Ten Percent Happier

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Ten Percent Happier

  • location:
    Boston, MA
  • Date:
    Completed 2021
  • client:
    Ten Percent Happier
  • collaborators:
    MEP Engineer: WSP
    Structural Engineer: Evan Hankin
    General Contractor: Trinity
    Photographer: Jane Messinger
  • project_team:
    Principal-In-Charge: Elizabeth Whittaker
    Project Architect: Seth Hoffman, RA, LEED AP
    Project Manager: Chris Johnson
    Design Team: Dustin Tisdale
  • description:
    Ten Percent Happier, a web-based company focused on teaching self-improvement through guided mindful meditation, worked with Merge to create their new Headquarters in downtown Boston. The 5200 square foot interior fit-out, sited at the corner of a historical block in Boston’s financial district, integrates the unlikely pairing of a web-based start-up’s open office plan with a public-facing multipurpose meditation and meeting space. The client’s significant spatial investment in this unique feature caters to the meditation practice of its employees and also serves as a venue for public events, classes, and public meditation sessions.

    The existing footprint is divided into two main spaces by a thin hallway, which naturally buffers the front-of-house that supports communal and meditation programs from the private back-of-house, which consists of open-office, meeting rooms, podcast recording rooms, and breakaway lounges. The sculptural, spur-shaped meditation room was designed to expand and contract in response to shifting meditation group size, type of meditation, and time of day. An acoustic fabric wall system conveniently opens, closes, and shapes the space as required.

    When completely closed, the interior is a secluded and calming zone for small group or independent meditation. The scalloped perimeter forms a series of spatial pockets between the meditation room’s spurs. These function as daylit breakouts for independent or small group work. When completely open the space can host large group classes, presentations and open-house events. The color palette is bright and calm, punctuated by hanging greenery.

    The back-of-house office consists of open desking around a central cluster of meeting rooms and library. Islands of flexible lounge spaces are distributed throughout the open office offer opportunities for quiet, away-from-desk work and two small spaces in the back of the plan support podcasting and sound editing programs. The calming palette, unique program, and spatial language seek to unify the interior with the brand’s identity: “Meditation demystified.”