American engineer Frederick Taylor is credited with designing the first iteration of an office space in the early 1900s, situating workers together in an open environment while bosses looked on from private offices. Since then, the workplace evolved to incorporate Action design (cubicles) in the 1960s, cube farms (herd of cubicles) in the 1980s to the virtual office in the 1990s (where no desks were actually assigned to workers).
The latest trend sweeping the modern workplace is an amalgam between home and office, as design reigns supreme in the forward-thinking workspaces occupied by tech companies. While startups and tech giants alike demand long hours and optimal conditions for staring at a computer 8-plus hours a day, work has become a place for eating all three meals each day, bonding with colleagues and even sleeping.
In New York,
is at the center of this restructuring as the go-to service for startup office design. Founded in 2012 by interior designer Noa Santos and former Buzzfeed coder Will Nathan, the company was created to make interior design more accessible and affordable to a tech-savvy clientele.
Homepolish differentiates itself from traditional interior design firms in that while it offers a white glove luxury experience, it doesn’t charge a commission on a project. Instead, the company charges by the hour, costing clients about a third of the industry rate.
The company works by matching a client with a designer based on their project specifications, which can be applied to either residential or commercial spaces. In the world of New York startups, Homepolish found its niche rather serendipitously—a few of the company’s first clients were 
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Now, Homepolish’s impressive roster of clients includes
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With over 800 commissions under its belt, Homepolish largely credits its success rate with these companies due to the fact that the company is still a startup itself.
“As a startup, we understand what it’s like to work in a startup and the challenges that startups face,” said Noa Santos, cofounder and CEO at Homepolish. “We want to help companies design spaces that feel like home to hundreds of people. But people have different personalities and tastes and you have to come up with strategies of giving people what they want and what they’re comfortable with.”
Homepolish practices what it preaches by using its own office as a design laboratory. As startups are prone to rapid growth, which requires a flexible work space, Homepolish is keen on creating temporary solutions that don’t reveal aesthetic impermanence. For example, in its Flatiron office, Homepolish brought the outdoors inside with simple greenhouses, which the company’s 50-some-odd employees use as break-out spaces.
As the company continues to foster innovative design solutions for innovative companies, Homepolish aims to become a resource that startups use and continue to use as they experience growth.
“The aesthetics of an office space have presented an interesting challenge because brands are becoming more flexible,” said Santos. “Companies are rebranding a lot more frequently than they used to and we want to give clients such a great experience that they keep using us as they grow.”
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