Principal Financial Group has renovated each building in its downtown corporate campus as part of a multiyear, $238.5 million overhaul that began in 2013. The 750 Park (also known as the Z building) renovation opened in two phases, with one half of the building opening in 2014 and the other half in 2015.

The goal was to redesign many of the office spaces at Principal to better accommodate collaborative work, giving employees more spaces in which to work together while recognizing that workers continue to need places in which to work independently. The redesigned space also recognizes that workers come to the campus at a different rate than they used to. Only about three out of four Principal employees are physically in the office on any given day, and even when they’re in, many of them spend a great deal of time in meetings away from their desks.

Rather than being organized strictly by function or department, the spaces are designed as work “neighborhoods” that consist largely of unassigned work settings that employees can choose to work from. A worker might stand part of the day at a height-adjustable desk, move later to a meeting with a co-worker at a small drop-in meeting room, and later participate in a meeting in an informal meeting space equipped with couches and an interactive video screen display. The corporate real estate neighborhood, for instance, encompasses space for 70 employees; the only assigned desks are those used by the two administrative assistants.