As an innovative shared workspace organisation, WeWork prides itself on the unique look and ambiance of each of its destinations around the world. For WeWork Global Head of Art and Graphics Joe Geis, making each space special for its members poses a welcome creative challenge.

“We open a lot of new locations throughout the year, so how do we keep that fresh and interesting, not only for ourselves as creatives, but also for our members? When we begin a new project, the first thing for the art and graphics team is research, before any design takes place. That could consist of visiting the city, online research, or communicating with our internal WeWork community teams who may already be based in those locations.

We need to make sure things don’t become too repetitive. Having local artists and designers making art that’s relevant for each market was one of our most important goals and we've seen just how successful that can be. Our team members must be tapped into the local culture, the local creative arts scene, have their own network of makers and vendors that they use for these projects.

Our work may honour the history of one of our buildings and pay homage to the traditional culture of the region, and we can collaborate with local artists from those cities to bring some of that in, whether that’s an artist we’ve commissioned to do a mural or somebody that we are buying pre-existing artwork from. We might hire a local weaver to make a tapestry that goes on the wall if that’s a medium that’s right for that region. It’s about being able to make our spaces feel more like an art lover’s home than a corporate office setting—we do that by finding things, making it feel collected and bringing a sense of localness into our spaces.

WeWork Nanjing in China was the first time we introduced sculpture into our spaces—we wanted to pull in local references, present them in contemporary ways, mix old and new within the culture, and put them into unique settings to challenge people’s preconceptions. We pulled in different types of pots, lion statues, and other things our team had viewed around the neighbourhood, creating really cool handmade sculptures that now live on the landing of every internal staircase—it’s lots of fun. Since then we’ve ventured more into sculpture in a lot of our locations, with that sitting alongside hand-painted murals, neon, custom rugs, textiles and wallpapers.

Ultimately, you’re considering the user experience and solving for a whole community of creators from different cultures, with different needs, working in different industries—it’s an exciting challenge to take all that into account when designing. You don’t realise at first how many people’s days you’re impacting through the design and artwork you’re creating, it’s a real learning curve. Putting something up on a wall and then getting feedback from the members or community team is a really good way for us to make sure that we’re moving forward, not making the same mistakes, and bettering the quality of the UX.

I started with WeWork about four years ago, and in that relatively short period we’ve opened up about 500 WeWork locations. One of my favourite projects is Kerry Parkside in Shanghai, which at the time was our largest global floor space—huge long hallways you could get lost in. Our team did a great job there of finding a nice curated balance between colour and medium, abstract versus local artwork.

Another favourite would be 10 Devonshire Square London, our first campus-style location. We did outdoor sculptures and installations here for the first time, activations in which you could connect to the WiFi and work in outside areas that featured artwork and wallpaper, so it felt like you were inside. I’m excited to see where that one goes and how our team continues to bring our spaces to life.”

Joe’s inspiration

Favourite US city: Venice Beach, LA

Favourite global cities: Tokyo and Stockholm

Inspired by: Muzae Sesay from Oakland, Annu Kilpeläinen from Finland and Maxwell McMaster inLA

Listening to: Rex Orange County, an English writer and composer

For more about WeWork visit wework.com

This piece and a range of other articles are featured in the ALHAUS magazine print annual. Order your copy from Boutique Mags today.

read more from the magazine →