Home > Articles By Issue > Building Envelope & Exteriors > Article Jan. 2003

SHOWCASE: Integrating Products, Personnel And Properties

By John Parkinson

Today's telecom market is facing seemingly unsurmountable challenges in trying to regain its market share, adopt new business strategies, and recover from subsequent downsizing. However, expectations were different just a few years ago. The sky was the limit for information technology (IT); everything and anything was possible. During this same time period, ADC Telecommunications decided to look into combining several of the company's businesses, bringing many of its employees together, and merging several of its offices into one corporate center.

ADC went to Hammel, Green, Abrahamson (HGA), a Minneapolis, MN based architectural firm with its synergistic idea. By creating this single environment, ADC would not only unite its staff and IT oriented products and services, it would also rid the company of its numerous office spaces.

Vision

"The CEO at the time, William Cadogan, wanted to integrate the company," explains Manos Ginis, AIA, project architect and principal of HGA. "The company had grown into a kind of independent culture with people moving different products in different locations. He wanted to take all these different technologies and integrate them."

However, this led to a vital question: Would it be possible to achieve a massive integration that involves several office locations, over a thousand employees, and massive amounts of IT infrastructure? The answer came in the way of the ADC Telecommunications Global Headquarters in Eden Prairie, MN. Its completion in the fall of 2001 set the stage for a massive migration of several hundred employees to the new facility.

The campus consists of offices, laboratories, full service and catering cafeterias, 1,400 car, multilevel parking deck, exercise facilities, a coffee shop, a company store, and a 300 seat auditorium.

What Employees Want

From the earliest stages of planning, ADC incorporated employee feedback specific to design elements and functionality. This data was gathered through surveys and focus groups that reached across the business units that would eventually occupy the space.

Along every stage of the project, ADC management and the HGA design team worked very hard with employees to see what was essential to their work experience. "We did a number of surveys about what people thought was important," Ginis explains. "At the top of the list was natural lighting." With that in mind, Ginis and his group went to work on developing ideas to accommodate the company's request.

Adaptability

The results of the survey also determined the company's greater goals for the project. "The need for ADC to have flexible, adaptable, quick change space for offices and labs was extremely important in our design concept," explains Scott Reinke, facility director, ADC.

From this specific need came the impetus for the concept of disruption control. Clearly, the act of moving in employees, equipment, and infrastructure in a seamless fashion was going to require some serious planning. "Physically moving them in there wasn't going to accomplish much if the infrastructure was not up and running and had not been tested," states Mark Johnson, mechanical engineer, HGA. "The dependence on communications, data, and telephone networks is just huge these days. Those were things that had to be tested and fully operational in order to move in."

While that short-term problem could be addressed, how was the design of the building going to enable the company to maintain its adaptable, productive work force?

One solution came from the 24" raised access floors which were manufactured by Tate Access Floor and installed by Bartley Sales of St. Louis Park, MN. The access floors house three million feet of conduit and wire and over 170 miles of Cat 6 data and voice cabling. This arrangement would accommodate easy reconfiguration projects. "Because of the raised access floor design, we have the ability to be very responsive to reconfiguration requirements while managing minimal disruption," states Reinke.

Individual Comfort Control

Along with housing the technological infrastructure, the floors also are used to send air to individual cubicles and throughout the facility. The HVAC system was installed by Yale Mechanical of Bloomington, MN. Each workstation is equipped with individual PEM (personal environmental modules) units manufactured by Johnson Controls.

As the name implies, PEMs are individual comfort control units that can be adjusted by the individual employee. Each unit includes a desktop control module, an under desk fan with variable air volume (VAV) controller, variable speed fan, and air filters.

PEMs offer several different features. Employees can adjust their lighting with a task lighting control device, filter outside noise or conversations with an adjustable white noice generator, and control their cubicle temperature without leaving their workstations. In addition, occupancy sensor can turn everything on in the morning when employees sit at their desks or turn everything off when someone gets up for a predetermined amount of time or leaves for the day.

Windows And Lighting

Because natural lighting was established as the single most important thing to employees, great lengths were taken to accommodate this goal. The first approach made glass and windows prevalent throughout the buildings. There are over 8,000 glass units in place at the campus. Two types of glass were used: Viracon Solarscreen 2000 Typical Vision Glass and Viracon Solarscreen 2000 Typical Screened Glass. The glazing installations were done by Minneapolis, MN-based Harmon Inc. The other approach was to make the floor to ceiling dimensions a total of 16'-unusual for work environments, according to Ginis. This would provide a greater abundance of natural light.

Environmental Concerns

Before sustainable design became a catchphrase, HGA was concerned with how to design the building with environmental conservation in mind. The plans addressed this issue through the open design and the preservation of wetlands.

Because the site is located on protected wetlands, HGA had to be cognizant of where it could and could not build. HGA worked with local, state, and federal officials to make sure it was in compliance with laws on every level. "We took enormous care to make sure the building environment was integrated with the natural environment," Ginis says.

The ADC site required less materials than most typical office structures because of its open space design. "You pretty much have the building structure, the columns, the roof and floor decking, and really not much else," states Mark Johnson, mechanical engineer, HGA. "From a materials standpoint, there was a significant reduction in the amount of materials in the building." Also, all the materials used in the project were recyclable.

One of the major goals for the project was to convey the communal feelings in the overall campus design. "The ample circulation space and soaring atriums provide a sense of openness," explains Reinke. "It definitely gives a sense of community within a structured space."

With ADC acclimated to its newer surroundings, the giant telecom company has accomplished its goal of integration through the use of HGA's design concepts. The international telecom conglomerate not only has a campus that meets its goals, but also one that allows for future expansion.

While this project was born of a different time and began with different expectations, the campus and company are poised to surmount the challenges facing them on the horizon.

To find out more about HGA design group, visit the Web at www.hga.com.