Design a mix use office & event space that reflect’s Farmigo's role building food communities through technology.
Farmigo, a food tech company with offices in Brooklyn, Oakland, Seattle and Tel Aviv.
As Farmigo team grew in size and impact in the local food/tech community, I opened and designed their mix used headquarter office and event space in Gowanus, Brooklyn. Working with contractors, I oversaw renovations, made design decisions, furnished and opened the 5,000 sq. ft. space. The project included user research and using service design principles to meet the team and communities needs.
People spend as much, if not more time in their office than their home. It was important to understand the motivations and values of the team. They all shared four main values: building community, supporting local farms, eating seasonally and using technology to support all their values. These core values should be reflected in the office space and events in the space. I conducted interviews with the goal of answering these questions:
It was clear that the priorities for the team were: areas for phone calls, space for food prep/weekly lunches and highlighting our community of farmers, organizers and customers.
To fully understand the Farmigo product, I created a Service Blueprint to visualize the experience holistically and identify the pain points in the customer experience. To understand the customer standpoint, I became a Farmigo Organizer and went through the ordering process weekly. I observed what happens behind the scenes to get the customers their orders, including the support processes.
Main Takeaways:
Customers wait between 3 to 6 days between ordering and enjoying the food. It is clear that Farmigo members value community and supporting local farms over convenience. It is therefore important for the Farmigo team to be transparent and communicate with their community if there are changes in their order.
The majority of team put emphasizing community as the most important aspect of the space. To do so, we designed elements into the space that highlighted the whole community: farmers, organizers and members that Farmigo brings together to make a whole, local food system.
To maximize for calls to answer customer needs as well as have calls with remote team members, we built four conference rooms (including one food photography studio). We named the conference Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer to symbolize Farmigo's commitment to supporting food that is seasonal and ready to harvest.
To maximize for calls to answer customer needs as well as have calls with remote team members, we built four conference rooms (including one food photography studio). We named the conference Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer to symbolize Farmigo's commitment to supporting food that is seasonal and ready to harvest.
We optimized the space to keep our weekly team lunch of all Farmigo cooked food, even with the team doubling in size in a year!
We reached our goal of opening by May 1. The team doubled in size in the space. We also built an event series in the space featuring Plated, Feastly, Gotham Greens and dozens of food entrepreneurs bringing over 1,000 people to the space in less than a year. The space itself became a weekly and monthly and gathering for local food innovators.
At one point, I was concerned about safety so we had installed railings and rope. However, when we moved into the space, my focus was more on the employee experience and building culture through adding design elements. I was distracted by feedback from all of the team members on their perceived needs versus some of their core needs, like safety.
