Floating City: Conoco's Corporate Headquarters
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12 Cite Fall 19X9 Floating City Conoco's Corporate Two-story atrium con- nects the three adjoining buildings of each of the Headquarters five groupings. by Kevin Roche William F. Stern During the recent period of intense by escalator. From this main avenue, building activity in downtown and and on the same level, a secondary suburban Houston, an elegant, albeit system of interior as well as protected unassuming office building joined the ouidoor walkways links the adjoining ranks of corporate Houston without three-story buildings. From both central fanfare. In 19K5. Conoco Inc. moved its and secondary distributors the journey to headquarters toward the city's western the ground or third levels is only one edge, leaving a multistory office tower story. At Conoco. Roche has devised a in Greenway Plaza for a series of three- clear and efficient system of circulation. story pavilions set in a park along the one thai gives employees easy access Katy Freeway (Interstate 10). Conoco's from the automobile to their offices. new 1.2-million-square-foot building Beneath the raised east-west walkway a was designed by Kevin Roche of Kevin street for visitor, executive, and service Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates, vehicles penetrates the center of the the architectural linn whose reputation complex, with guest and executive was established in the mid-1960s by the parking under the main building, next Ford Foundation Building in New York to the visitor entrance. City.1 It is a commentary on our time that Conoco, a building whose design Faceted end pavilion with conference rooms projects over man-made lake. The three-level Conoco complex is innovatively addresses the requirements composed of 16 buildings arranged in of a contemporary working environ- Inc.'s Houston headquarters. Using an buildings is approached by automobile five groups, w uli an additional service ment, is far less celebrated than the more approach he had developed a few years from the freeway feeder. Although structure at the center. A 60-foot-wide prominently displayed, stylish tall earlier at the Union Carbide corporate Conoco closely borders the Katy Free- bay with double corridors is the regulat- buildings of Houston. headquarters in Danbury. Connecticut. way, it would be easy to drive by and ing module for each building. In keeping Roche began by interviewing representa- only barely notice the 16 buildings that with ihe employees' desire for views Conoco is perhaps the best example in tive groups of employees from all ranks make up the complex. This is accom- to the outside, offices face outward to Houston of the office campus, a building of the company. From these interviews plished by Roche's strategic placement the garden: storage, toilets, and service type that has become popular in the outer he ascertained what was currently of an undulating grass berm, which facilities are situated in the middle of ihe limits of America's corporate suburbs. unsatisfactory and what employees shields the buildings from the noise and 60-fool bay. between the corridors. Roche Conoco and its neighbors. Shell. Exxon, wanted in the workplace: for instance, view of the busy interstate. Passing also established a standard office size. and Amoco, arc part of a new kind of they disliked waiting for elevators. He through Conoco's security gates, one is designing a universal office module of suburb defined by Robert Fishman in also learned that, as at Union Carbide, scarcely conscious of the 18-wheelers 12 feel by 16 feet to achieve a more Bourgeois Utopias as the "lechnoburb." disparities in office size and proximity and Suburbans speeding along eight lanes democratic distribution of personnel. The The traditional suburb, as found in the to outside windows fostered jealousy of freeway only a few yards away. From exception is a series of double-module 19th- and early-20th-century American and affected morale; moreover, time and thai moment, one enters ihe serenity of a offices for lop executives in the central city, was an extension of the urban center, money (up to $2 million annually) were lush green park of trees and grass, and of building. Each office is separaied from a place for living and recreation linked consumed in altering offices whenever buildings meandering over a still lagoon. the corridor by a five-fooi-thrce-inch- closely to the workplace of the center promotions or personnel shifts occurred. high siorage wall for files, shelving, and closets, wiih mullionless glass lo the city. The lechnoburb, a development of Kevin Roche has for some time been ceiling above the storage wall allowing the late 2(>lh century, with its massive intrigued with the idea of the super- daylight into Ihe corridors and interior shopping malls, housing tracts, and office highway as an organizer of and distribu- service rooms. In an effort lo satisfy parks built along the