Darryl Howard doesn’t feel like he’s ever going to work.
That’s because his office doesn’t look like your typical, drab workspace. You won’t find chunky, impersonal office furniture from the 1970s. Or faded carpets hosting crumbs from the meals of long gone employees.
His office at Revolution Mill is filled with artwork that includes paintings, sculpture and found objects. The floors are hardwood, and the large windows and high ceilings bring in abundant natural light.
Howard’s design and technology studio, Space Logix, also includes workspaces for a dress designer, pharmacist, aquarium lighting manufacturer, angel investor, physician and several corporate remote employees.
Children and pets are welcome there.
And occasionally, they have after-work wine tastings.
“Most of us at one time or another have spent our working lives in a dull, traditional workplace. We enter feeling uninspired and leave feeling drained,” Howard says. “Work has changed. Workers’ expectations for their work environment has changed. ... I built this location to satisfy my own needs as a place I would like to work.”
It’s a space set within a campus that includes about 250,000 square feet of office space, 142 loft apartments, restaurants, art galleries, fitness center, yoga studio and event venues. Many of the offices, like Howard’s, resemble a spread from a modern furnishings catalog.
The site holds significance in Greensboro’s manufacturing history. Brothers Moses and Ceasar Cone partnered with longtime friends, the Sternbergers, to open Revolution Mill in 1898. It became the first flannel mill in the South. The mill closed in 1982 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. There is a permanent gallery documenting its history on the campus.
Today, the mill hosts a mix of professionals, including photographers, health care workers, hairstylists, attorneys and counselors.
There are regular socials for tenants, and an amphitheatre will feature a variety of entertainment events.
“It is so diverse but so casual and laid-back that not working here, I believe, would be difficult,” Howard says. “You get so used to the beauty, the different creatives, the diversity and the expansive campus that it takes on more of being a physical part of you. I don’t think that anyone refers to it as the ‘office.’ Coming into ‘work’ never feels like ‘work,’ rather just a part of the natural rhythm of your creativity.”