Airbnb Singapore’s new office will inspire a serious case of wanderlust in you

SINGAPORE — Talk about a workplace in which to chill: Going to work at Airbnb Singapore’s new office is akin to being on a holiday.

We are referring to some unconventional perks: There’s an entertainment den fashioned from a store room; a tent complete with a camping bed (people have actually been found sleeping in there) and pantries that look more like cafes. In fact, there are Airbnb employees who bust their barista moves every Wednesday afternoon, conducting barista training lessons for their colleagues.

The design philosophy of the Singapore office is similar to that of the vacation home rental company’s headquarters in San Francisco, which I had a chance to visit two years ago. Let me just say the 6,689sqm open-concept space in the neighbourhood of SoMa (South of Market) induces serious office envy — and it’s not only because it has awesome perks common in a start-up, such as a ginormous cafeteria with in-house chefs, and employees allowed to work anywhere besides the desk they’ve been assigned to.

What gave the office a personality and a sense of its larger mission for travellers to “Belong Anywhere” are the cosy shared spaces, including meeting rooms and pantries which have been pimped out to resemble some of Airbnb’s most popular and stylish listings, from an apartment in Amsterdam to a kitchen

in Reykjavik.

The three-storey Singapore Airbnb office, which took over Facebook’s old stomping ground in Shenton Way, has 13 meetings rooms modelled after listings too. Unlike the meeting rooms at its headquarters in San Francisco, which are nearly carbon copies of the listings, the Singapore office takes different elements from each listing to create every

meeting room.

For instance, the Batignolles meeting room here has the same chandeliers, wallpaper and decorations to channel the Parisian apartment its inspired by; but the large size and structure of the room makes it quite impossible to mirror the 80sqm listing. Meanwhile, the Byron Bay meeting room models itself after a Byron Bay Boat Shed owned by Australian artist David Bromley. Even though the meeting room does not quite look like the accommodation, it cleverly incorporates elements like the artist’s signature black bath tub as a meeting table; while art works were done by the staff.

In fact, the entire Airbnb Singapore team was mobilised to help create their new office space as part of the Employee Design Experience. They were divided into groups of four to five and given a budget to decorate these 13 meeting spaces and five other rooms. Friends and family also chipped in — the curtains in the New Delhi meeting room were even sewn by a group member’s mum, while a host contributed a terrarium.

ROOM WITH A VIEW

Among the other five rooms are two storerooms which have been transformed — one into an entertainment den that resembles the inside of a spaceship, and the other a resting space called The Great Northwest Camp, which looks like a tent with a camping bed to boot.

“Airbnb has never been a traditional workplace. At Airbnb, we want to create the sense of travel when we welcome people into our office,” said Airbnb Asia-Pacific regional director Julian Persaud. “Simply having photos of unique accommodation and far-off places are not enough, we want our employees and guests to experience the feeling you get when you travel.”

The Airbnb Singapore office is not only about travel. It is also about designing a sense of place. As the Singapore office is the regional headquarters, care has also been taken to convey Singapore design ethos. Homegrown multidisciplinary design firm Farm took charge of the interior design and created a central staircase surrounded by traditional concrete ventilation blocks commonly seen in older HDB estates. Products from Singaporean designers, such as the porcelain plates from Supermama and a Dragon Rocking Chair designed by Hinika are displayed in different meeting rooms. A Heritage Room has been done up as a homage to Airbnb Singapore’s humble beginnings in a Neil Road shophouse. The company also works with different local start-ups, non-profit organisations and small businesses — from getting their lunches from sandwich joints like Park Bench Deli through delivery service Dish Dash, to inviting the mobile masseuse team from the Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped to provide treatment sessions.

Naturally, Airbnb staffers are only too pleased with the new office. A spokesperson for the company revealed most employees do not usually venture out for lunch. And why would they? You wouldn’t leave your holiday villa if you could help it, right?