We are a team of designers, planners, researchers, and writers who share complex ideas in creative and fun ways.
As exhibit designers and developers, we express our enjoyment for learning, making, teaching, and traveling through our work. Our exhibits challenge people’s assumptions about the world, engage them intellectually, foster their creative spirits, and inspire them to have fun.
Core Team
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Steve Wiersema
Principal
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Nikola Bakovic
Director of Design
Our Studio
Our design studio is located in the emerging West Oakland arts district, adjacent to the busy Port of Oakland. In addition to drafting and modeling stations, the studio includes a prototyping shop, and meeting and brainstorming spaces. It’s filled with artifacts, fabrication models, and memories of projects that span the past three decades. Our building has a modernized warehouse aesthetic, reflecting its use in the early 20th century as a canning facility. Now it’s occupied mostly by creative professionals, including furniture designers, photographers, and architects.
History
Founded in 1985 by Andy Kramer, West Office got its start in an old warehouse in San Francisco’s SOMA district. Our first project was a commission to design exhibits for a new science museum in Hong Kong, one of the first major science centers in Asia. West Office’s highly interactive design for this museum, which included the world’s largest kinetic ball track, set the tone for future projects. The studio has gone on to distinguish itself as a team of exhibit designers capable of creating highly original and complex exhibitry. West Office has continued to mature by designing exhibits for a wide variety of clients—including the California Science Center, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and Levi Strauss & Co. After 20 years with West Office, Steve took over leadership of the studio in 2013. Today, the office calls Oakland home as it continues to create experiences that focus on engaging people of all ages through creative storytelling and innovative experiences.