing for full studio production space complete with sets, lights, etc..

One of my favorite features of the space was the huge windows that let in an impressive amount of light, while offering some visual stimulation. Some people will fault the company for having cubes, but they are cut so low that they hardly count as such. Props for all of the toys and decorations employees have as well.