Clayco's Employee Café Project | Lamar Johnson Collaborative (LJC)

Responding to the evolving needs of office employees impacted by the after-effects of the COVID pandemic, Clayco wanted to create a new, designated café space for its employees to gather, dine, and socially connect in their Overland, Missouri headquarters. LJC’s interior design and landscape architecture teams were tasked with creating a thoughtful solution for this new employee-focused space.

With a goal of creating a space with a distinct hospitality feel, the LJC interior design team focused on creating multiple areas for users to gather. Existing interior library space was reprogrammed for the dining areas and an addition was designed for a new catering style kitchen; holes were punched into the existing exterior tilt-up concrete façade to achieve throughfare and connection between the kitchen and dining spaces. Close collaboration with the company’s internal office and culture team during the design process coupled with strategic materiality choices and refined project execution ensured a space that reflects the company brand and ethos.

The LJC landscape architecture team designed two exterior courtyard patios flanking the café, extending the new amenity space to the outdoors. Focusing on serving multiple functions—dining, social gathering, meetings, and respite—the team created distinct user areas for each courtyard. In the south courtyard, the team divided the courtyard into thirds, creating distinct spaces for meeting, dining, and recreation, respectively. Bringing the functionality of an interior conference room to the outside, the team incorporated two pavilions shaded by a steel louvered structure. These structures provide shelter from weather as needed and power supply, light, and overhead fans. Vertical surfaces include whiteboards for collaboration and presentation, while slatted panels provide privacy and separation of the space.

The south courtyard is filled with a variety of seating and table options—standing bars, standing height tables, and dining tables with bench seating in the courtyard—all providing flexibility for employee use. Turf with moveable spin chairs provides an area for yard games or relaxation. A birch garden surrounded by native ground cover and plant species provides shade and an opportunity to “bring the outside in” through floor-to-ceiling glazing adjacent to the patio. The perimeter of the south patio is enclosed by 10-foot tilt-up stamped concrete wall panels that provide privacy and a sound barrier to the highway just beyond the building site.

The north courtyard, directly adjacent to the café, prioritizes the outdoor dining experience. A variety of seating and dining surfaces including a standing height bar surface along the perimeter fence flanked by native plantings provides a quiet area for employees to dine and gather. The team also incorporated a bio-retention basin surrounding the property to grow upon existing stormwater management efforts and native planting schemes.

Since completion, the new café and courtyard spaces have exceeded expectations for fostering employee engagement and enhancing workplace culture. These spaces have become hubs for social interaction where groups gather during the workday to connect or share meals and have extended into a beneficial hospitality-style space to host guests, clients, and business partners.