There are some buildings that are timeless and others that continue to live across time through multiple uses and after-lives. In designing the interiors for corporate offices of Alembic Real Estate, Vadodara, The Crossboundaries took an opportunity to give a 55-year-old large industrial building its second life. Alembic Real Estate office is set in the vast 200-acre Alembic Group campus, currently undergoing mixed-use cultural development. The challenges of a delicate context and rich legacy of the site, keeping intact the integrity of a historic space, and excellence in workspace design; and from working with a blank canvas of industrial proportions to ensuring minimum damage to its skin. A voluminous space, with 12-foot high ceilings, and a grid of massive concrete columns with tapered caps , the site offers itself along with its historic character. For an office space to be jointly occupied by two businesses with 115 employees, the designers have developed a clean and efficient ambiance with a color scheme of muted greys, blues and blacks as an ode to corporate efficiency, sometimes tempered with the occasional warmth of a brick wall and natural greens. The 10,000sq.ft office is largely linear, with the open office floor flanked by the main specialized meeting, conference, and private cabin rooms, interspersed with green areas and sit-outs. Generating sudden drama with an oblong, 9 feet long reception desk cast in matt grey cantilevered reception desk that appears to be in suspended motion, the reception space demands attention. An element of wonder, the massive overhead elliptical sculptural ceiling light fixture named ’Cosmic Orbit’ is custom-designed in plaster of Paris, cast upon a special armature of aluminium and wood. Further inwards, a seamless expanse of grey microcrete flooring leads the eye. At this contemporary office with a fresh and vibrant mindset, formal and informal meeting areas flow into one another demarcated by a constant language of metal and glass partitions. The main office floor is reached through a forest of massive columns neatly cladded with grey-painted ply boards and MDF, with tapered capital exposed. For cost-effectiveness meeting rooms are treated with rough plaster and tufts of fresh green plants that act as acoustic buffers. As a new-age office space that transcends conventional hierarchies, the design intent consciously breaks down rigid systems in a professional environment. Against a muted background of grey stucco, all workstations, exposed services, and common functions are arranged according to a repeating, rhythmic ceiling grid. Keeping with the industrial character of site,14 reclaimed lights from old factories have been repainted and reused along columns to highlight informal seating sections and space dividers.The main-office floor with unidirectional rows of sleek tables arranged and intermediate cabana areas are created as small-group seating and conversation islands. Ingenious Phonebooth pods or compact capsules with a metal framed glass door and corkboard lining for soundproofing were designed to conduct phone calls in privacy. In an age that sees a rapid loss of memory and regard for historic spaces, this project is an important means of giving second life to forgotten spaces.