Alector is a trailblazing biotech firm in the Bay Area with a visionary therapeutic approach to stopping neurodegeneration. In pursuit of their goal – a world where dementia and neurodegeneration are illnesses of the past – Alector has built a large team of scientists and business people. Alector’s office is a sprawling open-floor space, with laboratories and offices spread across two floors. The openness of the space was ideal at first, and it enabled their collaborative approach to immunio-neurology. However, as they grew to a team of over 250 employees, they found their team requesting more private offices and/or quiet spaces for focused work. Turning conference rooms into offices wasn’t a viable option, as each additional office meant one less conference room. So Alector found themselves in the market for phone booths, a solution that enabled them to stand up focused work spaces quickly without significantly altering the floor plan of the office.

Kristina, Alector’s Director of Facilities, originally purchased two booths from another brand to test the concept. The Alector team liked the first two (non-Pillar) booths in theory, however, they created more problems than they solved. They took up too much space because of their large footprint, they got too warm because of poor ventilation, and the soundproofing – which was the whole point – was not very good. Kristina set off searching for a higher quality booth that would provide a more comfortable experience for the Alector team. Eventually, Kristina found Pillar. Alector installed three Pillar Booths, and their team instantly noticed the difference between the Pillar Booths and the other (non-Pillar) booths in the office.