A Beautiful Office Space: Introducing the NOC Headquarters

For our team of curators here at NOC, 2020 is a year devoted to self-refinement. While the world – and a few of the exciting projects we had planned – are on a brief hiatus, we took the time to look back on what we have accomplished so far, and to give careful thought into our future plans. In October, we announced that we will be marking the end of this year with our first space in New Territories; earlier this month, we also announced our first overseas location in Bangkok, Thailand, which will launch in spring 2021. Today, we are delighted to take you on a tour of our new headquarters, located in Quarry Bay.

Since he started the first NOC on the slopes of Graham Street back in 2015, our founder Benny has always envisioned curating an office space in which our team can work, play and rest. It was his intention to create an open space that would allow our team members to continue cultivating a clan work culture, by maintaining open communication and cohesively working together in bringing new ideas to life. Studies show that our surroundings have a substantial impact on our productivity, creativity, mood and well-being: with our team culture and common goal in mind, the design of our headquarters was conceived.

With a combined area of over 2,000 square feet, the NOC HQ consists of two floors. Continuing with our ethos for minimalism, we selected a limited color palette of white, grey and black, and incorporated a variation of lines into our space design.

Once you walk through our all-glass front door, then along a short corridor, you will be in a large common space that is our stockroom and pantry. This is the space where our team brews coffees for our Monday morning meetings, and chat and relax while we enjoy our lunch boxes together. The slender kitchen counter featuring curvilinear lines also acts as a standing desk for those of us who prefer to work while standing up.

To help everyone fight afternoon slumps and stay energised throughout the day, we make sure to stock up our fridge and drawers with our own canned cold brew, drip bags and tea bags, alongside a wide selection of other beverages and snacks.

If you take a few steps further into the space, you will be greeted by our main workspace slash meeting room, as well as a spectacular view of the Victoria Harbour. Every day, we sit around the long table to work together: we find that this boosts our efficiency in communicating and decision-making, which helps us work better as a team.

Whilst the first floor is a place for our team to work, our loft is a room that is solely dedicated to having fun. With Benny’s personal toy collection on display, our play area is complete with a selection of game consoles, books and comfy bean bags. To help our team achieve a balance between work, play and rest, we take our Wednesday afternoons ‘off’ to hang out in the loft and enjoy active break sessions together.

Although the NOC HQ is mainly a space for our office team to work and hang out, this is not an exclusive club: not only do our new staff members attend their orientation talks in our meeting room, the team is also joined by all store and kitchen managers on Wednesdays for our bi-weekly general meetings and active break sessions.

As Benny says, ‘leadership is nothing without the team’ – NOC wouldn’t be what it is today without the input from our young, energetic and extremely talented curators. It is our vision to make our HQ a workspace that helps our team interact, communicate and work better, but most importantly, it is our hope that it becomes a common space in which our team members can feel involved and bond as a big, supportive family.