Project: myGini Office
Architects: Ofist
Location: San Francisco, USA
Photographs by: Courtesy of Ofist
myGini Office by Ofist
Ofist, an Istanbul-based architectural studio, has redesigned an 1858 brick building in San Francisco, California to fit the needs of myGini, a mobile banking app company. The characteristic brick building captures a design line that respects the spaces that surround it. The strong character of the existing building provided the grounds for the design path that the architects took. With this in mind, they have designed the space to suit its new function and make the workplace a lot more comfortable for its users.
myGini Office, designed by Istanbul based Ofist, is located in a characteristic brick building that built in 1858 in San Francisco and it captures a design line which respects to space without competing with the area.
myGini is a mobile banking app for banks and financial institutions founded and developed by Mehmet Sezgin and his team in the United States. Located in the financial district, they chose this beautiful brick building, constructed in 1858 who had played an important role in the financial and entrepreneurial development of frontier San Francisco, as their base point.
Designers find it actually quite easy to design for such characteristic spaces, since the strong character of the space is already guiding them. Yasemin Arpac, founding partner of Ofist, said ”We feel lucky to have a strong core to rely and build on. On the other hand what’s already there is very limiting. The balance we need to provide can be restricting and difficult. Every element to be added, must install itself to the environment without racing with the existing strong character, but get along well with it, enhence and emphasize it.”
With this basic purpose, Ofist designed the space for its new function and users. Adding the necessary functions for today’s new generation office program, just enough to function for their purpose, for an open, comfortable, friendly, fun, nonhierarchical working space. Very sleek, mostly white, simple, modern forms are added, creating a contrast with the existing homogenous warm colours from yellow, to red and brown and with the strong textures of wood and brick. And some colors and graphics for the branding, enhancing the contrast and lighting up the space. The rest is up to its new inhabitants to settle in and enjoy.
