Adobe White Collar Factory

Overview

Opportunity

Solution

Impact

Team

Adobe’s White Collar Factory expansion creates a hospitality-inspired hub where employees and customers can meet, collaborate, experiment, and connect with Shoreditch’s creative culture.

Location

London, United Kingdom

Client

Adobe

Expertise

Technology Strategy Brand Design

Opportunity

Expanding to street level gave Adobe an opportunity to strengthen its Shoreditch community while creating new ways for employees and customers to connect.

Adobe wanted its expanded London workplace to support a changing world of work while creating stronger connections across its Shoreditch campus. Moving reception from the eighth floor to ground level offered a new street presence and an opportunity to rethink how employees and customers come together. The brief called for adaptable collaboration spaces, improved hybrid working, greater hospitality, and a more tangible expression of Adobe’s culture. Rather than adding conventional workstations, the expansion needed to become a shared destination for creativity, interaction, and learning.

Why This Matters

01
Building Community
A new social heart brings employees and customers together, strengthening connections across Adobe’s Shoreditch campus and creating more opportunities for purposeful interaction.
02
Supporting New Work
Adaptable collaboration, focus, and technology-enabled spaces give Adobe’s teams greater choice while supporting evolving patterns of hybrid work, professional learning, and creative exchange.
03
Expressing Adobe’s Culture
Bringing Adobe’s identity to street level creates a more tangible brand experience, connecting employees and customers with the company’s culture from the moment they arrive.

There’s a warmth and welcoming quality to cafés where people feel comfortable connecting. We wanted to extend that neighbourhood feeling into our workplace, with real intention.

Solution

Gensler combined Adobe’s creative culture with Shoreditch’s pop-up energy, using the idea of a nebula to shape an adaptable, layered workplace experience.

Spanning the ground and mezzanine levels, the expansion replaces conventional workstations with spaces for collaboration, focus, learning, and social connection. A hospitality-led café lounge anchors the experience, supported by meeting rooms, a technology-enabled pitch space, focus settings, and customer facilities. The Nebula concept brings Adobe’s identity to life through saturated colour, artwork, graphics, and playful details, while exposed services preserve the character of the White Collar Factory. Planting, timber, recycled materials, and retained elements soften and complement the building’s concrete architecture.

From brief to build: how Adobe’s culture, Shoreditch’s creative energy, and the White Collar Factory’s architecture shaped a new kind of collaborative workplace.

The design process began by examining how Adobe could better connect its existing workplace, people, customers, and surrounding neighbourhood. Research established five priorities, from strengthening community to supporting hybrid collaboration and hospitality. These ambitions evolved into the Nebula concept, combining Adobe’s creative identity with Shoreditch’s ever-changing pop-up culture. The team then translated that idea through planning, colour, materiality, graphics, and technology. Existing architecture remained part of the experience, while material choices prioritised reuse, recycled content, local sourcing, and lower-carbon specifications.

Impact

Adobe’s expansion turns two floors into a shared creative destination, strengthening community while offering employees and customers more ways to meet, work, and learn.

The new hub connects Adobe more closely with Shoreditch, combining purposeful gathering spaces, hospitality, flexible work settings, and a stronger street-level presence.

What Changed Because of This

01
Creative Community
Shared social and collaborative spaces create a new heart for Adobe’s Shoreditch workplace, bringing employees and customers together for purposeful interaction.
02
Workplace Choice
A mix of collaboration, focus, learning, and hospitality settings gives people greater choice in where and how they work throughout the day.
03
Street Connection
Moving reception to ground level gives Adobe a stronger presence on Old Street while drawing the energy of Shoreditch into the workplace.

We brought the energy and creativity of Shoreditch inside, creating a hospitality-led workplace where Adobe’s people and customers can connect, collaborate and create together.

Recognition

01

Mix Interiors

Mix Interiors visits Adobe Shoreditch, spotlighting Gensler’s design concept to bring the energy, creativity and character of the local neighbourhood inside.

02

FRAME

Gensler’s collaboration with Adobe on its Shoreditch workplace is described by FRAME as a “canvas for creative minds.”

03

Work Design Magazine

Gensler’s transformation of Adobe’s White Collar Factory office into a community-focused workplace inspired by London’s coffee culture.

Team

Project Leadership

Naomi Sakamoto

Naomi Sakamoto is a Principal and Technology Leader based in Gensler’s Paris office, leading the firm’s global and regional Technology practice. She brings a multidisciplinary perspective to design, with expertise spanning workplace, technology and the evolving relationship between people, physical space and the future of work.

[FPO] Becky Spenceley

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[FPO] Maria Cudell

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[FPO] Ross Maccormack

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FAQ

01

Where is Adobe’s White Collar Factory workplace?

Adobe’s White Collar Factory workplace is in Shoreditch, London, at the heart of the Old Street technology and creative district.

02

Who designed Adobe’s White Collar Factory expansion?

Gensler designed Adobe’s White Collar Factory expansion, creating new ground and mezzanine spaces focused on collaboration, hospitality, learning, and customer experience.

03

What was the goal of Adobe’s Shoreditch expansion?

The expansion aimed to strengthen Adobe’s workplace community, improve collaboration and hybrid working, increase street presence, and create a stronger experience for employees and customers.

04

How does the workplace support collaboration?

The workplace replaces conventional workstations with adaptable meeting, pitch, focus, café, lounge, and gathering spaces designed to support different forms of collaboration.

05

What inspired the interior design?

The Nebula concept combines Adobe’s creative culture with Shoreditch’s pop-up energy, expressed through bold colour, artwork, graphics, materials, and playful details.

06

How does the project reduce material impact?

The design retains existing lighting and uses recycled-plastic furniture and counters, recycled-content acoustic materials, lower-carbon flooring, timber finishes, and locally sourced furniture where possible.

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Related Expertise

Technology Strategy Brand Design

Adobe’s White Collar Factory expansion creates a hospitality-inspired hub where employees and customers can meet, collaborate, experiment, and connect with Shoreditch’s creative culture.

Expanding to street level gave Adobe an opportunity to strengthen its Shoreditch community while creating new ways for employees and customers to connect.

Why This Matters

Gensler combined Adobe’s creative culture with Shoreditch’s pop-up energy, using the idea of a nebula to shape an adaptable, layered workplace experience.

From brief to build: how Adobe’s culture, Shoreditch’s creative energy, and the White Collar Factory’s architecture shaped a new kind of collaborative workplace.

Adobe’s expansion turns two floors into a shared creative destination, strengthening community while offering employees and customers more ways to meet, work, and learn.

What Changed Because of This