Goop by Gwyneth Paltrow, Santa Monica

A workplace that gives a feeling of home

Facts

Location:
San Francisco, USA
Client:
Goop
Industry:
Fashion & Beauty
Year of completion:
2020
Specials:
Innovation Space
Experts:
Rapt Studio (Design)

Founded by Gwyneth Paltrow, goop is a modern lifestyle brand and resource for people aspiring to put wellness first. It takes a multifaceted approach to health, travel, and style, creating and recommending products while producing thoughtful content on living holistically.

Goop’s growing team was dispersed among a series of separate buildings and needed a place to concentrate their energy and efforts to propel the brand into its next phase of development. Rapt designed their new, light-filled headquarters in Santa Monica to preserve the buzz they’d maintained in close quarters while giving big ideas room to roam. Because Paltrow thinks of goop as a family and prioritizes the wellbeing of the entire company, the space feels like home.

Space to Create

A custom reception desk by North Hollywood-based Artcrafters welcomes visitors to the space. Sleek and sculptural, it mimics the scooped forms in the company’s name. Adjacent, a wide, rounded metal screen fabricated by Bayly Art wraps around the room. Sweeping curves emerge again in larger architectural moments and are echoed in small furniture details – gestures that guide people through the office and create an intrinsic flow. The color palette – soft, warm, and inviting – is equally pleasing to the senses.

Lobby

Numerous spaces around the office are designed to cultivate expansive thinking and creative development. There’s a product room and lab for wellness innovation, a test kitchen to experiment with recipes and film the YouTube series hosted by Paltrow and other goop editors, and a fashion and design workroom for exploring styles and designing new collections for G. Label. To satisfy goop’s eager audience, new multi-platform content is captured in photo and video studios and a podcast recording studio. A high level of transparency within the space and between teams supports open communication and productive collaboration, ultimately creating a culture of empowered partnership.

Test kitchen

The All Hands area is host to weekly meetings and brings together staff, including those calling in from afar. Lined by a kitchen, it’s used for meals too. The adjacent deck, outfitted with Galanter & Jones heated outdoor furniture, is home to office social hours and outdoor meetings with views of the LA skyline.

Communal space

Illuminating the office are lighting features by Roll & Hill, which are geometric, simple, and refined. Tailor-made workstations, conference room tables, and modular lounges were crafted in collaboration with local MASH Studios, and a custom executive table and set of meeting room credenzas were made by LA-based Waka Waka. The task and conference-room chairs are by Vitra.

Meeting space

Room to Breathe

Equally important to the active areas but wholly different in nature are the string of calm sanctuaries that offer employees the chance to retreat and find a private moment to balance the social, extroverted work of collaboration. An executive conference room provides a comfortable space for leadership to meet, where branded merchandise chronicling goop’s history and evolution is displayed. A yoga room offers space to breathe, stretch, or even take classes taught by employees and outside practitioners. Secluded lounge spaces, personal phone rooms, and cozy booths with scooped seating are meant for quiet time – because at goop, employees know that productivity requires occasional moments of respite. These spaces – cocooned and concealed – are designed for reflecting, replenishing, and recharging.

Everyday Ethos

Through intentional design, this workspace catalyzes mindful interactions and sparks everyday experiences rooted in clarity and purpose. It unites the goop community and allows the company to continue innovating as thought leaders and culture changers. Synthesizing goop’s essence and clean, tasteful style, it caters to mind, body, and spirit, inspiring employees to not only work well but live well too.