Last April, Dairy Farmers of America moved into a new 110,000-sf headquarters in Kansas City, Kan., that has only nine traditional offices, versus more than 175 offices in its old headquarters. Meeting rooms and workstations can be rearranged easily to accommodate current needs and future growth. The new headquarters is rich in amenities, including a fire pit, outdoor conference rooms, and basketball and bocce courts.
Organizations like the DFA are using their facilities to jockey for position in the race for the 80 million or so Millennials who are entering the workforce.
HOK, which designed DFA’s headquarters, is seeing the “slow death of the open plan” and the evolution of activity-based workspaces into more collaborative neighborhood-based environments, says Tom Polucci, AIA, IIDA, LEED GA, Firmwide Director of Interiors with HOK.
The headquarters of the Dairy Farmers of America is an example of a new breed of suburban corporate campuses that complement an emerging growth corridor—in this case, Kansas City, Kan.—that already included retail, restaurants, and residential. The 110,000-sf building was designed with an eye toward recruitment and retention. HOK was the design architect for the office; JE Dunn Construction built it.
State-of-the-art offices also blur the boundaries between work, life, and play, says Lise Newman, AIA, Director of SmithGroupJJR’s Workplace Practice. For a global technology client, her firm is designing a workplace that “reduces friction” for workers by incorporating full-service dining, micro-kitchens, libraries, a two-story fitness center, personal health clinics, laundry and dry cleaning services, and a quiet zone (no smartphones, please!) where employees can decompress.
Kelly Farrell, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+C, EVP and Global Practice Group Leader for Workplace with CallisonRTKL, says authenticity is the current byword.
For American Greetings, her firm designed the greeting-card supplier’s Creative Studios, which opened last September. Located on 13.5 acres in Westlake, Ohio, the 660,000-sf space was designed to encourage collaboration. American Greetings’ 1,300 employees were invited to participate in the selection of furniture, upholstery fabrics, and light fixtures. The third floor features a courtyard with heated and covered sidewalks, landscaped seating areas, and BBQ grills. There’s a full-service cafeteria, a 10,000-volume reference library, a post office, a dry-cleaning drop-off, and a company store stocked with greeting cards, paper products, and collectibles.