Chicago's office market is rethinking what the workplace has to offer. HAMILTON has delivered some of the city's most design-forward locker installations — from 3-floor smart locker rollouts to fully brand-matched custom builds.
Chicago's seasonal swings — sub-zero winters with heavy coats to humid summer days — mean storage needs change month to month. A locker system sized for July will frustrate employees in January.
Hybrid work compounds the problem: daily attendance varies, employees share desks, and the office has to compete with home. If there's nowhere welcoming to put belongings, people stay home.
HAMILTON addresses this with data-driven locker sizing, mixed-height configurations for seasonal flexibility, electronic lock–ready construction, and custom design that makes the locker system a deliberate feature of the space — not an afterthought.
"The modernized space echoes the current evolution of workplaces, including hotdesking, relaxing lounges, and collaborative areas."— HAMILTON project brief, global insurance company, Chicago
When a global insurance company set out to establish a nationwide smart locker standard, HAMILTON was selected as the delivery partner. Chicago — their largest location — became the flagship: 505 workplace lockers across three floors, with integrated seating and smart closets throughout.
Working with the project architect, HAMILTON built one of the longest locker wall installations in the company's history. Lockers are elevated 12 inches above finished floor — a detail that eliminates reluctance to use bottom-tier units and simplifies cleaning.
Color accents align with the firm's brand palette. Seating integrates directly into the locker wall, creating a cohesive built-in look rather than an assembly of separate furniture pieces.
The system operates on an honor-system unassigned basis: employees select their preferred locker size at a touch display. Facilities teams have full reporting access to monitor usage, flag locker camping, and adjust configurations as attendance patterns shift.
HAMILTON's Chicago installation — one of the longest integrated locker walls built to date, with seating and smart closets throughout.
Establish a scalable national smart locker standard across a major insurance firm's US offices, starting with a flagship 3-floor Chicago installation.
Multi-tier lockers, smart closets, and integrated seating — all coordinated with the project architect and elevated 12" above finished floor for usability and aesthetics.
505 lockers across 3 floors, brand-matched design, honor-system smart locker configuration, and HAMILTON selected as the firm's national standard partner.
Global Insurance · Chicago, IL · Multi-floor occupied building
The elements that separate a locker system that works from one that doesn't. All three were part of the Chicago installation.
Full-height for coat days. Multi-tier for laptop-and-bag days. Smart Closets for departmental supplies. When employees choose based on daily need, utilization goes up and frustration goes down.
Seating built into the locker wall — not a separate furniture purchase — creates a corridor that reads as intentional. Smart Closets add secure shared storage for supplies and merchandise alongside personal lockers. One wall, multiple functions.
Employees select their locker size at a touch display — no pre-assigned units, no wasted capacity. Facilities teams access real-time usage reports and adjust configurations as attendance patterns shift.
After Chicago, the same firm selected HAMILTON for Dallas and Jersey City — each designed to the local space, each built to the same national standard.
With greater budget flexibility, the Dallas office became HAMILTON's most design-forward workplace locker project. Wilsonart Traceless HPL in Charcoal Velvet (fingerprint-free) with vivid 3mm edge banding in the firm's brand color — a purple that appears to glow against corridor walls.
A smaller-footprint NYC metro installation using a mix of unassigned employee lockers and single-day visitor lockers — designed by a different architect than Chicago and Dallas, with the same national standard applied to a new space.
Download the same resources our Chicago clients use to size, justify, and specify their workplace locker systems.
The data behind the 70% locker ratio — why most Chicago offices are over-provisioned and what to do about it. Includes a sizing worksheet.
Download Free Guide (PDF)How leading companies are using smart storage to make the office worth showing up for — and what Chicago-specific design decisions make the difference.
Download Free PDFChicago's seasonal range means mixed-size configurations outperform single-height systems. Full-height for winter coats, multi-tier for everyday use, Smart Closets for departmental storage. Day-use touch-display selection lets employees choose based on actual daily need — utilization adapts without manager involvement.
HAMILTON is lock-agnostic — cabinets are engineered to receive the electronic access hardware your organization selects. Chicago installations have ranged from honor-system day-use to fully managed electronic access programs. The cabinet is spec'd to accommodate whatever hardware your program requires.
Most construction is completed at our US Midwest factory before delivery. On-site installation in occupied Chicago buildings runs days per floor — minimal dust, noise, and disruption. 3-floor simultaneous installations have been completed while full business operations continued.
Chicago installations have included brand color accents, 3mm PVC edge banding, fingerprint-resistant Wilsonart Traceless HPL doors, and touch displays matched to client brand identity. HAMILTON collaborates with architects from the earliest design phase and supplies Revit and CAD files throughout.
Smart Closets are larger locker units that give departments a shared secure space for supplies, merchandise, and equipment. HAMILTON incorporated Smart Closets alongside personal lockers in the Chicago insurance installation — one locker system, every storage need on a floor. Most mid-to-large Chicago offices benefit from at least one per floor.
Tell us about your space — floors, headcount, locker types, timeline. We'll build a plan sized for it.
