When news broke in 2017 that Reston, Va.’s fast-growing software company Appian was thinking about leaving for North Carolina or Georgia, it looked as if the company would come to exemplify the Washington area’s failings as a technology hub. Instead, Appian became a symbol of how the local tech sector is maturing as it decided to move just a few miles down the road to a corporate campus in Tysons Corner that once housed the Gannett publishing company’s headquarters.
Out of a heavy field of interested firms, Phase Shift was selected to design the IT, AV, security and wireless systems for Appian’s new 220,000 sf headquarters space due to its strong focus on customer service, experience and agility. Appian operates with a network that lives completely off premise in the cloud, requiring a pivot away from traditional structured cabling topology. The firm’s strong commitment to the Google ecosystem influences the broader technology scheme, including such things as conference room web collaboration, videoconferencing, and room scheduling solutions. Phase Shift helped Appian migrate to an integrated security platform that provided monitoring and alarming of video and access control through a single integrated solution and allowed for cloud video and data archiving. A WiFi solution with integrated bluetooth was deployed, enabling workplace optimization capabilities through the compilation of occupancy data metrics. Sound Masking was integrated throughout the space, improving speech privacy and reduced distraction in an open office environment.
