Ad Agency Leo Burnett Commissions Design for Change

by Beth Leibson

Architectural and interior design evolves by its very nature. Needs and personalities change and the physical environment must adapt to meet the new challenges. “Something always throws a wrench into the plan,” explains Paula Lutz, Project Director at Chicago-based VOA. “Someone doesn’t like a color or the budget changes. And if the entire design depends on that detail, you’re in trouble.” So, preparing for the inevitable can mean preparing for the unknown. Nonetheless, it is rare that a design firm hears—as VOA did from the Creative Group at Leo Burnett, “It doesn’t matter how you design it—we’ll destroy it anyway,” Lutz says. “Nothing on that project was precious.” “To be honest,” laughs John Cowie, Director of Office Administration/Senior Vice President, “I don’t have any basis for comparison. I’ve been at Leo Burnett for 25 years and it has always been this way.” Change is a constant at the advertising giant, whose churn rate Cowie says is almost 60%. Which is about right for the advertising industry, he notes. “I’ve never worked at a law firm; I don’t know any other way to work.”

Leo Burnett Creatives have seated privacy and standing views of the facility.

Nonetheless, this consolidation project was a big one. Due to budgetary and leasing considerations, Leo Burnett’s Board of Directors determined that the firm’s Creative Group would need to shrink from four floors to two at 35 Wacker Street in downtown Chicago. To meet the leasing requirements, the three-phase project was fast-track: from kickoff to move-in in nine months. Plus the budget was tight, at $35 per rentable sq.ft. for construction costs.

"The building, which at that time was owned by Leo Burnett, opened in 1989. At that point, people in the advertising business were pegged by the size of the office and the amount of windows they had," explains Cowie. As a result, the perimeters of all four floors were ringed with private offices, which ranged in size from 10-ft. by 15-ft. to 20-ft. by 20-ft. Those dimensions may seem large, but they are no comparison to the private offices on Mad Men, the AMC network’s hit drama about a Madison Ave. advertising agency set in the early 1960s.  

Changing footprint, changing philosophy

But that was going to change. “To achieve the density we needed and to take better advantage of natural light,” says Cowie, “we realized that we had to move to open plan.”

“We knew this was going to be a big change for the Creative Group,” Cowie says. “So they were drawn into the process from Day One. We had a committee of creatives who were involved—and the Creative Group got to decide who from their Group was on the committee.” As a result, notes Cowie, there was a buzz on the Creative floors about the change long before the move-in date.

“Creatives have different requirements than other people who work in offices,” says Cowie. “They hate overhead lighting—they just want natural lighting. And they need special storage space for their storyboards and other unusually shaped presentation materials.”

Having the Creative Group involved has worked out well for the advertising agency. “While it made the process a little bit more tedious, in the end it was well worth it,” admits Cowie. “That was probably the smartest thing we did in the whole process.”

Different spaces for different needs

VOA began by gutting one floor completely and the other by about 95%, says Lutz. They left a few of the closed offices for later use as team rooms. They started, just about, from scratch.

“Open plan space works when you give employees lots of different kinds of spaces, lots of different work environments,” says Nick Luzietti, VOA Design Principal and leader of the team working on Leo Burnett’s offices. “We’re here to create spaces and environments that help people feel inspired, feel good about themself, and get the job done.” And that approach produced a variety of types of flexible spaces for Leo Burnett.

Both floors are framed with high-tech, enclosed conference rooms at the north ends and “energy rooms” on the south sides. The large conference rooms are agency wide and available by registration. “I don’t work in the Creative Group, but I could get assigned to a conference room there if that was the one available,” explains Cowie.

"Energy rooms" offer beverage machines and foosball.

The “energy rooms” are brightly colored spaces, approximately 30 ft. by 30 ft., and intended for lunch time, coffee breaks, impromptu meetings, watching TV, and playing foosball. “The Creatives hate the term ’energy room’,” says Cowie. “But no one can come up with a better one.” Each project gets an enclosed conference room, measuring approximately 15 ft. by 15 ft., where it can leave materials, conduct private phone calls, and preserve confidentiality for proprietary efforts. There are a total of 20 such rooms on the two floors, notes Cowie, and they get reassigned as staffing and clients change. Power and phone lines come off spine walls and, when necessary, through the floor. The perimeters, once home to a row of enclosed offices, are now lined with big windows, architectural elements that VOA calls “billboards,” and storage units. The “billboards,” some made of plywood and others of sheet metal, enable Leo Burnett staff to mount completed projects, works in progress, and ideas for inspiration.

