DENISE CHERRY, PRINCIPAL

Denise Cherry is the co-founder and Principal of Assembly Design Studio. Assembly crafts custom workspaces and provides global interior design strategy for clients such as Uber, Cisco, and Pinterest. As the Global Interior Design Consultant for Uber, Assembly provides design oversight for their offices and spearheads the design of their headquarters worldwide, including the San Francisco Mission Bay Headquarters, the EMEA Headquarters in Amsterdam, and the award-winning Advanced Technologies Group Center in Pittsburgh.

Prior to Assembly, Denise was the Director of Design and Principal at Studio O+A. Exercising design oversight over every project O+A undertook, she was the editorial voice that guided a team of 70 designers and project managers while keeping an active hand in the day to day operations of a rapidly growing company.

Denise Cherry joined Studio O+A as a library intern while still a student and ten years later left as one of the firm’s four Principals. One of her first projects was working at Levi’s sprawling San Francisco headquarters with their Facilities team. “I would work at Levis for four to six hours and because it was really important to me to learn all I could, I’d come back here and work another eight to ten-hour shift just to get everything done. I would help with design, I would build 3-Ds, I would help wherever possible and… that idea of 10,000 hours? Malcolm Gladwell? I got my 10,000 hours very quickly.”

Denise describes Facebook’s Palo Alto office, completed in 2009, as a pivotal moment in her career. Facebook was the first project that reflected her vision of creating spaces that are completely tailored for the client that they essentially “can’t be subleased.” Facebook necessitated a completely new approach, one that required digging deep into company culture. After regularly convening with Facebook advisory committees and directly polling Facebook employees on design decisions, her team came up with a space, where workers can write and draw on freely, a lab with prototyping equipment, and flexible furniture arrangements. It became one of the guiding examples to how tech offices look today.

Denise’s unique ability to turn workplace into experience has made her one of the industry’s most celebrated and award-winning designers. Her work has received accolades from IIDA, FX Awards, Contract Magazine, Azure, the Great Indoors Awards, and Interior Design Magazine. Denise has been named Curbed’s Young Gun, an award that recognizes rising design talent nationwide and is an honoree for the 2015 Northern California Real Estate Women of Influence.

ATC/UATC – Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Center – Photographer: Jasper Sanidad

ATC/UATC – Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Center – Photographer: Jasper Sanidad

ATC/UATC – Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Center – Photographer: Jasper Sanidad

ATC/UATC – Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group Center – Photographer: Jasper Sanidad

Quid – Photographer: Jasper Sanidad