a communal working area with whimsical graphics on the wall — Another neighborhood’s work area mixes a custom communal table, shelving, and graphics with Luca sofas by Luca Nichetto.

December 7, 2022

Gensler Captures the Spirit of the Midwest for the LinkedIn Office in Omaha, Nebraska

2022 Best of Year Winner for Large Tech Office

Nebraska is not necessarily known as a destination for cutting-edge design and culture. However, the new Omaha office of LinkedIn, the professional networking giant with nearly a billion users, tapped into the deep-seated tradition of innovation and dynamism that has historically defined the Midwestern metropolis. “From the beginning, there was an emphasis on making sure the decisions were an honest reflection of the city,” LinkedIn senior design manager Virginia Alexander recalls. Longtime partner Gensler was a natural choice for the project, as LinkedIn has worked with the firm on interiors and branding for more than a dozen of the company’s offices around the globe.

LinkedIn Omaha had been located in smaller, desperate-need-of-a-refresh quarters for 15 years. This project represents a major reboot not just for this outpost but also for the company’s larger approach to workplace design. “The Omaha office was designed with the future in mind,” begins Gensler design director and principal Kelly Dubisar, who led the project’s interiors, along with fellow design director and principal Janice Cavaliere, who took charge of graphics and branding; both are from Gensler’s San Francisco office. “Omaha actually means to go against the current, according to local indigenous tribes,” Cavaliere chimes in. It’s this pioneering spirit that informed the firm’s strategy across the new LinkedIn Omaha workplace, a pair of adjacent LEED Gold–certified buildings that are five stories each and total 200,000 square feet.

As is becoming a common tale for companies keeping pace with the realities of work today, where flexibility is the new watchword, LinkedIn swapped the traditional assigned-workstation approach for one that’s 100 percent free address. “We had piloted a neighborhood-based, open office model on single floors in previous properties,” Dubisar explains. “The pandemic pushed LinkedIn to adopt that model as the starting point for all new sites.” Teams from the Omaha staff of 1,000 are directed to 20- to 30-person neighborhoods containing a range of seating options supporting private individual work as well as small- and large-group collaboration. Instead of permanent desk space, daily-use lockers, phone booths, and deep-focus nooks help anchor people in their team areas. Typical floor plates, each defined by color, contain four neighborhoods; “rail cars,” Dubisar notes, at junctions funnel employees into their dedicated zones, where custom shelves display mementos that express team identities.

In reception, a 5-foot-square company logo is set within a textured feature wall patterned with grainlike elements referencing the area’s agricultural history.

How Employee Research Informed the LinkedIn Office Design

Concepting for the hybrid work experience was both a technical and a cultural challenge, so Gensler and LinkedIn conducted research, surveys, and workshops with staffers to understand what made them tick, both professionally and personally. “We were challenged to consider how our designs and technology could make working more engaging and equitable,” Alexander says. Out of the discovery process came a host of amenities including a dynamic tech-ready team space for hybrid collaboration called the Lab, two libraries for heads-down focus work, recreation rooms with a golf simulator and rotating arcade games, music rooms, terraces, and a cafeteria called the Almanac, with revolving food kiosks and LinkedIn’s first all-electric kitchen.

Health, wellness, and resilience emerged as key themes, so in addition to an on-site fitness center and an outdoor roof deck, as well as incorporating no- or low-VOC materials and finishes and only reclaimed or FSC–certified timber, the campus contains four respite rooms sprinkled throughout. Ranging in size and design, the tech-free spaces have ambient light to support a variety of ways to re-energize mind and body. “Everyone resets their brains differently,” Dubisar says. “Some need calming spaces, others something more tactile and hands-on. Rather than a generic ‘wellness room,’ we have different spaces so people can choose the one that fits them best.” They also should help the project achieve its pending Fitwel 2 Star certification, along with a fire stair surrounded by bold graphics and with motivational phrases integrated into treads to encourage staff to take them instead of the elevator.

someone walks down the stairs toward the lobby at the LinkedIn office in Nebraska — At the Omaha, Nebraska, campus of LinkedIn by Gensler, the two-story lobby combines ash-veneered millwork and leather and wool seating upholstery with a wall of whitewashed brick, a building material common in the region.

a lightbulb tilted to the left on an orange and purple background

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Office Culture Meets Local Culture

The final theme to emerge was expressing Omaha’s particularities of place. “We looked to the historical significance of craft in Omaha and the overall notion of going against the current,” Cavaliere says. Civic storytelling begins in the two-story atrium lobby with a stair backed by a double-height wall of whitewashed brick, a traditional building material in Nebraska. Sculptures by Japan-born Omaha artist Jun Kaneko animate the welcome experience on the ground level, as do Gensler’s integrated wall graphics and site-specific art installations that nod to Omaha’s agrarian roots and contemporary culture. Conference-room graphics referencing the Max, a longstanding Omaha LGBTQIA+ nightclub, quickly became a LinkedIn staff favorite. “It’s incredibly meaningful for people to feel represented not just in their city but also their workplace,” Cavaliere states.

