WestRock provides their business partners a competitive advantage with game-changing developments in paper making, packaging design, and retail solutions. Their focus is insight-driven innovation, providing value and solving their partners’ biggest challenges. Having recently become a global company through acquisition, WestRock made strategic decisions to position themselves for future growth and success.

SSOE crafted a transformational workplace to support WestRock’s passionate customer focus. Believing talent, shared expertise, and out-of-the box thinking drive value for their partners, the new workplace brings together over 1,000 people from three sites. This coming-together set the stage for new synergies, lots of energy, and enhanced idea sharing. Presence and welcome happen at the building lobby, with hospitality, product display, and an Innovation Center for customized client collaboration. The experience reflects the culture of the business, its people, and their focus on innovation.

SSOE ’s design concept evolved with an enhanced user experience at its heart. Nine floors of workplace are open, connected, and inclusive, featuring agile workspaces. A mix of settings recognize the diverse range of preferences and work styles, allowing individuals to “customize” their work experience. It makes for – “a place where we can optimize our ability to deliver for our customers.” Lots of glass, open and semi-open collaborative zones and an interconnecting stair energize the atmosphere, a visual buzz and hum. The comfortable central café is a gathering spot used throughout the day, offering refreshment, social interaction, gaming, and building community.

The workplace is an authentic representation of who and what WestRock stands for as an organization and reflects their shared purpose. The space is straight-forward, practical, not fussy nor pretentious. A natural palette of concrete, wood, and metal finishes celebrate the materiality of their products. The simple beauty and geometry of folded planes, layered, and textured surfaces are found in their products and inspire the design of the workplace plan and architecture. Display of their product is integrated into the design giving teams an opportunity to share current work and prompt dialogue throughout and serves as a connecting device within the multiple floors of the workplace.