This 18,000 square foot fit out for Deva Curl, the hair care products brand, is located on floors 3, 4, and 5 of 75 Spring Street. Built in 1900, the nine-story landmarked brick and cast- iron building with a Rapp arch brick ceiling lies in the heart of the SoHo Historical Cast Iron District. The renovation houses the North American headquarters of Deva Curl, which is now part of the Henkel Consumer Brands.

The design provides areas for both team collaboration and individual concentration. The Super-Curl Desk was designed to facilitate face-to-face collaboration, breaking down the walls of the traditional workspace by creating a continuous, non-hierarchical seating arrangement. The Curl accommodates seating for all working groups, including the executive team, encouraging cross-team collaboration and communication. The arches allow for circulation through and around the curl and provide informal meeting spaces. The Curl configuration across three floors literally carves the space, providing for dynamic, non-linear seating configurations as well as natural light along the South and West orientations. The auxiliary program spaces—meeting rooms, quiet rooms, team development areas—are positioned on the periphery of the curl, creating a Cartesian edge that stands in contrast to the fluidity of the Curl. These design innovations physically embody the collaborative nature of the company’s culture and the spatial definition of the Curl.

Given the open concept of the Super-Curl Desk, which assumes various configurations across the three floors, it became important to integrate areas of quiet focused work with collaborative spaces. Meeting rooms of various sizes across all three floors allow for teams to meet casually throughout the day. The two quiet rooms have green wall installations and were designed to be areas of refuge and reflection to contrast with the open office collaboration of the Curl.

The Super-Curl Desk, fabricated by SITU Fabrication in the Brooklyn Navy Yards, consists of a Baltic Birch Plywood structure and thermoformed Avonite solid surface. The Desk was built as a series of modules which were then assembled on site and treated to provide a seamless finish of the solid surface. Seating along the Curl is flexible and seats can be added as the company grows. During COVID-19, the Curl seating layout was adapted to a variety of social distancing configurations to allow for increased spacing of employees, which would not be achievable with conventional fixed desks.

The three floors are connected by a steel and solid plank oak open tread stair, encouraging movement between the three floors. To further unify the three floors, the original hardwood floors were sanded and stained dark gray, as were the solid oak stair treads. Three phone booths on the third and fifth floors reflect the company’s branding colors through paint and custom bench upholstery.

Located on the fourth floor, at the heart of the complex, there’s a centrally located cafe and Town Hall gathering space; stepped seating in the Town Hall allows for company-wide meetings and info sessions. The reception desk ties into the Town Hall seating and was built using solid surface, linking it with the Super-Curl Desks across the three floors. Across from the elevator, a curved artisan plaster facade incorporates a digital display and product feature shelving, curving towards the entrance of the main conference room.

The space, sculpted and continuous throughout, fosters the notions of open collaboration / teamwork and easy information exchange, along with spaces for small group work and individual refuge.