Ultimately, this place-based narrative could be a stronger draw for employees to return to the office than more traditional amenities. “The purpose of the workplace today is to reinforce a sense of community and culture,” Dubisar says. “The office should make you better and support the whole self. At the same time, it’s a place for people to come together and strengthen relationships.” As LinkedIn’s global real estate portfolio continues to grow, prioritizing personal expression and community connectivity in the workplace seems only fitting for a company that’s staking its claim as the world’s largest professional network.

a workspace surrounded by stairs in the LinkedIn office — The ash veneer is reclaimed, which contributed to the project’s LEED Gold certification.

a red acoustic canopy over a coffee bar in a second floor lounge at LinkedIn in Nebraska — Under an acoustics-improving felt-lined canopy, Isaac Piñeiro’s Tortuga lounge chairs populate the lobby’s second-floor coffee bar.

wavy graphics on the wall of an elevator lobby — An elevator lobby’s custom graphics were inspired by what’s called locally “tanking down the Elkhorn,” or floating down the nearby Elkhorn River in retrofitted water tanks.

a wall graphic referencing The Max, a longtime LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Omaha — The Max, a longtime LGBTQIA+ nightclub in Omaha, informed a conference room’s graphics.

a tubular, zig-zagging light fixture hangs on the ceiling of the cafeteria at the LinkedIn office — In the cafeteria, a LED ceiling fixture continues the river theme.

a stairwell with blue, red, and white graphic walls — Experiential branding extends to circulation routes, where wall graphics painted by Omaha nonprofit Make Art Studios Community Foundation and motivational phrases integrated into treads encourage staff to take the stairs, a criteria for the project’s anticipated Fitwel 2 Star certification.

pastel green and glass partitions create individual workspaces — In another section of the cafeteria, Adrien Rovero’s Parc pendant fixtures hang across from a moon mural that references the Old Farmer’s Almanac, a seminal publication in the region’s agricultural history.

blue acoustic ceiling panels sit above a communal table — With a custom communal table in reclaimed ash, built-in banquettes, and Anthony Land’s Yoom sectionals, a secondary canteen doubles as flex work space; flooring throughout is polished concrete.

a workstation with pink accents in the LinkedIn Omaha, Nebraska office — Teams are separated into neighborhoods executed in fabric-wrapped panels, carpet, and furniture, like the Norm Architects Harbour stools serving this free-address workstation.

an artwork spread across the wall made of corn husks — Throughout the 200,000-square-foot, two-building project, Gensler created artful installations with reused materials that link to Omaha’s identity, like this one with corn husks.

PROJECT TEAM

Gensler: randy howder; laura richardson; chad wyman; marissa everling; ben vela; chad spurlin; samantha lewis; jeffrey ding; fang fang, eric mortensen (interiors); jennifer hamilton; tiffany ricardo; jarrod holt; marie achterhof, Miriam Diaz, victoria chau, Brian newman (branding); Gail napell, nova punongbayan (sustainability advisors)

tucci lighting: lighting consultant

acrylicize: signage

morrissey engineering: mep

urban evolutions through imperial woodworking company: millwork

lockwood construction: general contractor

PRODUCT SOURCES

FROM FRONT

glen-gery: brick (lobby)

carl hansen & søn: white chairs

muuto: gray chairs (lobby), sofa (coffee bar)

dum: stools (lobby, coffee bar)

grand rapids chair co.: stools (reception, cafeteria)

sancal: lounge chairs (coffee bar)

Mattiazzi: chairs

Lindner: ceiling mesh (elevator lobby)

barbican: ceiling fixtures (elevator lobby, cafeteria, neighborhood)

pinnacle lighting: pendant fixtures (confererence room)

allermuir: chairs

hollis + morris: pendant fixtures (cafeteria)

blu dot; de vorm; hightower: chairs

Lambert et Fils: pendant fixtures

corral: chairs (canteen)

stylex: sofas

menu: stools (workstation)

andlight: downlights

kvadrat: panel fabric

tretford: carpet

bernhardt design: sofas (neighborhood)

pair: custom communal table, custom shelving

most modest: lamp

FROM FRONT

Maharam: seating fabric

Moore & Giles: seating upholstery

rad furniture: custom tables

filzfelt: felt

one workplace; two furnish: furniture suppliers

er2: custom graphics installation

Benjamin Moore & Co.; Dunn-Edwards; Farrow & Ball; Sherwin-Williams Company: paint

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