The offices winning design awards in 2025 share less with the glass-and-chrome look of the 2010s and more with a well-curated café. The shift is worth paying attention to even if your renovation budget is small.
Office Inspo
As the year comes to a close, award season is around the corner. I thought it'd be the perfect time to take a look at some beautiful offices that caught the eye of architects and designers this year, shortlisted for some of the shiniest awards around.
Consider it a bit of aesthetic inspiration for your own workspace: from color palettes and shapes to plants and textures.
🏞️ UDC Finance, New Zealand
Financial institutions usually lean towards the conservative side, sometimes even sterile. But UDC Finance's New Zealand office feels more like a lovely café. Honestly, it looks cozier than my living room! 😅
The design draws on local heritage, with the layout inspired by the structure of traditional New Zealand farms, and it took home one of the 2025 Interior Awards, with one judge describing it perfectly:
"Clever detailing - such as the sophisticated-yet-simple reference to the classic barn door - paired with a warm colour palette, tan upholstery, timber joinery and lush interior greenery, creates a sleek, welcoming office with depth and meaning in its design."
🥛 BPD Gebiedsontwikkeling Regio Zuid, Eindhoven
Greenery seems to be the main theme of the moment in office design. And it's on full display in this former milk factory in Eindhoven, transformed into office space. I love that the space keeps its industrial soul, celebrating its history rather than covering it up!
The Three Patterns Showing Up in Every Award-Shortlisted Office This Year
If you read the 2025 commentary from Frame, Dezeen, Interior Design, and the Interior Awards judges across markets, three patterns repeat. First, warm materials replace glass and chrome - timber, tan leather, cork, and natural stone show up in nearly every shortlisted project. Second, biophilic elements are no longer an accent; they're a primary design feature, often with green walls or large indoor planting integrated into the floorplan. Third, adaptive reuse is having a moment - the BPD milk factory in Eindhoven, the Bourbon distillery turned tech office in Louisville, and London's law-office-to-housing conversions all point the same way. The pattern is partly aesthetic and partly economic: new construction is expensive and slow, so the most interesting workspaces are being carved out of existing industrial and commercial buildings. For office managers, this means the question is less "do we need a big renovation" and more "what character does our existing building already have that we could lean into".
How to Steal From the Award Winners on a Real Budget
Replace one wall finish with timber. Even a single feature wall in a meeting room shifts the whole room's mood.
Swap two harsh fluorescent fittings for warm 2,700-3,000K bulbs. The change is invisible in photos and obvious in person.
Add real plants in shared spaces - one large per area beats five small. Pothos, monstera, and snake plants tolerate office conditions.
Lean into your building's existing texture. Exposed brick, original concrete columns, and old timber beams are features now, not flaws.
For more on how a well-designed workplace pays back, the Michaela Novotná interview goes deeper on the business case.
