Cyber defence and noise defence solutions perform side by side

Setter Architects have designed stunning new offices for the Israeli company Palo Alto Networks, one of the world’s most innovative technology organisations.

Palo Alto Networks is a company involved in developing cyber defence solutions. It is located in downtown Tel Aviv, on the 24th floor of a complex of multi-storey office towers beside an eclectic variety of buildings built during the city’s historical eras. This is a multi-layered colourful part of the city where banks and high tech companies are also located together with many low-tech businesses and assorted shops, such as painting workshops, artists’ studios and restaurants.

The aim of the architects was to take design inspiration evolved from the external environment, reflecting in the interior colourful eclectic low-teach features and elements of design. As we can see from the images, these were filtered into a design vocabulary where they were expressed in different ways.

Dramatic examples include the way in which steel window profiles and garage doors have taken a new role as partitions in which old textured window glass has been integrated in the partitions to divide private and public spaces. Elsewhere, exposed brick blocks have found a new role as an interior wall in a conference room, while paint buckets from painting workshops have become distinctive wall decorations and old industrial fan blades have been transformed into ultramodern light fixtures.

To tie all these very diverse features together, the architects specified Troldtekt ceiling panels. These not only overlay 1100sqm but also provide high performance acoustics, absorbing the sounds and reverberations from the many hard surfaces and the natural echoes of a very busy office. Below the ceilings run a mass of hung pipes and communication cables.

All employees, including managers, work in open spaces located at the perimeter of the floor, alongside the windows. Here, transparent high partitions enable intimacy and improve acoustics while allowing the urban feel of the outside environment to flow in.

Throughout the floor are formal/informal conference rooms, classrooms and working spaces that benefit from the transparent materials and visualization of the whole floor. These transparent walls conceptualise the company’s major product – its firewall.