Planned Parenthood San Mateo Call Center

An acoustically sensitive environment, the call center is a place for centralized appointment taking for all ten of Planned Parenthoods clinics. While the call center must deaden noise, the clients still preferred spatial openness to facilitate employee communication.

Design intent:

This remodel of a Planned Parenthood administrative office uses innovative transparent-form organization to reflect and support the staff's working style. Our light-filled design strategy breaks up the monotony of a deep floor plate and low ceilings to create a non-institutional, yet economical, environment that conveys pride of place and pride of work.

Walls for the perimeter office are made of transparent and sandblasted glass to open up the space and allow natural light deep into the interior. The office walls glow day and night, creating an abstract, luminous background for the custom steel workstations. This transparent/translucent layer acts as a metaphor for the staff's interactivity in a setting where closed doors have never been the norm.

The finely detailed and crafted workstations are clad in perforated wood partitions, colored glass and acoustical batting. Made of steel in standard sizes and shapes, the workstations are assembled simply to maximize lightness and efficiency. Overhead canopies further visual interest, breaking up the plane of the T-bar ceiling.

Critical sound control issues were addressed by layering sound absorbant materials between natural and more tactile materials like wood and cork. Carpeting and acoustical ceilings further reduce sound transmission countering the effects of translucent and transparent glass panels.

The design responds to Planned Parenthood's need for welcoming spaces, that look and feel non-institutional. The space is lush and inviting, helping to ease the monotony of the call takers job.