Stacked With Purpose: Inside a Chicago Nonprofit’s New Headquarters
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Client: Confidential
Architect: Partners by Design
Project Size: 70,000 SF across 4 floors
Scope: Full renovation
Project Type: Corporate Headquarters
Completion: 2025
When a long-established Chicago nonprofit made the decision to relocate its headquarters, the move carried an ambition that extended well beyond real estate. After more than four decades in a single space, the organization arrived at a rare moment of reinvention, one that invited a fundamental reconsideration of how its people work, gather, and connect with the communities they serve.
Partners by Design approached the three-floor commission not as a stacking problem but as a spatial narrative, one in which the deliberate placement of program would do the work of generating energy, circulation, and culture. Shared amenities, collaboration zones, and gathering spaces were distributed with intention across all three levels, creating a gravitational pull between floors that no single-level arrangement could replicate.
Adaptability was embedded in the architecture from the outset. Operable partitions, alternating between translucent and solid, allow the space to contract and expand as the day requires. A breakout room becomes a conference suite. Half a floor dissolves into an open event space. Rather than simply accommodating change, the architecture was designed to expect it, with flexibility woven into the building blocks of the space itself.
Circulation, too, was treated as a design opportunity. Natural daylight meets visitors the moment they step off the elevator, grounding them immediately in the life of the building. A sculptural light fixture travels from reception through a branded corridor, landing at the pre-function space on the opposite side of the elevator core, threading the floors together with as much visual purpose as structural logic. The interconnecting stair reinforces the gesture, drawing the eye upward and making the act of moving between levels feel less like transit and more like discovery.
Material choices were equally considered. Geometric motifs and a carefully curated palette of finishes carry consistently from floor to floor, shifting in scale rather than character. Large-format terrazzo anchors the base of the stair. An oversized beam element commands the cafe ceiling. In the boardroom, a finely detailed rib pattern echoes the same formal language at an intimate scale. Cohesion is achieved not through repetition but through variation within a shared vocabulary.
Nowhere is the intersection of design and daily life more fully realized than in the upper-level cafe, where a generous window line frames the city beyond. Seating ranges from tucked booths suited to quiet conversation to communal tables that invite spontaneous gathering, with a partially open terrace extending the space into the open air. It is an environment calibrated to the full range of how people actually spend time together.
A workplace is ultimately measured by what it makes possible once the doors open and the work begins. For this organization, the space has become something more than a backdrop for operations, functioning as a genuine reflection of how its people work and who they are as an organization.
Project Credits
Owner/Client: Confidential
Architect: Partners by Design
Branding and Staging: Spark Chicago
Photography: Tom Harris Photography
Leasing Representation: JLL
General Contractor: Skender
Furniture: Continua Interiors
Lighting: Schuler Shook
Acoustics: Cerami
Engineering: Syska Hennessey
Structural Engineering: TGRWA
Food Services: Boelter
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
