The redevelopment of Strawinsky House in Amsterdam transformed a closed and dated 1970s office building into a transparent, inviting and multifunctional workplace. Drawn to the building’s generous floorplates and strong visual connections, DLA Piper chose to occupy almost 80% of the available space and appointed Casper Schwarz Architects to design the workplace interiors, hospitality areas and restorative spaces.
For a law firm, privacy and enclosed rooms remain an important part of the working environment. Rather than seeing this as a limitation, we used it as a starting point to explore how communication, collaboration and wellbeing could be embedded throughout the workplace.
The existing architecture offered a strong degree of transparency, both towards the central atrium and the external façades. Our design builds on this quality, strengthening visual connections across the building while creating more reasons for people to move beyond their immediate workspace. The atrium became an important organising element: not simply a circulation space, but a shared interior landscape connecting different functions, floors and moments throughout the working day.
Against the building’s linear architecture, we introduced softer geometries, layered textures and a restrained palette of timeless colours and materials. The intention was to create an atmosphere that moved away from the conventions of the corporate office and towards something more familiar and hospitable – drawing references from hotels, residential interiors, restaurants and bars.
The individual workspaces are light, calm and subtly coloured, with transparency used carefully to maintain openness without compromising privacy. Within the relatively narrow office rooms, the desks were treated as integrated pieces of interior architecture rather than simply as furniture.
Shared spaces play an equally important role. Breakout balconies, a barista bar and restaurant on the lower level, a dedicated client area and a rooftop bar each offer different settings for meeting, working and spending time together. Rather than functioning as secondary amenities, these spaces form an integral part of the workplace strategy, encouraging informal interaction and creating opportunities for people to connect throughout the day.
Since moving into the building, DLA Piper has reported a significant improvement in internal communication and has identified the project as a reference for the development of future international workplaces.
At the centre of the atrium sits the project’s most distinctive element: a fully 3D-printed sculptural volume containing a meeting room. Its organic form creates a deliberate contrast with the rectilinear façades and roof structure surrounding it, while the intricate scale of the printed pattern introduces a level of refinement to the building’s otherwise robust architectural framework.
The object is intentionally ambiguous. Its presence invites curiosity while simultaneously performing several practical functions. The perforated skin allows daylight to filter through while limiting direct views into the meeting room, providing the level of confidentiality required within a legal environment. The sculpture also screens the dedicated client area behind it, creating an additional layer of privacy within the open atrium.
Because the atrium forms the spatial heart of Strawinsky House, the sculpture also acts as a landmark – a recognisable point of orientation and a distinctive element within DLA Piper’s identity.
Throughout the project, our ambition was to work respectfully with the architectural character of the existing building while introducing a new layer of warmth, hospitality and human scale. The result balances functionality with a degree of boldness: a workplace shaped by attention to detail, material quality and the everyday experience of the people who use it.
