For almost three years,  I’ve been handling large-scale partnerships and special projects for design publication Surface Media. But in early 2022, when our CEO Marc Lotenberg was building out the team for Dorsia—an innovative restaurant reservation platform he founded—a few of us started splitting time between the two companies. Surface has been around for 30 years, and it’s a well-oiled machine. We sadly don’t have the print magazine anymore, but we publish on SurfaceMag.com and produce our daily newsletter Design Dispatch, which has everything you need to know in the world of design in a digestible format. Dorsia, meanwhile, is a hospitality tech startup that’s bringing dynamic pricing to the restaurant reservation space. It’s a members-only platform that works directly with top restaurants to secure the hard-to-get tables that are otherwise seemingly impossible. We’re constantly developing new product features and opening new markets, so we’re moving at an extremely fast pace.

Between the two companies, we have a wide range of people from different industries spanning hospitality, tech, media, fashion, finance, and more. Everyone has different working styles, and we needed office spaces in New York and Miami that accommodated all of them.

That’s where we turned to our longtime partner, ROOM, for help.

A No-Brainer Aspirational Brand

I love the ROOM brand—it’s aspirational for an office product. Surface looks at the world through the lens of design, so we wanted to ensure we had something beautiful. That was obviously very important to us. Office products are not always beautiful. So when I found a brand that fit our aesthetic, it was a no-brainer. 

I initially reached out to ROOM in 2021, and I felt an immediate connection to the brand and the team. Surface had a hybrid office / art gallery in the Miami Design District at the time, and a ROOM Phone Booth was essential in making our space functional during the day. We have since written about ROOM’s products and approach to the future of work, and we also partnered on a conceptual design for one of the brand’s Phone Booths with L.A. artist CK Reed.

A Sustainable Alternative to New Construction

In Miami, we recently leased an open-concept, industrial space that was pretty bare bones. Not even a single conference room. We knew we would need the space as Dorsia grew, but we needed to create private zones to accommodate people — like our CEO — who are on calls frequently throughout the day. We didn't have a great solution for that or for small-group meetings. We were going to have to build everything from scratch.

One of the reasons I was attracted to ROOM was their commitment to sustainability. That was absolutely important to us. I liked the choice of materials, the sustainable practices and the beauty of the brand itself. I knew by choosing them for this project, there was no need to build rooms out of drywall. And thus, no environmental waste (or the headache of dealing with a big construction project).

Expertise in Space Planning

It was great working with the ROOM team because they’re the experts on this. We got their eyes on our plans, and they helped us lay out a series of different-sized meeting rooms and phone booths using CAD software. When you’re building out an office, there are a million things that potentially might not fit quite the way you want or may not end up looking the way you wanted. So it was comforting to me that we had a solid plan and there weren’t going to be a bunch of ad hoc changes.

We ended up with two walls of ROOM office pods. There are two phone booths, two focus rooms and two meeting rooms. We didn’t necessarily follow a specific formula, we just wanted a nice mix of places people could work—something for individual people, which the two phone booths are great for. The focus rooms could accommodate people who are on calls for most of the day. And then the meeting rooms are great for people who need to get together with someone either externally or with a colleague in the office. We wanted to strike the right balance for both Dorsia and Surface. Editors by nature have a lot more quiet time, versus being in a ton of meetings or on calls. But there are plenty of people on the Dorsia side that also like quiet work, too. So it’s just about making sure everyone has comfortable places to sit and work and utilize a ROOM when they need it. We also had to think about the balance for the space so it didn't feel like it was just an entire space full of pods. The ROOM booths fit perfectly because they’re not like traditional office furniture.

We were also lucky to partner with Luminaire, a furniture showroom, who helped us outfit the rest of the Miami space with really unique and interesting design pieces. We aimed to make the space something that could work for day office work but could easily be transformed to entertaining and events in the evening. So instead of singular desks, we have dining-style tables and chairs and beautiful couches. There is one small nook in the office with more traditional desks and monitors for the finance team. Everyone else floats like it's a coworking environment. I love the idea of coworking design, because it’s not like you’re going to the same place in the same office every single day—it’s very fluid. You get variety, even if you are going into the office five days a week.

In New York, we recently took over a sublease from a company that left an array of desks, couches, and a small conference room. But there wasn’t more than one place to go to take a call, sit in private, or sit quietly. There also wasn’t necessarily space to construct another conference room. We added two ROOM phone booths, which were a perfect fit for us. And as the New York office evolves, we plan to incorporate a similar design aesthetic as we have in Miami.

Responsive Service and a Booth Obsession

The ROOM team has been great to work with and helped us expedite our order, which was no small feat. We started chatting about the project in late spring, and we had the units installed by early summer.

I recommend ROOM products to everyone, but especially to those who are rethinking or redesigning their offices and don’t want it to feel like they’re in a cold, stark corporate environment. You can really mix things up, and ROOM does that well through design. I love the calming color palettes and the materials. Even the lighting is thoughtful. It doesn’t feel harsh. It feels warm, inviting—and just a very beautiful, yet functional piece of design.

Thanks to ROOM, we’ve created a series of spaces that actually excite people to come back to the office. People want to be here. That, along with our company culture, makes it so it’s not a chore to go to work.