Floating City: Conoco's Corporate Headquarters

12 Cite Fall 19X9

Floating City

Conoco's Corporate Two-story atrium connects 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. * •*1»' felicitous effect on the occupants as if light and providing protection from the Take away Ihe steel security fence that they were working in a well-planned sun has been an ongoing concern in the surrounds the Conoco grounds, and university campus.* work of Roche Dinkeloo. The awning one might imagine a series of similar canopy thai distinguishes the Conoco buildings, loosely connected to make an The community space Roche refers to building was introduced as a screening extraordinary landscaped park on the was first introduced in his work at the device in earlier, similar work, most scale of the 18th-century French gardens. nolably al Richardson-Vicks (1974), Conoco emphatically reaches a new Open corridor between outward-facing Ford Foundation and became a promineni Kentucky Power Company (1978), and offices and interior service rooms. element of many designs to follow. In plateau for office design in Houston. such programmatically diverse buildings more recently Union Carbide (1982). But Kevin Roche at the Conoco headquarters as the additions to the Metropolitan the Conoco awning is perhaps the most has dignified ihe office community expressive and developed use of this intentionally in the central building so Museum in New York City and the cor- by considering and responding to the device. Whereas the awning at Union employees would have little need to leave porate headquarters for General Foods in aspirations of the employees. Moreover, Carbide projects above each level, the grounds during the workday. The Rye. New York, Roche has used the he has intelligently resolved Ihe conflict Conoco's white, translucent awning overall layout and positioning of building indoor communal space as a primary between the imposition of man-made extends only from the roof parapel, groups surrounding the center was deter- organi/er. At Conoco. Roche realized the structure and nature's opposing forces. giving the appearance of a great eave mined compositionally raiher lhan in site's potential for year-round green by Whal was formerly dull, empty land gracefully hovering over and sheltering response to programmatic requirements. placing the communal space outside, along a noisy freeway is now a peaceful the structure below. Like the over- The 15 adjoining buildings, arranged in surrounding an informally designed lake park wiih a series of handsome slructures hanging eaves of a Frank Lloyd Wright live groups, vary in size from 33.000 to \\ ith an indigenous garden of willows, straddling a lake, within a sculpted Prairie house, the awning draws the KH).(XX) square feet. The ihree buildings oaks, and pines. Carolina jasmine and fig landscape of grass and trees. • building into the landscape. In combi- of each group form a pinwheel: a pair of ivy climb the columns and trellises of the nation with silver reflective glass, the two-story atrium spaces at right angles to ground-floor arcade. Even though the Notes 13-foot projection adequately screens each other extend irom ihe pinwheel's grounds are easily accessible and are the east. west, and south facades on the center. A single elevator serving the three popular for picnicking, walking, jogging, 1 Kevin Roche and John Dinkeloo hud previously second and third levels. The north face been partners in the office of Eero Siuirinen & buildings sits at the juncture of ihe atrium and occasionally fishing, it is from the is unscreened, as direct sunlight to Associates in Bloomficld Hills. Michigan. From spaces, hut most employees prefer to use inside looking out that one most effec- 11>SII to I lJfi1. the year of Saarinen's premature this exposure is minimal. To shade ihe Ihe stairs in ihe naturally lit wells at the tively experiences the calm of this death al ihe age of 51. they were closely associated ground level, a three-quarter-mite ends of the buildings. On each floor, near idealized landscape. with Saanncn projecis. In I'Wil. Roche and elevated outdoor walkway runs beneath ihe stairwell, a conference room pokes Dinkeloo opened their office in Hunulen, Connec- [he awning, serving also lo connect the ticut, outside New Haven. Until his dealh in IWil. out from the building's end with a semi- In making the garden. Roche turned complex al the second level. Responding John Dinkeloo was actively involved in all projecis. octagonal glass bay. The three buildings Kevin Roche, principal designer for Ihe firm, has Hoiision'> semilropical climate to his lo ihe employees" desire for covered of each grouping define an irregular advantage. Going further, he also continued the practice under the name Kevin Roche parking, ihe canopy design is repealed John Dinkeloo and Associates, for the outdoor parking in what is surely ihe finest architectural solution in Hous- 2 Francesco Dal Co. Kevin Roche (New York: lon for disguising the endless sea of Riz/.oli. 14X51. p. h4. These remarks are taken from automobiles and asphalt. From the a conversation between Roche and Dal Co that makes up the majority of ihe text of the monograph. parking area the canopy climbs over the escalators at either end of the complex, .1 I hid., p. 58. running the length of the second-level central walkway. The expression of the awning is synthesized with the structural Bibliography expression thai defines the character Francesco Dal Co. Kevin Roche, New York: of building at Conoco. Flefly poured- Ri/zoli, 1985, concrcle columns support precast concrete beams, framing members, and Ruben Fishman. Bourgeois Utopias, Basic Books. Inc.. I'JK7. wall panels and a poured-concrete floor. The translucent white of ihe awning Carlton Knighi Hi, "Serene Pavilions Traversing a is reiterated in the milky while of the Lake." Architecture, December I'JXh. concrete, rendering a bright cohesive- ness against the surrounding garden.

As Houston continues lo grow outward, it is likely ihat the office campus will be a choice for the corporation seeking Pedestrian bridges traverse the lake.