Located in Beijing’s 798 Art District, the Sundate Office occupies a repurposed industrial building that underwent minimal interior renovation, preserving the original structural framework and much of the mechanical infrastructure. This eco-friendly approach minimizes demolition waste and reduces new construction materials.
The office is part of the Hengtong International Innovation Park, a revitalized former industrial site hosting companies like Didi and Baidu, alongside design studios and the Minsheng Art Museum. This environment fosters a blend of art, creativity, and commerce.
The intervention concentrates on spatial reorganization. Outdated partitions were removed, and the internal layout was adjusted to support a combination of office work, content production, and informal daily activities. By maintaining the original structural logic, the project minimizes material input while extending the useful life of the building.
An individual, a content creator, a brand founder, a mother… When all these identities converge within a single space, this office is asked to hold far more than just "going to work."
Within the same environment, people shift between roles repeatedly throughout the day. Time does not offer clean boundaries between these states; they overlap, interrupt one another, and reshape daily rhythms.
The client of the Beijing Sundate Office project lives precisely within this layered reality. As the founder of Sundate, a parenting-oriented lifestyle brand, she manages a growing team while also working as a content creator, a mother, and an individual navigating her own daily life.
Among these roles, that of an influencer is particularly complex. Work and life are closely intertwined, with little separation between on and off time. Meanwhile, content creation has become increasingly professionalized, shifting from an individual practice in domestic settings to a collaborative process involving planning, filming, editing, and operations.
Functional distribution
The office supports daily work, internal discussions, visitor reception, and content production, while also accommodating the presence of children. Interruptions, brief pauses, and frequent role changes give the workplace an uneven rhythm. As a result, emotional buffering, physical ease, and appropriate interpersonal distance became key considerations in the renovation.
Milanesi Paiusco set out to create a space that supports the client’s multiple identities—one where work, filming, and everyday life can coexist, leaving room for comfort, mood, and inspiration.
Several industrial buildings frame an internal plaza—a quiet, open space within a dense, work-oriented environment. In addition to everyday use, the plaza hosts exhibitions, markets, and temporary events, serving as a buffer within the park.
Structural framework and materials
The renovation works within the existing building structure. Unlike other buildings that orient toward the street, the design focuses on the façade facing the plaza, strengthening the relationship between the office and the shared open space. Large transparent openings were retained to bring in natural light and visual connection. The original mullions were reworked, giving the façade a lighter and more restrained expression. The building's primary structure was kept intact, with renovation efforts concentrated on reorganizing interior use.
The material strategy begins with preserving the existing structure: the industrial ceiling and concrete columns retain their raw texture, while the white-painted brick walls blend with the current aesthetic yet still carry the traces of time.
Against this backdrop, wooden flooring and cabinetry introduce warmth. Glass elements enhance transparency and extend sightlines across zones. Carpets soften footsteps and bring a more domestic atmosphere. Flexible curtains act as movable partitions, adjusting openness as needed and creating elasticity between open and more private areas.
White serves as the primary background of the space, threaded through with Sundate's light blue brand color. The first impression recalls sky, clouds, and sunlight—an atmosphere that feels open and breathable. This palette reflects the brand's temperament: grounded in everyday family life, carrying a sense of lightness and childlike ease.
Natural materials, reuse of existing elements, and selective recycling strategies informed the renovation approach. The industrial ceiling and exposed services were retained, preserving structural clarity and directness. Soft colors, textiles, and carefully considered details temper the atmosphere, making the space more approachable. The contrast between a rigid structural framework and a gentle interior environment is present but balanced.
A light blue staircase runs vertically through the building. On each floor, corresponding blue elements echo this core, visually linking different levels and functions. Much like the client and her team, who move between roles and tasks throughout the day, the space shifts in use while maintaining a consistent internal core logic.
A space with personality
Echoing the parent-child lifestyle brand founded by the client, a touch of playfulness is woven into the spatial concept. Simple geometric shapes, easy for children to read, appear throughout the space, while adults find themselves surrounded by creativity and imagination. Certain unconventional perspectives emerge within the space, triggering fresh ideas in these unexpected corners.
