Okland Construction Headquarters with replicable, sustainable design principles and goals
WRNS Studio
Office&Business
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Completed
With roots that reach back to 1918, Okland Construction is a privatively-held, family-owned business that has left its mark of craftsmanship and uncompromising quality throughout North America. Following our partnership working on a multi-phased build-out of Adobe’s Lehi, Utah campus, Okland hired the architect to renovate and expand their existing headquarters. Using LEED, Living Building Challenge, and WELL, we worked with Okland to craft a healthy, inspirational workplace that connects employees with one another and their natural environment. Strategies focused on using healthy, regional materials, maximizing daylighting and views, and creating a warm and engaging sense of place.
Drawing on Okland’s spirit of collaboration and origin as skilled carpenters and shipbuilders, material exploration defined the design process. Options were mocked up on site to review quality and ensure resiliency against the local Utah climate. The building’s existing brick was paired back, allowing for the introduction of contemporary building materials like Shou Sugi Ban wood cladding and cast-in-place concrete, specialties of Okland. Materiality also helped code the building: delineating formal from informal spaces and highlighting program hierarchy. The 1st floor Town Hall is clad in cast-in-place concrete, contrasting with the darker Shou Sugi Ban wood that wraps the 2nd floor. A glass and louver system on the existing 2nd floor allow natural light to flow into executive suites and to bring levity to the building’s volume.
The intensification of color and materiality occurs at high-traffic spaces. Cherry wood, utilized as exterior window mullions, reappears in the reception and lounge areas, contributing warmth to the organic palate. To maintain a visual connection to the lush natural surroundings, the new addition shelters a courtyard planted with regionally-important red oak trees and lavender. A newly established atrium cuts through the existing building, instituting simplified connections between floors and allowing natural light to filter into subterranean rooms. Concrete and tongue-and-grove black panels create continuity throughout the interior. The new addition extends forward, like a ship’s bow, nearly doubling the workspace, while a new entrance reorients the building, better integrating the modern form into the site’s residential setting.
Woven throughout the interiors, the application of primary colors plays a key role in defining space. Red and blue is favored in gathering spaces. Woven red carpets create individual vignettes accented by blue upholstery, accent wall paint and wall coverings. Blue Heath Tile is also utilized to mark pantry spaces. As Okland’s logo is yellow the color was used sparingly, apart from the main circulation stair where concrete risers are enclosed in lacquered yellow steel, indicative of construction vehicles.
Throughout the project, the design team engaged Okland in the process, leveraging their expertise to arrive at financially viable, replicable, sustainable design principles and goals which the construction company has extended into employee offerings and company policies.
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With roots that reach back to 1918, Okland Construction is a privatively-held, family-owned business that has left its mark of craftsmanship and uncompromising quality throughout North America.
Tim Griffith
Using LEED, Living Building Challenge, and WELL, we worked with Okland to craft a healthy, inspirational workplace that connects employees with one another and their natural environment.
Tim Griffith
A newly established atrium cuts through the existing building, instituting simplified connections between floors and allowing natural light to filter into subterranean rooms.
Tim Griffith
As Okland’s logo is yellow the color was used sparingly, apart from the main circulation stair where concrete risers are enclosed in lacquered yellow steel, indicative of construction vehicles.
Tim Griffith
A glass and louver system on the existing 2nd floor allow natural light to flow into executive suites and to bring levity to the building’s volume.
Tim Griffith
Strategies focused on using healthy, regional materials, maximizing daylighting and views, and creating a warm and engaging sense of place.
Tim Griffith
Drawing on Okland’s spirit of collaboration and origin as skilled carpenters and shipbuilders, material exploration defined the design process.
Tim Griffith
Woven throughout the interiors, the application of primary colors plays a key role in defining space. Red and blue is favored in gathering spaces.
Tim Griffith
Throughout the project, the design team engaged Okland in the process, leveraging their expertise to arrive at financially viable, replicable, sustainable design principles and goals which the construction
Tim Griffith
The building’s existing brick was paired back, allowing for the introduction of contemporary building materials like Shou Sugi Ban wood cladding and cast-in-place concrete, specialties of Okland.
Salt Lake City, UT
United States
Okland Construction
09/2019
4303.08 sq. m
WRNS Studio
Bryan Shiles, Brian Milman, Pauline Souza, Tim Jonas, Stephen Kelley, Lauren Bordessa, Alex Jopek
Okland Construction
Ensign Engineering and Land Surveying: Civil Engineer l; PVE Inc.: Mechanical and Plumbing Engineer; ArcSitio Design: Landscape Architect; Dunn Associates Inc.: Structural Engineer; Spectrum Engineers: Electrical Engineer
Tim Griffith
Curriculum
WRNS Studio works with today’s most transformative organizations — Microsoft, Stanford University, Google, Princeton University, Airbnb, the University of California, and the Trust for Public Land, to name a few — to steward their brands with exceptional architecture. Recognized for sustainable, site-specific design at any scale, WRNS Studio has offices in San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, and New York. WRNS Studio consistently earns a top ten spot in Architect magazine’s annual ranking of firms across business, sustainability, and design, including the #1 spots in 2018 and 2013.
