A Look Inside Pinterest's 45,000-Square-Foot Headquarters

Now home to more than 150 employees, massively popular photo-sharing platform Pinterest is the latest startup to move into new collaboration-fostering digs in San Francisco’s trendy SoMa neighborhood. Having moved into the Seventh Street space in April, Pinterest has transformed the 45,000-square-foot brick warehouse into the perfect space for a growing design-driven company. Stripping the space to its raw essentials – large industrial windows, wooden beams, and a steel support structure – designers Janette Kim of All of the Above, First Office’s Anna Neimark and Andrew Atwood, and executive architect Neal Schwartz added four 20’ x 20’ white “houses” to function as meeting areas – thus allowing the headquarters to offer the best of both an open floor plan and closed, quiet creative spaces. Said Pinterest Co-Founder Evan Sharp:

The one certain thing about a startup is that the future is highly uncertain, and so like an information system, we wanted the design of the office to be flexible enough that the design would be able to adapt as the company changes over time. Like Pinterest (the service), we wanted our space to accommodate the most heterogeneous set of occupations possible. That’s architect speak for, the space should enable you to work in many different ways. Whether you’re comfortable working at a dedicated desk, on your laptop at a communal table, or in a dark corner in the basement, it’s likely that you’ll find a place that works for the way you like to work.