Mastercard's newest "Tech Hub" is designed to encourage in-person collaboration.
The Tech Hub incorporates biophilic design — a lot of plants — to comfort clients and employees.
Team workspaces are divided into "neighborhoods," each led by a captain.
Mastercard has transformed a former Methodist bookbindery in New York City's Flatiron District into a hybrid workspace meant to encourage collaboration, both in person and remote.
The payments and digital-services company developed its workspace for the future years before COVID-19 resulted in a soaring number of work-from-home arrangements. Now, it's hoping the renovations will keep collaboration alive in the hybrid-work era, with changeable workspaces, technology to make remote meetings feel less remote, and cozy nooks for small meetings or personal needs.
Four years in the making, the new "Tech Hub" is now a home for 700 engineers, software developers, and other tech employees. It covers 216,456 square feet over 13 floors. It dwarfs Mastercard's previous office down the avenue and was designed for growth as much as it was for well-being, according to executives who hosted Insider on a recent tour. Hiring could boost the local workforce to 1,000 people.
Designs for the NYC Tech Hub and other Mastercard properties follow a "global workplace design guideline" developed by the company's real-estate-services team and emphasize sustainability, biophilic principles, and overall wellness. IA Interior Architects followed the guidelines as chief architect.
Perhaps no employee was happier about the surroundings than Marilyn McDonald, a self-described extrovert and Mastercard's senior vice president of customer interoperability. She volunteered as a beta tester of the space as it opened in June.
"The pandemic was very hard for me because it's hard to connect," McDonald said. "I put my hand up to beta test just to get out of the house. It was supposed to be a two-week test. I went in and made myself comfortable and basically never left."
Let's take a tour.