Contract - April 2010 - (Page 47)

a more ‘New York’ New York oﬃce,” he adds, “and you can’t get more New York than this, with continuous views of all of the city.” Inspired by the oﬃce’s relationship to the park below and the grid of Manhattan, BRB created a “garden pavilion” concept, beginning with a walnut-clad elevator lobby. In reception, the planks of a walnut wall reﬂect the trees of the park and reference the lines of the city’s grid. “We wanted the reception area to feel like a layering of gestures,” Zieve says, referring to the glass guardrail, stone ﬂoor, walnut millwork, and the blackened steel that cradles the dramatic staircase down to the second level of the conference center. “These gestures give the project meaning.” The materials palette of millwork, glass, and steel that is established in reception is combined with random red accents throughout the interiors from the attorney ﬂoors, which each has an interior conference room and two pantries, to amenity spaces like the café and multipurpose room on the 43rd ﬂoor. “There is systemized organization to the interior architecture,” Zieve adds. To facilitate wayﬁnding, designers set major conference rooms as anchors at the ends of corridors, oﬀering a sense of arrival. The walnut wall behind the reception desk continues into a main conference room that holds 400 people and accommodates teleconferencing, while another conference space on the other side of the ﬂoor features grand-scale pivot doors, ﬂanking a custom wall that feels like a sculpture and is specially designed to provide acoustical control. In accordance with the client’s sustainability goals, the designers painstakingly selected eco-friendly furnishings and ﬁnishes, specifying carpet and upholste made from natural or recycled ﬁber, low-VOC paints and adhesives, and materials from local sources. Additionally www.contractdesign.com the building’s air ﬁltration system removes 95 percent of particles from the air before redistributing fresh air through an underﬂoor system; a gray-water system reuses rain and wastewater; and waterless urinals and lowﬂow ﬁxtures conserve water. Task chairs were speciﬁed that meet Green Seal and Cradleto-Cradle certiﬁcations. Copious amounts of glass bring natural light deep into the oﬃce, and energy-eﬃcient light ﬁxtures, dimmers, and sensors save on energy usage. All of these environmentally sustainable strategies helped Akin Gump achieve its second LEED-certiﬁed project—only the second LEED Gold law ﬁrm in the nation. “We always thought we’d t to get as good of a rating as we could,” Bell recalls. “We didn’t want to change the project or increase the cost, but we thought [environmental responsibility] was important in terms of recruitment and retention.” He thought right. Employees, he says, are “blown away” by the new oﬃce. contract april 2010 47 http://www.contractdesign.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Contract - April 2010

Contract - April 2010
Contents
Editor's Note
Industry
Resources: The Green Scene
Focus: Land of Opportunity
Green: Post-Occupancy Green
Practice: Legal Green
Lean & Green
Environmental Extraordinaire
Above the Legal Limit
Informing the Masses
Luxury in the Raw
Designers Rate: Green Products
Process: Science in the Age of the Invisible
Sources
Ad Index
Perspectives

Contract - April 2010