Microsoft Ireland's new campus in Dublin is designed around the concept of an island, complete with a digital waterfall cascading through the atrium.
RKD Architects and San Francisco-based architects Gensler created the headquarters for the technology company's 2,000 employees, who had previously been spread across multiple sites in the city.

"Our idea took a very human-centric approach," said Amanda Baldwin, senior partner at Gensler.
"We deliberated about how employees and visitors would interact in the new work environment since this will be the first time these team will be together in the same building, how they would harvest its resources and how they flourish and succeed in this new landscape."

Landscape became the central idea for the office. Gensler and RKD Architects designed the 28,000-square-metre campus around the idea of an island, with different parts of the office corresponding to different topographies and their associated functions. The team brought in with experts from its different departments to consult on the interiors concept, including landscape architects and retail designers.

An interactive display runs down several levels like a waterfall cascading down a mountainside, with the vertical light-up panels forming the sides of work stations.
The waterfall feeds into a "lake" of colour-changing tiles, surrounded by graduated grey flooring and black benches arranged in rock-like formations around the edges. Wooden lo...