Gensler‘s design for the KAYAK offices in Berlin merges existing furniture with a modern, international aesthetic, featuring distinct areas reflecting global destinations and fostering collaboration among Booking Holdings brands.

A new design concept that embraces KAYAK’s international spirit, enhances collaboration, and creates distinct and engaging spaces.

KAYAK, together with its parent company Booking Holdings, reached out to Gensler with the ambitious task of designing their new office at Warschauer Straße. The goal was to retain as much of the existing Kayak furniture and the fit out from the previous tenant as possible while implementing a new design concept that embraced KAYAK’s international spirit, enhanced collaboration, and created distinct and engaging spaces for other Booking Holdings brands, including Booking.com, Priceline and Agoda, located within the same office environment.

Leveraging the company’s travel expertise, the design concept embraces internationality and creates a new office aesthetic that merges existing furniture with a modern loft style. The new look and feel ensures a welcoming atmosphere in an environment that showcases the variety of travel destinations worldwide and cultivates an open team culture. After test fitting and assessing the new office space, the team created a unique design concept to refine and complement the existing strategy in an accelerated timeline of two months.

The design intent was to meet the needs of KAYAK as well as its sister brands from Booking Holdings under one roof, fostering community and connection while supporting team and individual working styles and preferences. Dividing the space into different regions , each region characterises a continent using distinct design elements to showcase destination spots within them. Tapping into our international network and knowledge, travel recommendations for each continent were given by native Gensler team members to truly reveal unique places that enliven the space and promotes wanderlust. 

The destinations function as a base for the colour palette of the distinct areas and support the accessibility and orientation within the space. Further, each meeting room features a printed acoustic canvas with destination images and an airport code that refers to the continent area the meeting room sits in, allowing easy navigation and a smoothly embedded booking system. Within the entire European region, there is only one meeting room per airport code.

The design solutions included custom built furniture out of wood and black metal workstations and meeting tables with an industrial feel, creating a distinct concept that is inspired by modern New York City Lofts. Special attention to small details, such as carpet inserts in selected meeting rooms, showcase the high quality of the space. Roughly 80% percent of furniture was preserved including 145 existing plants that enliven the space and enhance the overall wellbeing. In addition, the office is fully accessible and includes various amenity spaces such as a wellness room for massage sessions and a co-working area.

The heart of the space is a big open team area that is ideally fitted for lunch breaks, different events and large office meetings, with flexibility for variable furniture setups. Inspired by the flair of Berlin, this area features two cutting-edge AI-based murals from a local artist with whom Gensler collaborated. Spanning more than nine meters, the painted murals showcase vibrantly coloured collages from Berlin while reflecting upon the city’s unique characteristics.

View the full project here: https://officesnapshots.com/2024/04/08/kayak-offices-berlin/