Avigilon Headquarters

One of the major challenges in today’s world is how to organize safety, security and protection for people, data and places. Powerful and intangible global infrastructure invisibly binds lives and streets; stadiums and banks; business and research centres; hospitals, schools and university campuses. All of these places are filmed, monitored and recorded constantly. They provide sources of information and spaces for artistic and visual production, as well as raise questions about the concept of individual freedom and its objective limits.
For example, large scale data imposes cyber-protection policies, cutting-edge software optimizes the security supply chain, and increasingly smart and accurate devices operate in real time. Avigilon, a branch of Motorola Solutions, is a global IT player with a worldwide commercial presence, offering avant-garde solutions and innovative integrated video surveillance systems.
Its entrepreneurial philosophy is a manifesto: record locally, view centrally, manage remotely. The global headquarters are in Canada, Vancouver, but its services and products – the infrastructure of control and surveillance – are everywhere. In the eight-storey building in the centre of Vancouver – designed by Studio MCM Interiors – everything is geared towards achieving this objective: strategic planning, research and development, sales and servicing. The space celebrates transparency and permeability, with 5,000m of glass partitions, a dizzying open stairwell, 656 workstations, totalling 96 offices and 29 meeting rooms. The interior of the building was designed by UniFor, a Molteni group company, which this year celebrates its 50th anniversary. The UniFor furnishings make use of a range of materials such as glass, aluminium, as well as white and natural wood. These are elegant and productive workplaces, which include open spaces and private offices to ensure there is an appropriate space for all business requirements. The key design features of the headquarters are its rational spatiality; its efficiently organized work spaces; its vanishing points offering views over the city; and its permeability and continuity. A fluid, mobile volume without blocks or separations, it is a place reflecting attention and clear vision, in line with the Company’s core values.