Dezeen Magazine

Felt-lined booths and Scandinavian furniture feature in office for mobile game studio Dots

Interior designer Sheena Murphy used plywood, blackened steel and felt to create the Scandinavian-influenced office for Dots, the New York company behind popular design-led games Two Dots and Dots & Co.

"Traditional American office meets Scandinavian home" was the look Murphy wanted to create for the games studio, which counts architect Bjarke Ingels and Dezeen editor Amy Frearson among its 100 million global players.

Dots office

To achieve this, the interior designer – who runs a studio called Sheep + Stone – employed a simple palette of materials, avoiding bright colours or bold patterns.

"We focused on simple, neutral and desaturated tones and materials, playing with scale and shape to achieve this feeling," she told Dezeen.

Dots office

The office is located in a neo-classical building overlooking the Hudson River, in a 8,500-square-foot (790 square metres) space renovated by Woodfin Architecture + Design. South-facing windows ensure the interior receives plenty of natural light.

Dots office

The layout of the office is defined by a pair of meeting rooms, as well as series of more informal booths containing various types of seating.

Dots office

Murphy chose to line all of these space with felt. Not only does this improves acoustics, it provides staff with walls that double as pin boards for showcasing ideas.

Dots office

Black-toned steel wraps the base of each block, while plywood slats create horizontal stripes across the exteriors, creating subtle references with woodland cabins.

Similar wooden slats were also used to create the Dots logo on the exterior of one of the blocks.

Dots office

Desks run alongside the windows, with seating areas dotted around them. Here, Murphy used almost exclusively Danish designs.

Dots office

"We kept the palette soft and simple, and played with form so the communal areas of the office felt synonymous with the company's brand but different from what you might see in a more typically game studio," she said.

"We sourced largely from Danish designers, and used pieces from Friends & Founders, Muuto, Erik Joergensen, New Works, Fritz Hansen and Hay."

Dots office

Dots was founded by game developers Patrick Moberg and Paul Murphy.

The studio's first game, Dots: A Game About Connecting, launched in 2013, and was later followed by Two Dots and Dots & Co. The games are popular for their design-focused aesthetic.

Photography is by Nicole Franzen.

More images

Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office
Dots office