Kapor Center

Fougeron Architecture’s renovation of an office building in Oakland blends high-tech and humanism, featuring open spaces that encourage collaboration and camaraderie, as well as flexibility.

For its new headquarters, The Kapor Center commissioned a design competition to transform an existing 1920s-era office building in downtown Oakland into innovative workspace. The new headquarters had to be an architectural manifestation of the client’s core values: connectivity, openness, and democracy.

Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, site plan
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, ground floor
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, third floor
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, fourth floor
Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, sections

  The design is modern and harmonious, blending high-tech and humanism. Open spaces encourage collaboration and camaraderie, as well as flexibility. The clean interiors cater to informal social spaces that invite the interaction of staff, partners and visitors. Efficiency is paramount in the design, creating operational spaces that use human and technological resources sensibly, economically but imaginatively.

Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017

Throughout the building, the circular volume acts as an organizing and integrating principle, linking the various floors and functions while maintaining the separations needed to meet code and maintain privacy. On the fourth floor, a modern dome and oculus establishes the Center’s presence and its role to grow outward and upward within the community.

Fougeron Architecture, Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States, 2017


Kapor Center for Social Impact, Oakland, United States
Program: cultural center
Architect: Fougeron Architecture
Structural engineering: Buro Happold
Civil engineering: Moran Engineering
MEP engineering: Integral Group
Acoustics: Wilson Ihring & Associates
Contractor: Oliver & Company
Area: 4,180 sqm
Completion: 2017