freeways, loops, and tor for the great distances to be traveled individual tastes, employees are given interstates that surround the older city, in the lechnoburb. In describing the a choice of three basic office styles - exists independently of the center city. relationship of the highway to the build- traditional, transitional, and contempo- The lechnoburb is so detached and self- ing at Union Carbide, Roche remarked: sufficient that its population need never rary. The drawback of the democratic office, however, is a uniformity that lends venture to the city center. Because of The from door .., is the act of arrival by the concentration of oil-related service to be disorienting and repetitious. This automobile. You drive from home on a problem might have been addressed companies along this stretch of 1-10 highway system. You get off the public near Highway 6, the lechnoburb around Awning canopy covers employee parking through shifts of interior finishes and highway onto a private highway system decor as well as a bolder selection of an. Conoco is known as the "Energy Cor- at either end of the complex. which goes Straight into the garage, and ridor." Conoco's three-story complex. 1 Employees felt cramped and compart- for an employee is the first act of entry. built in a 62-acre park, represents an mentalized in the impersonal surround- Functionally, Conoco's 2.3(H) employees alternative to the self-contained, multi- ings of Conoco's high-rise quarters and At Union Carbide the highway literally work in buildings divided between the story office building. Indeed, iI Conoco shut off from the world in its many enters either side of the building, ter- "upstream" business of exploration and had chosen to build an office tower, its interior offices. What the employees minating with parking garages at the production, occupying ihe western half height would almost have equaled that wanted was an office environment more center. At Conoco the highway is also of ihe campus, and the "downstream" of the 64-story Transco Tower adjoining akin to the living rooms or libraries of terminated by parking, contained this business of refining, marketing, and Houston's Galleria. By moving farther their homes. They also expressed a strong lime wilhin two outdoor covered areas transportation on the cast. Between these from the center of the city Conoco was preference for covered parking, with easy for 1.500 cars on the east and west sides two, a central service building, larger able to spread the building components access to individual offices. Clearly many of the complex. Roche further extends than a football field, provides executive out. making a completely self-contained of these desires could more readily be the metaphor of the superhighway as and visitor parking, third-floor executive environment, a workplace in the garden realized in a building unconstrained by its distributor with an elevated and enclosed offices, basement mechanical services, ot the lechnoburb. site, a site that would permit the dispersal second-level pedestrian walkway, nearly loading docks, a fitness center, a com- of office functions over several acres. a third of a mile long, linking the two puter center, employee cafeterias, a credit union, and a travel agency. The multitude In 1979, Roche Dinkeloo and Associates employee parking areas. Access from ihe of services and amenities was located was awarded the commission for Conoco Conoco's white concrete maze of ground-level parking to the walkway is Cite Fall l'W> 13 Union Carbide Headquarters, Danbury, Connecticut, 1982. Escalator from employee parking to second-level Aerial view, Conoco, 1985. interior walkway. Second-level plan. paltem of outdoor courtyard spaces laced ingeniously adapted the consolidation of its Protected outdoor walkway connects in and around the lagoon. complex of buildings to the operaiions under one roof. buildings at the second level and extremes of sunlight and heal also serves to shade the offices on Where land values are lower, this build- the first level. Translucent fiberglass In discussing the outdoor space, Roche in south Texas. Giving strength and ing type is a viable alternalivc as well to awning projects 13 feet to screen has remarked: drama to Conoco is an awning system the multistory office building. As the second- and third- level offices. made from a translucent fiberglass lechnoburb matures, communities with the In Conoco . we do not have ihe central sandwich panel supported by an assets and planning sophistication of the community space; instead we turn the aluminum frame thai projects 13 feet traditional suburb will become increasing- idea inside out and urate a park into outward from the face of the wall to ly needed. In many ways Conoco points which the whole building is placed. It screen the offices from the relenlless to future possibilities for the workplace summer sun. Controlling levels of natural • L - j j f l is a campus and will have the same and office buildings in the lechnoburb.