Take A Tour Inside SRAM's 1K Fulton Offices

If you ride a bicycle, the odds are good that it’s outfitted with SRAM components like Grip Shifts or Rock Shox. Those components and a lot of other cool things are developed and tested at SRAM’s new offices at 1K Fulton.

The second-largest bicycle parts manufacturer in the world, SRAM was founded in Chicago in 1987 (near its new offices) and occupies 70k SF on the fourth floor. We toured the SRAM offices with VP of marketing David Zimberoff (center) and Perkins+Will principals Fred Schmidt (left) and Joe Connell, who oversaw the build-out.

David says SRAM originally signed a lease for 35k SF on both the eighth and ninth floors, before moving to a full 70k floor plate on the fourth floor. Its offices span both the old cold storage building Sterling Bay redeveloped and the new building Sterling Bay built next door.

Since bike culture informs every aspect of SRAM’s operations—everyone who works here either bikes to and from work or gets a bike ride in during lunch—David says it was most important to design the office around that. Joe and Fred were tasked with preserving aspects of SRAM’s previous offices, like its one-eighth mile long bike track that runs throughout the office and is used for testing component parts (pictured). It also expanded SRAM’s locker room and shower stall capabilities, while improving common areas like shared kitchen space and making more private space available. Fred says this was a matter of figuring out SRAM’s specific requirements for its various teams like R&D, legal and sales, and then stitching it all together organically.

Snapped: SRAM’s new kitchen space. David says in SRAM’s previous River North offices, the kitchen and cafeteria could only seat 16 people at a time. Now that they’re at 1K Fulton, SRAM can accommodate every employee.

The kitchen leads to SRAM’s outdoor deck. David says SRAM negotiated the feature into the lease with Sterling Bay. SRAM employees also have access to 1K Fulton’s community rooftop deck.

SRAM’s open office layout is dotted with hanging bike storage. David says the company asked employees to submit designs for the storage. The winning entry was the simplest: it features steel 2 inch-by-four inch beams, bolted onto floor to ceiling beams. In addition to solving a problem regarding bike storage, these also re-emphasize SRAM’s commitment to bike culture when visitors come to the space.

This bike sculpture garden is on the cold storage building side of SRAM’s offices and is another nod to the bike culture that informs SRAM’s corporate philosophy.

Ride a bike long enough and you’ll need to learn basic repairs. SRAM had Perkins+Will design open bike repair areas throughout its offices so employees can do quick repairs and move along.

Here you see one of SRAM’s conference rooms. These rooms can be expanded and contracted depending on the size of a meeting, and the soft walls are soundproofed so that there is no noise bleeding through. David says this room is also where SRAM has its Monday yoga sessions, something the company didn’t have in its previous office configurations. (Do they warm up with bicycle kicks?)

Pictured: SRAM’s machine shop. This space is where the company takes its designs, and develops and tests prototypes, before sending them to SRAM’s factories around the world for mass production. David says it was important that this room be completely soundproofed so that noise wouldn’t interfere with the daily operations of other departments.

Shown: One of several common seating areas throughout SRAM’s offices. Most of these are along the bike track.

Here is a row of private phone booths Perkins+Will designed for SRAM. David says this was something the company never had, but employees asked be made available when they moved into 1K Fulton.

Expanding locker space was an important aspect of SRAM’s office build-out. David says every employee has a dedicated locker and can roll directly into the office, shower if they biked, and be ready to work.