LOCATION: Cary, NC
PROJECT SIZE: 67,000 SQ FT
PROJECT COST: $7,900,000
The Lord Corporation World Headquarters building is the home of this international company that develops and markets high-tech mechanical and chemical products. Built in a suburban office park, this three-story building is the anchor of a sixty-seven acre corporate campus.
The rectangular component of the building contains professional offices on the first two floors with senior executives occupying the third floor. All offices are stacked on the west end of the building with meeting rooms, staff lounges and other support spaces consolidated on the other end of each floor level. Set into this rectangular form is a large cylinder that marks the entrance and contains a two-story lobby and several conference rooms. Extending south from the three-story office block is a single-story meeting and training center that is anchored by another cylindrical form containing a 160-seat auditorium.
The building consolidates administrative office functions into one building, freeing valuable space in other campus buildings for research and production. Two other buildings on campus are dedicated to research and development and to pilot plant manufacturing. Responding to Lord Corporation’s internal culture, the new headquarters building symbolizes the clean, unassuming reputation of the company and sets the standard for future architectural and landscape development on the campus.
The plan layout on each level features perimeter offices around a large, central open office work environment. All offices have floor to ceiling glass to encourage visual communication and allow daylight deeper into the building. The top floor features a high ceiling and large translucent skylight that distributes diffused natural light throughout the area. The regular geometry of the office component is contrasted by the round lobby space and the cylindrical form of the auditorium.
The formal development of the south courtyard reinforces the geometry found in the plan. A thin canal with moving water leads to a circular still pond that terminates the axis. The formal planted areas are overlaid with a random pattern of larger trees that blend the man-made courtyard with the natural wooded areas beyond. This courtyard represents the first of what will eventually become a greenway system linking this building with future development on the site.
2002 AIA NC Honor Award (State)
Photography: James West