The Walt Disney Company NYC Headquarters

Overview

Opportunity

Solution

Impact

Team

The state-of-the-art Disney NYC Headquarters creates a vertically integrated creative campus anchored by a spacious Great Room perched high above the Hudson Square neighborhood.

Location

New York, New York

Client

The Walt Disney Company

Expertise

Media Brand Design Strategy

Opportunity

This massive media and entertainment company needed a new home for breaking news, live television, and streaming that reflected the energy and pace of New York City.

Disney’s New York operations had grown across multiple Manhattan locations while the media business itself was becoming faster, more distributed, and more format-fluid. Bringing news, editorial, live production, streaming, advertising, technology, and corporate functions together created an opportunity to remove physical silos and build a stronger shared culture. The challenge was to consolidate those teams without flattening their distinct ways of working, while also facilitating better creative workstreams.

Why This Matters

01
One Company, One Campus
Bringing previously dispersed business units together gives Disney a platform for a more integrated and equitable workplace experience.
02
Evolving Media Landscape
Media formats and technologies are changing quickly. Disney needed a headquarters that could support agile and responsive production teams, who also require updated tech-rich workplaces that facilitate creativity and collaboration.
03
Agency Fuels Creativity
Employees move between focused work, collaboration, production, and recharging throughout the day. A wider range of settings gives people greater autonomy and choice on their daily journey.

FPO Quote

Solution

After decades operating workplaces distributed across Manhattan, Disney’s media teams came together in a multi-disciplinary campus in Hudson Square.

To facilitate connection and community, the new 1.2 million-square-foot headquarters is anchored by an activity-based network where workplace neighborhoods sit close to production, collaboration, and amenity spaces. A light-filled, 190,000-square-foot central newsroom creates a shared engine for news teams, while media-ready workplaces support everything from broadcast to streaming. Feature stairs, shared cafés, conference spaces, a reading room, theater, wellness spaces, and the Great Room create reasons to move through the vertical campus, helping teams cross paths while preserving the specialized environments required for focused creative and technical work.

The company’s new NYC headquarters affirms its long history as a creative icon.

With a design that seamlessly integrates production functions directly into the workplace, the NYC HQ is able to anticipate evolving media workflows and future advancements in technology and formats.

What Changed Because of This

01
Teams Converge
News, sports, streaming, production, and corporate groups now share one campus, creating more opportunities for cross-functional exchange and faster creative collaboration.
02
Production Evolves
Adaptable studios and media-ready workplaces support legacy and emerging formats, giving Disney infrastructure that can evolve alongside new technologies and production models.
03
Audiences Arrive
Three large studios bring hundreds of audience members into 7 Hudson Square each weekday, extending Disney’s workplace into a public-facing media destination.

Recognition

01

Fast Company

Gensler’s Johnathan Sandler shared insights into the media workplace strategy behind The Walt Disney Company’s NYC Headquarters, designed to evolve with the fast-paced nature of the industry.

02

New York Magazine

The Walt Disney Company’s new NYC headquarters was spotlighted for Gensler’s interior and broadcast design, with the 1.2 million-square-foot project described as “a handsome, urbane, beautifully engineered cultural-production machine.”

03

The New York Times

Gensler’s work on Disney’s new headquarters and Google’s St. John’s Terminal was spotlighted in a feature on Hudson Square, with Gensler’s Amanda Carroll discussing the benefits of ample access to outdoor space.

Team

Project Leadership

[FPO] Andy Powell

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[FPO] Jonothan Sandler

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Brian Berry

Brian is a Principal and Design Director in Gensler's Los Angeles office, where he leads the design of innovative workplaces and experiences for clients across the media, technology, advertising, and lifestyle sectors.

Laurent Lisimachio

Laurent is a Design Director and Principal whose global perspective and retail roots shape inventive workplaces and destinations across financial services, media, technology, fashion, beauty, hospitality, and retail.

FAQ

01

Where is The Walt Disney Company’s New York City headquarters?

The headquarters, also known as the Robert A. Iger Building, occupies a full city block at 7 Hudson Square in Manhattan’s Hudson Square neighborhood.

02

Who designed The Walt Disney Company’s NYC headquarters?

Gensler led interior architecture and design, workplace strategy and design, and media production and broadcast design. SOM designed the base building.

03

What is the scale of Disney’s New York City headquarters?

The headquarters spans 1.2 million square feet, with studios, newsrooms, offices, amenities, and outdoor spaces organized as a vertical campus.

04

What teams work at Disney’s New York City headquarters?

The headquarters brings together teams working across news, editorial, live production, streaming, technology, advertising, corporate operations, and other business functions.

Related Work

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The New York Times

The New York Times’ workplace reflects the newspaper’s evolution, placing its glass-enclosed newsrooms at street level to engage the public with breaking-news energy.

Related Expertise

Media Brand Design Strategy

The state-of-the-art Disney NYC Headquarters creates a vertically integrated creative campus anchored by a spacious Great Room perched high above the Hudson Square neighborhood.

This massive media and entertainment company needed a new home for breaking news, live television, and streaming that reflected the energy and pace of New York City.

Why This Matters

After decades operating workplaces distributed across Manhattan, Disney’s media teams came together in a multi-disciplinary campus in Hudson Square.

The company’s new NYC headquarters affirms its long history as a creative icon.

What Changed Because of This