JetBrains New Amsterdam Office

Rick Geenjaar

JetBrains Opens a New Amsterdam Office: A Home Away From Home

• Interior Designers

JetBrains, the company that creates intelligent software development tools used by over 15.9 million professionals and 90 Fortune Global Top 100 companies, has announced the opening of a new office in Amsterdam.

The Terrace Tower building was chosen by JetBrains for its unique outdoor landscape terraces on every floor and its BREEAM Excellent rating, aligning with the company’s value to provide employees with a sustainable environment that nurtures well-being and creativity and to support a healthy balance between work and recreation. JetBrains and D/DOCK collaboratively achieved this by optimizing the setup for privacy, acoustics, lighting, and minimal distractions.

photo_credit Rick Geenjaar — Rick Geenjaar

For their new office, JetBrains embraced a concept that prioritizes what employees want and need, allowing them to set their own rhythms for the workday and personalize their workspaces. The central theme of the office design is "Office as a Landscape." Each floor of the Terrace Tower building represents a different natural landscape: desert, forest, fields, and mountains. These scenes transform the office space into an ecosystem that fosters creativity, movement, focus, and health.

The interior design by D/DOCK blends landscape architecture, a biophilic design, and environmental psychology principles. The result is a space that caters to individual working preferences by offering various spatial layouts and types of furniture.

There are two main design principles: First, the Workstation is a unique individual desk setup that provides focus, privacy, and comfort through the integration of personal storage, acoustic and privacy screening, plants, and whiteboards. Working in this type of personalized space creates an atmosphere of a “home away from home”.

Second, the team-based room arrangement emphasizes communal spaces that stimulate collaboration and team building. Each JetBrains team has its own room, and teams are grouped together based on how closely related their jobs are. The goal is for these rooms to become micro-communities on one floor of the building, and within the whole ecosystem.

While each office floor is unique, the entire building maintains a modular approach, ensuring consistency in functionality. Public spaces including the reception, restaurant, wellness, and recreation areas are situated in the middle of the tower, where the largest outdoor terraces are located, allowing dining, sport, and relaxation activities to extend outdoors. The central location also promotes the use of stairs over elevators.

JetBrains and D/DOCK took sustainability into account when establishing building operations and choosing furniture. An automated system adjusts sun protection, lighting, heating, and cooling based on sunlight penetration and occupancy levels, while employees are still able to configure their environments. Most of the furniture is recycled following circular design principles.

In conclusion, JetBrains’ Amsterdam office is a place where caring for the environment and caring for employees go hand in hand.