Inspire Brands

Inspire Brands new corporate headquarters is a workplace that embraces a multi-brand company and embeds the company’s mission into the office design. This dynamic environment inspires the franchisees, customers, guests, and employees alike by providing a sense of brand loyalty, and engagement with messaging and materiality that celebrates the culinary world.

Design Challenge

Project Description Inspire Brands New Corporate Headquarters is a workplace that embraces a multi-brand company and embeds the company's mission into the office design. This dynamic environment inspires the franchisees, customers, guests, and employees alike by providing a sense of brand loyalty, and engagement with messaging and materiality that celebrates the culinary world. The design team started the design process with the Arby's team crafting a design founded on their strong brand identity. However, early on in the process the client shifted from a single brand to a curator of unique restaurant brands now known as Inspire Brands. To celebrate this expanded house of brands, the team designed a workplace that highlights the culinary experience. A key component of the workplace is a commercial kitchen paired with a taste kitchen that celebrates collaboration and innovation. There is a seamlessness to the project that captures all spaces singular objective: "To ignite and nourish flavorful experiences " by "leveraging synergies among brands." Design Challenge The team was given the opportunity to create the first workspace for the newly established Inspire Brands. This opportunity also turned into a challenge when the client needed to shift from a single brand to a curator of unique restaurants brands. The lobby design and entry experience on floor one and two expresses a multi-restaurant brand company, and showcases a strong connection to the restaurant business with a coffee shop, grab and go, sports bar, tasting area, test kitchen, and a café environment for employees to play and connect with other co-workers. The kitchen and tasting area is a world class culinary experience to support an innovative chef culture, and allows for multiple chefs to work together to experiment with and develop new products. The look and feel has a fresh appearance with white brick walls, polished concrete, warm wood tones, black frame wall systems, decorative lighting, and dashes of color and textures that creates an welcoming environment that showcases the food and beverage industry. The interior design has a relaxed, and comfortable feel, and promotes spontaneous encounters and conversation. The new workplace is designed to be flexible, collaborative, and engages the innovative workforce of many unique brands working together in the same headquarters. Individual brands, like Arby’s and Buffalo Wild Wings, welcome guests to their workplace floors with unique brand moments that start in elevator lobbies and carry throughout the floor. The clear space plan of the work floors provides neighborhoods with workstations, a variety of closed meeting spaces, informal meeting spaces, areas to grab coffee and meet with co-workers, and closed offices. The new workplace provides different types of work environments for employees, which allows the staff to choose a space type that allows them to do their best work. The Inspire Brands headquarters is an unconventional space that speaks to the mission of being a restaurant company “that brings together unique brands and aims to make them stronger than ever before.” The physical spaces inspire smiles through thoughtful design that supports the company's momentum to grow and evolve in the industry.

Physical Context

The building selected for Inspire Brand’s new headquarters was Three Glenlake in Sandy Springs. A suburban office park with beautifully tree-lined landscape and a lake on the property, associates are surrounded with nature and provided easy access to taking walks and breaks outside. On the second level of the plan, an outside patio was designed that connects to the hosting and collaboration spaces providing a link between the taste kitchen and bar environments. This connection allows chefs to use grills and smokers in their flavorful creations and expands the capability of what the test kitchen can offer. It’s also a popular hangout for associates to unwind at the end of the day, celebrate happy hour, and enjoy the company of their coworkers. It is another amenity that reinforces the theme of hospitality and showcases the experiential appeal of the “food and beverage” industry.