Subscribers: Read Story

Previous | Next

Not Just Another Big Glass Box

Corporate headquarters drew more submissions than any other category, and Gannett Co./usa Today in McLean, Va., was the only winner.

The building breaks with the familiar recycled modernism look of most corporate campuses. It isn't a typically big, bulky glass box. Instead, the architects split what could have been one massive building into two separate towers, providing distinct identities for both the parent company and its largest subsidiary, USA Today.

The towers rise from a common four-story base, the podium, which has high ceilings and open spaces. The podium is modeled after a town square--an open community with people gathering and moving about. It has a common lobby and courtyard that bring people together. Abundant light streams in through walls of glass.

Gannett is a communication company, and the nature of this building reflects that. "The design was driven from a business use rather than a corporate image," says Debra Lehman-Smith, a partner in Lehman-Smith + McLeish, which did the interiors, in conjunction with Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. Yet the owners and architects went out of their way to add rooftop terraces and extensive landscaping to integrate a green environment into the building's work areas. The jury noted that this corporate-headquarters project was a particularly thoughtful architectural solution to a highly complex business problem.