Space for Productivity (and Pranayama): Designing the New Home Office

By Lisa Rosen Work-from-home mandates are long gone, but many Americans have fallen in love with the lifestyle—and designed workspaces dreamy enough to make you downright eager to start your workday. View the Winter 2024 issue. Creating an idyllic workspace under your own roof starts with the practical (what features and furnishings do you need in order to accomplish your goals?), then ventures into the realm of imagination. (What accoutrements will set the stage for blue-sky thinking on your next business venture? What amenities will help you tap into your inner artist for a creative endeavor?) Case in point: California-based architect Linda Brettler, of LBA Architecture and Design, recently turned a former terrace into a home office resembling a tree house with floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides for a client. Even the wall behind the built-in bookcase is transparent, to stunning effect. Brettler installed electric UV-protective shades to protect the books and furniture from the ample sunlight. She also designed a heavily draped entrance in front of the office’s French doors to establish a demarcation from the rest of the house. “There’s something psychological about having separation between your office and your regular space, whether it’s steps or a vestibule, so you feel like you’re exiting your everyday life and going to your office space,” she explains. Beauty meets function in this home office, which emphasizes natural light and materials and makes the most of breathtaking mountain views. (Photo: ERIC PIASECKIOTTO, DESIGNED BY KYLEE SHINTAFFER) A rooftop home office overlooking San Francisco by OPA Architects offers a 180-degree view and a sense of being suspended over the world below. (Photo: JOE FLETCHER FOR OPA ARCHITECTS) Serene Sanctums Across the country, architect Tom Politi of New York–based Politi + Siano Architects is completing a townhouse renovation in Brooklyn for a client who craved serenity in his home office and wanted to be able to admire the view of his yard (a rarity in NYC) as he worked. Politi designed a garden with a fountain that his client can see from his desk. “You want the home office space to be light, airy, and when you lean back and refocus your eyes you can look out and engage with the landscape,” Politi explains. To help his client enjoy the view without the sounds of the city intruding, he triple-glazed the office windows. “We soundproof the walls too, so when you close the doors, you won’t hear what’s going on in the rest of the house,” Politi says. A gas fireplace with surrounding marble adds ambience. To heighten the forest tree house aesthetic for this home, Skylab Architecture designed an office with a dramatic wooden desk and a window skylight that echoes its contours. (Photo: JEREMY BITTERMAN FOR SKYLAB ARCHITECTURE) The homeowner chose to turn an upstairs landing in her Santa Monica residence into a simple, light-filled workspace where she could find inspiration by gazing out the windows. (Photo: TREVOR TONDROOTTO) Focus on Flexibility The best home offices blend aesthetic considerations with practical ones that optimize productivity. Take a new build that Brettler recently oversaw in Encino, California, for example. Her client was a television writer whose work would involve taking frequent face-to-face meetings in the new home office she designed for him. So Brettler built out the space with two desks. One faces the wall and houses her client’s computer; the other faces an array of comfortable furniture. An ergonomic chair swivels easily from one desk to the other. “I designed the back desk so he could both write and meet with people, and you aren’t looking at the back of a monitor when you come in,” she explains. She also put in an en suite bathroom, a new must-have convenience for high-end home offices. Flexibility often involves something larger in scope than dual desks: dual purposes for the room itself. For one new build, Politi designed millwork that hides a Murphy bed, allowing his client’s home office to convert into a guest room. Other work-from-homers want offices that double as meditation or fitness studios. Architects and designers tailor spaces to their clients’ work-life-balance needs with features like retractable room dividers or desks and tables that convert to aerobic steps or hide fitness equipment in their bases. Brettler’s own home office, a 600-square-foot room, does triple duty as a yoga studio and an art space. “Everything is multipurpose,” she says. “I have all these built-ins so I can store all my exercise equipment. I put in a cork floor so you can exercise on it, but it’s still a nice surface to work on. I pretty much live up here during the day; I never need to go downstairs.” That is perhaps the only downside to creating a dream home office: You may never want to leave.