Meet You in the Commons

Meet You in the Commons

U.S. General Services Administration, Federal Center South Building 1202

Workplace

ZGF designed the regional headquarters for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Delivered design/build, the high performance building provides the Corps with a 21st century workplace environment bathed in natural daylight. The concept—the Oxbow—features a narrow office bar bent around a central shared atrium called the commons. The open plan office layout provides the greatest amount of flexibility for teams to grow and shrink and the commons—where all the conference rooms and shared services are located at the core of the building—compels users to come together. The design integrates active and passive systems, materials and strategies to achieve aggressive water and energy saving requirements without sacrificing comfort or amenity. Optimized mechanical systems feature chilled beams, heat recovery and phase-change thermal energy storage. The reclamation of 200,000 board feet of timber from a warehouse previously located on the site provides a dramatic interior environment. The LEED Platinum® building is performing in the top 1 percent of similar-sized office buildings in the U.S. with an EUI of 25 kBTU/SF/yr and an Energy Star score of 99, meeting the 2030 Challenge.

Location

Seattle, WA

Square Feet

209,000

Completion date

2012

Project Component

Architecture services 
Interior design and space planning 

Certifications

LEED Platinum®

EUI

25.7 KBtu/sf/year

Atrium bridges and stairs clad in reclaimed timber decking connect people throughout the building and are adjacent to informal seating and “touch-down” work surfaces to encourage impromptu collaboration.

The exterior stainless steel shingle cladding emphasizes “Building Strong” and complements the nearby historic 1930s Albert Kahn-designed 1201 building. 

The “oxbow” design solution provides an ideal workplace environment for the USACE emblematic of their mission of “Building Strong.” The building’s form—reflecting the natural oxbows past and present in the course of the adjacent Duwamish Waterway—is functional and flexible to accommodate the USACE’s nearly constantly changing team-based work.

Aggressive sustainable design, energy and water performance requirements were met and exceeded.

Orientation and massing optimize daylight while reducing solar heat gain. The U-shaped form of the office bar creates daylight access on both sides of the floor plate, providing natural light to over 90% of the building to enhance energy performance and human comfort.

The new building reflects the site’s industrial past while modernizing the campus to meet the 21st century needs of the USACE.

Creating an indoor campus environment was important to enhancing the concept of community and collective identity within the building and supports the notion of biophilia—the instinctive bond between human beings and living systems. 

Variation in hardscape materials and surface textures creates visual interest. Meandering bands of river rocks and scattered boulders—flowing with harvested rainwater—weave through crushed rock to symbolize the four tributaries of the Duwamish Waterway and celebrate the mission and work of the USACE. Driftwood and reclaimed log planks create the impression of a flowing river.