Kapor Center

Fougeron Architecture’s renovation of an office building in Oakland blends high-tech and humanism, featuring open spaces that encourage collaboration and camaraderie, as well as flexibility.

For its new headquarters, The Kapor Center commissioned a design competition to transform an existing 1920s-era office building in downtown Oakland into innovative workspace. The new headquarters had to be an architectural manifestation of the client’s core values: connectivity, openness, and democracy.

Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017 Pin It Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017 Pin It Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact,

The design is modern and harmonious, blending high-tech and humanism. Open spaces encourage collaboration and camaraderie, as well as flexibility. The clean interiors cater to informal social spaces that invite the interaction of staff, partners and visitors. Efficiency is paramount in the design, creating operational spaces that use human and technological resources sensibly, economically but imaginatively.

Throughout the building, the circular volume acts as an organizing and integrating principle, linking the various floors and functions while maintaining the separations needed to meet code and maintain privacy. On the fourth floor, a modern dome and oculus establishes the Center’s presence and its role to grow outward and upward within the community.