In the restroom, multiple mirrors of different geometric shapes are combined, reflecting fragmented and magnified images of oneself. This playful experience continues the expression of whimsy found throughout the space.
The meeting room retains the building’s original structural character, with exposed concrete columns and whitewashed red brick walls. Against the cool-toned overhead structure, warm lighting from Artemide fixtures and a custom wooden table soften the atmosphere, keeping discussions open without feeling constrained.
Beyond female-friendly
For this all-female team, expectations of the workplace were articulated with remarkable specificity. Comfort or inclusivity were not discussed in abstract terms, but through concrete daily scenarios.
The common area is where people gather most frequently. The water bar and discussion zones encourage conversations to happen more often, while a rarely seen rope swing creates a relaxed, natural setting for dialogue. Ideas that rarely surface at the desk emerge here freely.
These decisions bear little relation to stereotypical notions of gender. "Female" functions here as a contextual condition rather than a defining label. What truly matters is that this group understands how they work, how they live, and what kind of environment can meaningfully support that reality.
A dedicated zone for content creators
The overall office layout is organized around the working methods of a content creator. In particular, the third-floor shooting area accommodates various types of content—unboxing, outfit styling, and product sharing—all within one place. Different setups can be switched quickly, without the need for repeated clearing or temporary staging.
Equipment is systematically stored and managed. Lights, stands, and cameras each have designated positions, reducing friction in daily use. By separating filming from office functions, this level prevents content production from disrupting everyday work rhythms, giving creative output its own spatial and temporal boundaries.
The design details
The designers’ workspace is open, with soft partitions acting as flexible boundaries that adjust the space between openness and privacy. Custom desks, glass, wood, and rugs in a playful style create a stable and comfortable environment, allowing designers to focus for extended periods and carry out original creative work.
The owner's office exudes a distinct personal character, with brown-toned furniture and soft furnishings conveying understated French elegance and classic style. In harmony with the preserved original structure, a unique desk was built using glass bricks, forming the main work area behind it. Small objects are displayed beneath the transparent tabletop, where new ideas are organized and developed.
A separate area is dedicated to relaxation, infused with artistic and creative energy. Child-friendly furniture is also included, allowing her to comfortably navigate her role as a mother when needed.
Boundaries and future working spaces
As content creation becomes more professionalized, bloggers face a dilemma: when sharing everyday life turns into an obligation, it can lead to feelings of intrusion and disorientation. This reflects a broader trend among workers today, where the lines between work and personal life blur, and the push for efficiency often supersedes rest and recovery.
In this context, workplace boundaries become crucial. Physical boundaries shape how work is engaged and how visible one is, while emotional boundaries often lack structure, relying on self-management. Space serves more than just zoning; transitional zones allow movement between engagement and withdrawal without exhaustion. If future workplaces can incorporate pauses and recovery into the work process, they may address long-ignored issues in modern labor. The debate over whether to integrate work and life or keep them separate continues, reflecting differing views on autonomy and sustainability at work.
Sustainability approach
The project adopts a renovation-led approach, retaining the existing structural framework and most of the mechanical equipment that remained functional. This strategy reduces demolition waste and limits the need for new construction materials. Natural daylight is prioritized through large façade openings and internal transparency, reducing reliance on artificial lighting during working hours.
Material decisions focus on durability and recyclability. Wooden panels used across the interior are recyclable, while material offcuts from the bar counter construction were repurposed to produce smaller tables within the office. The overall palette combines retained industrial elements with selectively introduced finishes, limiting material replacement while supporting long-term use.
Circular thinking
The main environmental benefit is retaining the existing structure, which reduces embodied carbon from demolition and new construction. The project involves minimal new additions and focuses on passive energy performance. Daylight is maximized through façade design and glass partitions, enhancing natural light across spaces without adding new energy systems, relying instead on spatial organization for performance improvements.
The project maintains the original spatial framework while introducing flexible partitions that allow the office to adapt over time. Curtains and lightweight elements enable reconfiguration without construction, supporting changing uses. The third-floor content production space accommodates multiple setups without permanent alterations, extending the usability of the space and reducing future material intervention.
Circular strategies are applied at a practical level through material reuse and the retention of existing building elements, though no full disassembly system is implemented.
