Angelica Trevino Baccon: Creative Spaces Must Evolve and Adapt As Much As We Do
Angelica Trevino Baccon knows what it takes to create over the long haul. Image: Ty Cole
With project timelines that often span six, 12, sometimes 20 years, architecture is by definition working in the future.
Angelica Trevino Baccon was named principal at SHoP Architects in 2020, as the future—and the future we demand for the spaces we inhabit—entered a new era of unknowns. For Trevino Baccon’s latest project, the new Uber Headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay, anticipating and solving for these future unknowns began in 2015. And the 423,000 square foot, multi-structure urban campus showcases all the people-prioritizing surprise and delight SHoP is known for: a middle ground gathering space that brings the life of the building into contact with street life, a “breathing” facade of operable windows that reduces the need for mechanical ventilation, and a marked departure from the open plan office to work stations arranged in smaller “neighborhoods.”
Here, Trevino Baccon, who is originally from Monterrey, Mexico, and now lives in New York City, shares the mindset needed to dedicate years to a single project, how she asks a single question—or half a question—for each project that drives the design focus, and why the future of office space will be “spaceless.”
The new Uber office in San Francisco connects the indoors to the outdoors. Image: Jason O’Rear.
You mentioned you did some research on creative minds and how they work. What did you learn from the research and how might that influence how you design spaces for people to work?
Deep in the pandemic, with an extreme amount of empathy and openness as we were ever adapting our own lives and work, we found ourselves researching the history of how creative people work. Kafka was a night owl, while Beethoven loved the morning and then took long walks in Vienna to get inspired in the afternoon. We looked at amazing pictures of Edison taking three-hour naps in the middle of his workday in a three-piece suit. Spaces ranged from large and sparse with a hard chair by a window to a cozy armchair and table dense with objects to the Medici sculpture garden, an outdoor workshop where artists sketched, practiced, dined and slept.
We found such richness in all of these examples, and while we were trying to potentially find patterns, that process was such a defining variable in finding universal human needs. People need spaces that give us choice, because every day is not the same. Our spaces need to evolve and adapt as much as we do.
When you start a project that will stretch on for years, how do you start thinking about this future evolution?
When we look at how process defines space, we’re transported back to the factory floor, to how large computers and machines used to shape the workplace. As machines shrunk in size, people again became the center of the workplace. As architects we’re focused on designing great spaces for people: how people move, how to give people what they need to do what they do best. There are individual and industry-specific qualities in a work environment and there are universal human ones, like connection with each other, with nature, light, air. If we are able to strike this balance, then we can build something that is timeless and for everyone.
We like to distill these long-term projects down to a single question—or more like half a question, for the team to interrogate and build out together from there.
When we started working with Uber six years ago, we asked: How can we maximize connectivity, both to the outdoors and within? Can we open the windows? Rather than it being about a single building, they wanted to create a neighborhood of activity, and opening the windows was part of that idea.
When we first started discussing the new Atlassian headquarters in Sydney with them, long before the pandemic they were already 75 percent remote and wanted to hire the best people in the world, wherever they are. So we were already asking: If everyone has the choice to stay at home, how can you design an office that they will want to work in? The question was simple, but at the time it was such a new idea.
If everyone has a choice to stay at home, what will make them come to an office?
A strong desire to connect—with teams, clients, community, the neighborhood and world out there. With green space and wellness. Windows that open at Uber are all about that connection, those exchanges that define our days. We designed space outside that is planted, where people can collaborate or just breathe deep and decompress. Through a breathable facade we created a naturally ventilated “mid-door” space that really allows people to work between the indoors and the outdoors. We designed to give people a choice about their environment.
Uber’s “breathable” facade at its San Francisco HQ gives employees the choice to work between the indoors and outdoors. Image: Permasteelisa Group
Based on what you’re designing for your clients, what will be some of the biggest differences between the office of today and the future?
In the future, I imagine the office will be more like a constellation and less like a hub. It will be a place to meet people, have a coffee, brainstorm. Instead of larger pieces, like cubicles in corporate campuses, there will be smaller nodes throughout space that offer different experiences. The hope is that even more traditional big companies will see the excitement and potential in hybrid workspaces and supporting a constellation structure.
We’re always innovating to design the experience around the space. It’s important for architects to recognize that sometimes in a great space, people don’t actually remember what it looked like. What you remember is your experience of it, like going up and down corridors, seeing water and then a forest, hearing birds.
How do you put that into the day-to-day of someone at an office? We research things like color, light and texture, the sounds people will hear when they first walk in versus when they’re at their workspace, because that’s part of the experience. We will create a spaceless space.
Zoom and chopped onions at the dining table reflects how we work in 2021. Image: Trevino Baccon.
How do you mentally prepare yourself for something that's going to continue on for longer than we go to high school?
We recently gave a lecture for high school students, and we mapped all of our projects and how long they take. One of my first projects took 11 years. Architecture is a marathon, and that is sometimes hard for the designers because you want to see it built so badly. It’s like, It’s almost there, you only have two more years of construction. That is not a great motivator.
But once the projects are built, you see how people embrace them. One of my most rewarding projects was the bike lane we designed here along the South Street Seaport. I took a picture of it and sent it to my mom, and she was like, Where’s the building? The bike lane was so hard to get through politically within the city. But when you see it become part of people’s lives, the perseverance and patience is worth it.
How does the idea for something like the East River Waterfront project form?
We try to immerse ourselves in how people might use the space. When we designed the chairs and benches along the East River Waterfront, we looked at even the small things and the behavioral things, like how do New Yorkers sit along the edge of the water? Is it different from the ways people around the rest of the world sit along their waterfronts? In some places, Denmark for example, there are no railings, so people pull right up to the edge and dangle their feet right into the water.
It’s a small thing but how do New Yorkers sit on the waterfront?
I’m short. If you’re a short New Yorker and you sit on a bench and look out at a waterfront railing, the rail is always going to be at eye level at the edge of the water. On the East River, we designed a railing where you could sit at a barstool instead of a park bench, which elevates your view and changes everything. You can have your lunch or work on your laptop there. I love walking down that esplanade and seeing people sitting at the railing eating and typing away.
For people whose employers may not be embracing the workplace of the future, what’s a simple thing to do to create a more productive space at home?
I had a baby during the pandemic, and I was taking constant Zoom calls. I had to make lunch, and I had to change the baby. I remembered that growing up in Mexico, in second grade we had these wooden desks where the top would open and close. So before you could open it to get your books for the next subject, you had to clear the surface. You had to give yourself a clean slate.
Many years later, I applied the same idea to a corner of our kitchen table. I wiped it clean between activities, whether that was a team meeting or making tamales or an art project with our three year old. It was a behavior necessity as much as a design one. So find yourself a horizontal surface, even if it’s no bigger than a laptop, where you can keep giving yourself the quick reset of a clean slate.
If you’d like to read more from The Creative Factor, check out Morten Bonde’s story about working as a LEGO Art Director while losing his sight and how Planned Parenthood Senior Creative Director Elizabeth Bawol designs to advance the organization’s mission.
