A Look Inside Bazaarvoice's New Creative Office Space
Austin-based Bazaarvoice celebrated its 10th anniversary with a mighty big gift: a new 138k SF HQ in North Austin. Calling it a creative workspace may be an understatement. We got a sneak peek inside the tech savvy firm’s updated digs.
The firm's 600 Austin employees have already moved in at 10901 Stonelake Blvd to kick off the firm's 10-year lease. The office was designed to encourage communication and collaboration between employees with an open floor plan and ample room for expansion, says Bazaarvoice director of worldwide facilities Jason Schultz. Not familiar with what Bazaarvoice does? The world's largest network of shoppers helps retailers ID the best ways to collect and display consumer-generated content (like reviews and social posts) so they can improve their products and customer experience.
Riverside Resources developed the four-story Bazaarvoice HQ. The Class-A building features multiple unique architectural touches, including outdoor decks, four-side cut lueder limestone, curtainwall glass, accented steel beams and exposed interior concrete. HKS designed the building’s shell, lauckgroup handled interior design, and Harvey-Cleary was the GC. The two-story main lobby's glass-lined central staircase is not only an architectural feature that creates a feeling of openness, but also encourages collaboration and a stronger sense of community throughout the space, Jason says.
Small kitchenettes, where employees can grab drinks and snacks, are on each of the four floors on both the east and west sides of the building. The idea behind keeping these small is to push people to eat in the main dining area on the first floor. There’s Whole Foods Market Cafe, which is one of only a handful of Whole Foods Market express locations throughout the city.
Lounges and meeting pits throughout the building are designed to encourage collaboration among teams and provide flexible workspaces while sparking creative thinking. Bazaarvoice worked with CBRE’s workplace strategy team to create a space that redefines how the company works. The result is a variety of work settings, including both collaborative and private spaces with huddle rooms, sit/stand desks and offices, and focus rooms. CBRE also represented Bazaarvoice in the site search and lease negotiations.
The client conversation center, or C3 for short, is the home base for all client meetings. This is the first time the firm’s HQ has had a space designed specifically for Bazaarvoice’s 4,000 clients to enjoy while visiting the office, and really touches on the company focus of having a client-obsessed culture, Jason says.
The helpdesk provides a genius bar-like setting to assist employees with technology questions, as well as provide ample space for teams to get a change of scenery. A few fun facts about the new project: construction required 31,000 stones, 44 million pounds of concrete, and 10,000 sheets of drywall to complete. The building contains 150 miles of electrical wiring, which is roughly equal to the distance between Austin and Houston. It took 258,000 man-hours to complete construction.
