Building the Future: Invenergy’s Global Headquarters Transformation

Location: Chicago, Illinois
Client: Invenergy
Architect: Partners by Design
Building: One South Wacker Drive
Project Size: 216,000 SF across multiple floors
Scope: Full renovation and strategic expansion
Project Type: Corporate Headquarters
Completion: 2025

In the heart of Chicago’s Loop, a transformation is unfolding that mirrors the energy transition happening across the globe. Invenergy, North America’s largest privately held renewable energy company, has reimagined its global headquarters at One South Wacker Drive—creating a 216,000-square-foot workplace that embodies the company’s mission to accelerate cleaner, more reliable, affordable energy.

This project represents more than a conventional office renovation. It’s a strategic consolidation that brings together Invenergy’s distributed Chicago workforce into a single, cohesive vertical campus, while simultaneously creating an environment designed to support the realities of hybrid work and the demands of a rapidly scaling global enterprise. Partners by Design’s response weaves together architectural clarity, biophilic design, and a subtle yet powerful narrative of sustainability that builds the company’s history and values into the fabric of the space.

Design Challenge: Supporting Exponential Growth

When Invenergy engaged Partners by Design for this transformation, the company was experiencing remarkable expansion. Over the preceding five years, they had added more than 1,300 employees globally and currently operate over 200 clean energy projects spanning four continents.

This growth trajectory created several interconnected design challenges:

1. Consolidating Distributed Operations
Invenergy’s Chicago teams were scattered across multiple locations within the building and beyond. The headquarters needed to unite these disparate groups into a singular, coherent workplace that would foster collaboration, strengthen culture, and create operational efficiencies.

2. Creating a Hybrid-Ready Environment
Like many organizations emerging from the pandemic’s disruption, Invenergy required a workplace optimized for flexibility. The design needed to support both focused individual work and the complex coordination required to develop utility-scale energy projects across global markets.

3. Maximizing Constrained Conditions
The existing spaces presented significant architectural constraints, particularly low ceiling heights that could have created an oppressive atmosphere. The design solution needed to overcome these limitations to deliver spaces that felt light, bright, and motivating—qualities essential to talent attraction and retention in a competitive market.

4. Expressing Brand and Mission
Perhaps most significantly, the headquarters needed to authentically communicate Invenergy’s identity as a clean energy innovator—not through superficial gestures, but through thoughtful material choices, environmental strategies, and storytelling that connects employees and visitors to the company’s impact on the energy transition.

Design Strategy: Light, Connection, and Narrative

Our design response centers on three interconnected strategies that work together to create a workplace that is simultaneously functional, inspiring, and deeply aligned with Invenergy’s mission and culture.

Strategy 1: Maximizing Light and Openness

Given the constraint of low ceiling heights throughout the space, creating an atmosphere of brightness and spaciousness became paramount.

Light, warm finishes and clean lines form the foundation of the design, reflecting natural light and creating an environment that feels modern yet approachable, a deliberate shift away from the heavy, dark aesthetic of traditional corporate spaces. Where walls are necessary, glass and transparent materials maintain visual connectivity and allow daylight to penetrate deep into the floor plates, supporting Invenergy’s collaborative culture. Layered lighting strategies further reinforce this sense of openness, compensating for ceiling height limitations while providing the flexibility to support diverse work modes throughout the day.

Strategy 2: The Multi-Floor Atrium as Organizational Heart

The centerpiece of the headquarters is a dramatic three-floor atrium spanning the 15th through 17th floors.

A sculptural staircase links the three floors, encouraging movement between levels and creating opportunities for the spontaneous encounters that become increasingly valuable for building relationships in an era of hybrid work. Above, a soaring atrium delivers a powerful arrival experience that reflects Invenergy’s ambition and trajectory.

Positioning this dramatic space at the literal center of the headquarters creates a physical manifestation of unified culture, drawing employees from different departments into a shared space that reinforces their connection to the larger enterprise. The 15th floor anchors the sequence with the elevator lobby, reception area, and arrival experience, offering visitors and employees alike a sophisticated, human-centered expression of Invenergy’s mission to transform global energy systems.

Strategy 3: Embedding Sustainability Narratives

Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the design is how sustainability is woven directly into the material fabric of the headquarters—not as an abstract concept but as tangible, visible evidence of Invenergy’s values and history.

Rather than defaulting to the open collaboration zones ubiquitous in contemporary office design, the workplace strategy responds specifically to Invenergy’s operational needs. The 15th floor prioritizes robust conferencing infrastructure along the east façade to support constant coordination across dispersed global teams, while distributed pantries across multiple floors reduce congestion, build floor identity, and support varied work modes for 900 Chicago-based employees. Dedicated focus rooms and open workstations provide balance for engineers and analysts requiring concentrated work, and the second floor houses the Integrated Control Center, centralizing technology and operational oversight for Invenergy’s global portfolio.

The success of this transformation reflects close collaboration between Partners by Design, Invenergy’s leadership, and the broader project team. Extensive programming sessions with department heads and employees ensured the design responded to actual work patterns rather than generic best practices, revealing the importance of conferencing infrastructure and distributed social spaces. Delivering 216,000 square feet while maintaining business continuity required sophisticated phasing and coordination with general contractor Skender, while Invenergy’s own clarity about their brand position allowed the design team to create environments that feel authentic to their engineering-driven, mission-focused culture.

Beyond narrative elements, the headquarters incorporates measurable sustainability improvements including high-efficiency LED lighting, low-flow fixtures, construction waste diversion, and low-VOC materials that contribute to superior indoor air quality. For a company dedicated to transforming global energy systems, these performance metrics represent alignment between stated values and operational reality.

As the headquarters reaches completion, it stands as a case study in how thoughtful design can support organizational growth and create competitive advantage. The most powerful sustainability narratives are material and specific. In an era of hybrid work, Invenergy’s investment recognizes the office as essential business infrastructure, a place where the distributed work of transforming global energy systems comes together and the company’s history and aspirations are made tangible through design.

Project Credits

Owner/Client: Invenergy
Architect: Partners by Design
Project Mgmt: Lumen Workplace
General Contractor: Skender
Branding and Staging: Spark Chicago
Building: One South Wacker Drive
Building Owner: 601W Companies
Leasing Representation (Tenant): CBRE
Leasing Representation (Landlord): Telos Group
Photography: Tom Harris Photography
Furniture: Teknion and Office Revolution
Millwork: Parentti and Raffaelli
Engineering: Syska Hennessey

For more information about this project or to discuss how thoughtful workplace design can support your organization’s mission and growth, contact Partners by Design | Marketing@pbdinc.com