Category

Office Projects

Designing safer offices

On November 3, 2017

There have been far too many instances of workplace violence in recent years, but there are some design measures that can enhance office security while maintaining a low profile. I wrote about a few of them for Topic Architecture:

Walking past visible security measures, such as cameras or an office lobby guard, can be a reassuring reminder that your workplace prioritizes safety. At the same time, installing metal detectors or bulletproof glass can introduce an unnecessary level of anxiety. Office security toes a fine line between remaining visible enough to provide deterrence and confidence while staying unobtrusive enough to avoid escalating fear, and architects play a crucial role in integrating these discreet security measures into office architecture and landscape.

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson explored this delicate balance between safeguards and satisfying aesthetics in a 2016 article entitled Designing for Security. “Security is as much about perception as it is about reality, and cultural anxiety often influences building design,” she wrote. Those anxious influences all too often lead to highly fortified, defensive buildings that, while functional, look more intimidating than welcoming, which can be a problem for employees that want to feel comfortable while they’re at work.

One approach to security integration is called Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), which was developed by a network of building security-focused architects and planners as a set of best practices for industry professionals. Dr. Randy Atlas, FAIA, one of the preeminent spokespeople in the CPTED realm, lists the biggest sources of security issues in office buildings as access control, boundary definition, surveillance, maintenance, and management competence.

For more on office safety measures, read the full article at Topic Architecture.

Transforming everyday structures into unique workspaces

On July 8, 2017

by Deane

Waffle, by Eric Owen Moss Architects. © Deane Madsen

Atop the fourth level of an otherwise-ordinary parking structure in Culver City, California, lies an improbable squish of glass-and-steel boxes that form a roof-level office called Pterodactyl. Perched like a prehistoric winged predator on the edge of the garage, Pterodactyl—which received a 2016 AIA Award for Architecture—capitalizes on the parking deck’s over-structuring to add leasable volume in a decidedly non-standard configuration.

The setting for Pterodactyl is the Hayden Tract, a part of Culver City that was once a hotbed of manufacturing and light industrial facilities with spur tracks that allowed for easy distribution via the Pacific Electric Railway. These days, the Hayden Tract is a booming tech and media hub, with a creative workforce arriving on the recently completed Expo Line, which occupies right-of-ways from its predecessor, the Pacific Electric Railway. The parking structure Pterodactyl rests upon is a nod to Southern California’s car culture; built in 1998, the decks have an 800-vehicle capacity. The garage now acts as a podium for the offices above it, with its column grid also supporting a set of nine boxes that intersect and overlap to form a two-level office spilling over the garage roof to hang off its western façade.

Part of what has made Eric Owen Moss Architects (EOMA) so successful is his long-term client relationships with people like Laurie and Frederick Samitaur-Smith, whose patronage for three decades has transformed the Hayden Tract in Culver City into a creative wonderland that intersperses more than 30 full-scale architectural experimentswith repurposed warehouses. Pterodactyl completes a complex that includes other unconventional works by EOMA titled Stealth, Umbrella, Slash, and Backslash.

Moss has called his work in the Hayden Tract “an ongoing exploration,” and it’s that kind of study that has pushed both Moss’s practice and his pedagogy; Moss integrated material and technological pursuits into curricula during his tenure as director of the Southern California Institute of Architecture. “[We’re] setting ourselves up with problems we have to solve,” Moss says. “And we’re making things where the pro forma is not yet available.”

Read the full story at Topic Architecture.

Simplify Your Office Renovation by Embracing the Past

On June 1, 2017

by Deane

American Republic Insurance Building. Image by Boscophotos, via Wikimedia Commons

If your office building is in need of a redesign, it’s important to consult with an architect to see if renovations make more sense than restarting from the ground up. Often times, you’ll find it’s cheaper and wiser to build upon what already works.

Such was the case for the American Enterprise Group’s headquarters building in Des Moines, Iowa, which was designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Gordon Bunshaft, FAIA, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Completed in 1965, the eight-story, 153,000-square-foot office building won an AIA Honor Award for Architecture in 1967; nearly five decades later, its sensitive renovation by BNIM has garnered a second AIA award for effectively updating systems while preserving the character of Bunshaft’s work.

Not every building, of course, has been designed by an architect of Bunshaft’s stature. In addition to the AEG headquarters, he was also responsible for some of the most iconic midcentury office buildings, from New York’s Lever House (with design coordinator Natalie de Blois) and Manufacturers Trust Company Building to the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Bunshaft’s contributions to the realm of cultural institutions include Washington, DC’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, as well as the Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

Read the full story at Topic Architecture.

The secret to creating a successful coworking space

On March 25, 2017

by Deane

WeWork’s Wonderbread Factory location in Washington, D.C.

As the name implies, WeWork’s Wonder Bread Factory office in Washington, DC, is a former industrial bread production facility, now baking ideas from dozens of local companies that make these offices their home. On the other side of an open area, a small conference hall is filled with a dozen or so people attending a courier training session for Caviar, an application-based meal delivery service. In the communal kitchen, a beer delivery man connects the tap line to a keg and explains how to keep it from going flat while a bespectacled gentleman prepares his lunch on the counter. Garage doors on the southern side of the room open—when the weather allows it—to a sunny patio with an assortment of seating for lounging, dining, or meeting al fresco.

Coworking spaces such as these have been springing up all over the country. In cities where office space rental is prohibitively expensive, coworking affords the opportunity to conduct business within professional environments without taking on the high cost of overhead. Think of it almost like getting a group of friends together to rent a house: With pooled resources and some shared amenities, each person can perhaps pay less for rent while enjoying more overall space as well as a healthy sense of community. And through architect-led redesigns and renovations, that sense of an office as a community can be enhanced even further.

These shared spaces often come with flair specific to each locale; in DC, a graffito by District native Kelly Towles overlooks the third-floor common area, and the caffeine supply comes directly from local roaster La Colombe. A local firm, Georgetown-based R2L:Architects, added three levels to the existing structure, and rehabilitated the existing historic façades. Within the WeWork offices, glass walls and doors enclose variously sized private offices arranged on long corridors, allowing natural light to fill each space.

Read the full story at Topic Architecture.

Sliced Porosity Block–CapitaLand Raffles City

On December 19, 2013

by Architect Magazine: Articles by Deane Madsen, Assoc. AIA

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