Accounting Firm’s Office Design Banks on Brand Identity

Entering the McLean, Virginia workspace of Vault Consulting isn’t supposed to feel like your generic — and let’s face it, stereotypically staid — accounting office. In fact, you’re not supposed to feel like you’re walking into an office at all. Instead, the firm played off both its name and business foundation to create an office thematically based on a bank vault.

Until June 2020, Vault occupied a sublet space in nearby Reston, Virginia, but felt it was lacking a sense of identity and culture in the borrowed office.

“This is a pretty fun group, but since they weren’t the main lease holder, they couldn’t brand the space or express their own identity the way they wanted to [in the sublet],” said Preeti Reddy, partner at Washington, D.C. architecture firm Sshape, which led the project.

The entryway of the 8,300-square-foot-suite features vaulted ceilings that are lit to accentuate the architectural curves. Directly off the entryway, the design team built out booths with curved covers to mimic the vaulted ceiling. The company’s approximately 25 employees use the booths for workspace, informal meetings or to eat lunch, as it’s next to the break room and kitchen. The team played with currency as a design detail to reflect the firm’s work, cladding the vaulted booths in a copper tile reminiscent of pennies.

The raw concrete support columns throughout the office are also inscribed with words that represent the company’s culture and work ethic.

“We don’t need to think of accounting firms as stereotypically stiff,” Reddy added. “They’re willing to take chances and create a more exciting space for the people that work there.”

The firm also wanted to prioritize visibility and natural light in its new space, so it chose a building with ample windows. As privacy is still important for the company, the space also has a number of private offices. Executive offices are stacked along the window line and are built out with full glass front doors to allow natural light to shine through into the main workstation areas and give all employees a view to the outdoors.

A few smaller breakout rooms are situated near the workstations, and a number of currently unoccupied internal offices provide space for quiet work or a phone call as the company grows.

The large conference rooms are divided by operable walls that can be removed to open up the main space — two conference rooms can become one larger room, for example, or conference rooms can open up to the break room for office gatherings.

“Being able to create a larger event space was really important to Vault because they wanted to be able to have holiday parties, internal happy hours and other events with clients,” said Reddy. “Their sublet office had a lot of closed-off offices and rooms with solid doors, and they really wanted a space where you could see the activity throughout the day and feel the buzz and energy in the office.”

The flexibility built into the space allows for growth as the company continues to expand, and while Vault’s use of private offices turned out to be naturally conducive to COVID-era design, Reddy stresses the importance of keeping an office adaptable.

“Whenever we work with a client, the first thing we do is figure out their five-year growth plan. For some companies that may be a shorter time frame now as things are more up in the air these days,” she explained. “[Companies should understand] that you don’t need to buy all of your workstations on day one. Fill in some voids with flexible furniture for social or collaborative spaces instead of desks, and that gives you a good opportunity in the future to remove those and easily drop in workstations.”