Walking the stairs in one of the new buildings on Adidas’s corporate campus in Portland, Oregon, one can’t help but look up. Plastered on the undersides of the staircase are brightly colored supergraphics of patterned lines and shapes. Appearing at first to be abstract art, the images quickly trigger the mind to recall a familiar, if under-appreciated, design: the sole of a sneaker.
The sole patterns are just one element of the graphic-heavy design approach behind two new buildings on the Adidas campus: one a collaboration-focused office space for designers, the other a boutique fitness center. Designed by San Francisco-based Studio O+A with LEVER Architecture, the two buildings use the apparel brand’s designs and materials, plus a subtle dose of sport-centric imagery, to celebrate the ubiquitous but perhaps overlooked design flourishes that abound in the company’s sports gear and apparel.