The choice of materials enables the Creatives to decorate them with staple guns and nails—on the plywood—and magnets—on sheet metal, while adding an edgy quality to the facility. (The plywood is lightly sealed to prevent splinters.) The edgy quality of the design is enhanced by the exposed beams of the high ceilings and through painted cement floors in the lobby area. “It’s not the expected design,” says Lutz. Storage was a delicate issue. There simply isn’t as much space available on two floors as there was on four. “There’s less private storage space, but we have nooks and crannies around the floor,” says Cowie. Around the windows, there are low-height, open face millwork cubbies. The Office Administration Department is careful, though. “If we give them too much storage,” says Cowie, “they just fill it up.”

"Billboards" enable Leo Burnett Creatives to display an array of materials.

Creatives involvement

In between are freestanding Steelcase workstations; every staff member has an assigned workstation. “Members of the Creative Group helped pick these. They went to the showrooms with us and signed off on every piece of furniture in the space,” says Cowie. “Except for chairs, we’re standardized on office chairs.”

“The Creatives wanted seated privacy,” says Cowie. “But when people stood up, they wanted to be able to see across the floor.” As a result, the tallest panels are 54-inches in height.

But that wasn’t the only requirement. “The Creatives didn’t want uniformity,” explains Lutz. “They specifically asked for variation in the topography.” All the workstations can move, so Leo Burnett staff can create a bullpen effect, open the space into quadrants, create a few semi-private spaces, or try any other scheme that might facilitate their creative efforts. “They can reshuffle the deck for each new client or project, if they want,” Lutz says.

Having the Creative Group involved offered a fresh eye to the furniture selection process. “I probably know everything there is to know about file cabinets,” says Cowie. “But the Creatives are very inquisitive. They opened the drawers, asked about how much material they could store inside.” Cowie gained insight into how his Leo Burnett consumers think. “It was probably my favorite part of the project.”

The sound of creativity

Leo Burnett staff was initially concerned about hearing conversations and other sounds in an open office environment. “This is true of most organizations that go from private offices to open plan,” says Lutz. “But they soon came to see the sounds as white noise, partially masked by the air flow, building operating systems, carpeting, and sound absorbing panels on the movable workstations.

“We use a light noise machine,” says Cowie. But even so, there were plenty of comments early on about the noise level. “But they’ve adjusted,” says the FM. “Though they’d probably still like their private offices back.”

Lighting was a challenge because Leo Burnett Creatives spend considerable time on computers—and they don’t want much lighting. As a result, VOA started with daylighting. “We took advantage of the ten-foot expanse of windows,” says Lutz. “In addition, we used some code-required downlighting along the interior core leading people toward the exits,” she says. There is also, notes Luzietti, some uplighting around the perimeter of the space.

“Originally, we had gel lenses that Leo Burnett staff could put over the lights to change the colors,” Lutz adds. “But they removed those—it created too much of a party atmosphere.”

Since move-in, the Office Administration Department has had to make some minor lighting adjustments. “We’ve had to remove some bulbs from some areas, but not substantially,” says Cowie. The biggest problem is when too much daylight streams in. “You can feel like you’re in the middle of a desert,” he says.

The Office Administration Department hasn’t had to add any lighting.

On the road

The Creatives have certainly started to leave their imprint on the space. “On the first day, somebody brought in a Razor scooter,” says Cowie. “On the second day, there were a few more.” Now there are more than a dozen, which Creatives use to go from one side of the floor to the next, then leave the scooter when they arrive. “Nobody owns the scooters—they belong to the floor,” Cowie explains.

The Creatives have also started decorating. One project group has hung an animal head on the wall. Another has segmented off some space for what Cowie say looks like a flea market. “Every time someone goes on a business trip, they have to bring back some chotchke for the office—a spoon or a ball. And it goes in that space.”

This personalization of space is all part of the pleasure for VOA. “We were looking forward to seeing how they would change our design,” says Lutz. “We gave them a box of parts and watched to see what they would do with it.” And, from what we can see, that process will continue.