AT WORK

A designer’s new digs reflect his lifestyle of international tastes and adventure

Tom Stringer, the man behind the acclaimed Chicago design firm that bears his name, is straightforward about his modus operandi: “I work hard and play hard.” Thanks to the dazzling–yet brilliantly utilitarian–office suite Stringer has recently completed for his firm in a reclaimed River North warehouse, so can his staff.

“I designed it around a new work model that I felt would increase our ability to collaborate... and increase my productivity when I’m here,” says Stringer, who is most known for his residential work locally but travels internationally for maritime and commercial projects that range from luxury fishing yachts quartered in New Zealand harbors to tony restaurants such as Alinea in Chicago. Indeed, on the day we interviewed Stringer, he had just returned from business meetings in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Maldives the week before, and was busy at work on a Saturday afternoon before a three week stint back on the road. “I’m going to Seattle and Santa Barbara next week, Nassau the week after and then on to the Grenadines...so I have to maximize my hours here,” he pointed out.

His eight year stint in his former office, an elegant though all-too-snug two-floor spread in a nearby Victorian brownstone, gave him plenty of time to “cogitate” and come up with a design solution that would allow him to do just that. To that end, the plan he conceived places a transmutable, cruciform-shaped library-cum-conference room at the heart of his new space’s rectangularly shaped expanse. A work-of-art in its own right, this open-air core consists of a 65 foot long, 15 foot wide aisle defined by two shelf-lined walls, crowned by concave acoustic ceiling panels suspended just above the shelves but below the 14 foot ceiling of the loft. Their concave contours are reminiscent of arches or giant ribs, and they give the ‘room’ visual definition and soundproofing. A mid-point break between these ‘walls’ cuts it in two and creates a second aisle, which is the short arm of the cross. Four large work tables fill the longer arm (two on each side of the cruciform’s nucleus), and two even longer conference tables line its shorter arm. For formal occasions, like office parties, diaphanous drapes made out of creamy Belgian linen are hung on the ladder rails to hide the resource materials in the library.

The outside perimeter of the space is lined with window-hugging, semi-enclosed work stations along the side and back walls that are larger than most private offices. With their long, glossy cherry veneer work surfaces, comfy Herman Miller Aeron Chairs, Teknion partition systems, Artemide Tizio lamps and individual PCs, they are also luxuriously appointed by any standard. The front wall, which is punctuated by a commercial curtain wall of almost floor-to-ceiling windows, edges a waiting room that is sized and fit out as sumptuously as the grand salon of an elegant estate, flanked by two spacious, glassed-in rooms that comprise Stringer’s personal executive suite–a library-cum-conference room and a serene office.

The lone inside wall of the space anchors two glass-encased administrative offices that are flooded with light from the reception area and appointed with luxurious pieces that would feel equally at home in a residential setting, such an ebony writing desk in the space for Stringer’s assistant, followed by a sleek state-of-the-art kitchen that probably every staff member (and this writer) would kill to have at home. Not coincidentally, the kitchen is mid-point along that wall, at the end of the cruciform’s short arm, which makes it easily accessible from the conference tables and allows the tables to do double-duty for snacking staffers. The set up also makes it possible for staffers to transition from work to breaks when time allows.

Stringer waxes poetic about the merits of the plan, and the fact that it has changed the very nature of how his staff works. “I can have four project teams working here at once, and move from pod to pod to conduct design meetings. It lets me be a papa bear and pay more attention to everyone on staff. And the best part is we can all fit at the conference tables. They hold 24,” he boasts.

That’s the exact number people who currently work at the firm, which he re-named Tom Stringer Design Partners this year because of the other ventures he has added to his repertoire over the past 11 years, ranging from furniture and textile design to a new lifestyle management consulting division for his clients who own multiple residences and yachts. Five of those staffers just joined the firm in April of this year, underscoring Stringer’s only apparent dilemma: “uncontrolled growth,” he quips. “When we moved in here in January, we more than tripled in size from 2000 to 7000 square feet. Now four months later, I’m already out of space. It’s not that I’m adding clients, it’s that the ones I have are doing multiple properties, and we’re also providing them with more services, so we’re going to have to expand,” he says. Fortunately, there is a mirror image space on the other side of the building that is available.

But perhaps some of that success can be attributed to this new office design Stringer dreamed up. “The space plan has increased productivity, but this new location has caused us to stretch aesthetically. It challenges us to think in new ways and explore other materials, so ultimately we are working differently, and more creatively,” he acknowledges.

Before his move, Stringer was definitely not a loft kind of guy. His last office looked more like the posh Gold Coast residence of a genteel business magnate rather than a design firm, but with this space he has not only loosened up, he has gotten downright adventurous. The stunning but unconventional cruciform shaped design library is the most obvious case in point, but there are also other, more subtle inklings of his new mindset. Though the reception room still has a residential demeanor, it sports bolder finishes and fresher furnishings that make it a bit eclectic and far more informal than that in his former office. A floor of slate gray, rectangular porcelain pavers is echoed with exactingly similar slate gray leather tiles that crawl up the wall behind the receptionist’s desk, forging a sleek futuristic backdrop that offsets the more traditional trappings it underscores. These include many pieces of Stringer’s own design, ranging from the curvy, barrel-framed armchairs he designed for Alinea to a gigantic area carpet patterned with an ageless but distinctly historical Moroccan motif that is part of his line for TexStyle.

“The things I have in there are prototypes that are about to be put into production, are in production or were rejects,” he explains. From the looks of one mahogany table in the room that had erroneous inlays, we have to admit we’d be happy to have the rejects. We think he should consider a sample sale at his new digs. i4