"It's got a staircase that pays homage to Wieden+Kennedy, and every day there are a handful of canines snoozing underfoot or loping around the office. There's a rooftop deck with killer views of downtown Portland, a gourmet kitchen for employees and a kegerator that pumps out not beer, but unique flavors of sparkling water.
So in more ways than one, Uncorked Studios' new office in the new 811 Stark building has all the ingredients that make for a cool, creative space.
"We kind of imagined the space being a way to understand who Uncorked is," said Marcelino Alvarez, founder and CEO of the product design and development firm. "We needed it to work for a number of modalities and a mix of different personality types, and it does."
Formerly located in the Eastbank Commerce Center — and before that, in the Pearl District's RiverTec Building — Uncorked ended up partnering with Beam Development, Works Partnership Architecture and Elk Collective on the new four-story building, which sits at 811 S.E. Stark St. It's home to 24,000 square feet of office space, of which Uncorked has claimed about 15,600. W.PA is also a tenant, as is Michael Quinn of music promoting business Monqui Presents. There's also 6,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor that's home to the Chinese restaurant Danwei Canting and, soon, a coffee shop called Push x Pull.
Uncorked's roughly 50 employees use the new office space to turn creative ideas into real-world products for a range of clients. To do so, the new space incorporates a mix of collaborative work spaces along with prototype labs. The office also blends in pet- and family-friendliness, and it has an auditorium space around the staircase that's hosted several community events already.
The entire new office, Alvarez said, should accommodate Uncorked for the foreseeable future.
"We imagined the space being flexible for the needs of the company and what we work on," he said. "We designed it to be scalable and modular and to kind of grow as we do. I think we are set for where we are."
Uncorked's new space is one that's best experienced visually. Click through the gallery above for a peek."
Jon Bell, Portland Business Journal
