Press Releases

Greenbridge Breaks Ground
(10.08.07)

Habitat To Spend €59.5 Million on Ecourban Offices in Barcelona
(7.12.05)

Frito-Lay Distribution Center a Prototype for Environmentally Intelligent Design
(6.23.05)

Guangtang Chuangye Park Will Please the People of Liuzhou
(5.26.05)

McDonough To Headline 2005 FORTUNE Global Forum
(5.9.05)

Nation's Top Environmental Design Award Presented to William McDonough
(10.20.04)

Two DC Chapter/AIA Awards for Aspect
(10.14.03)

Woods Hole Research Center
(07.07.03)

Atlanta International Museum Exhibit
(08.14.02)

DC Chapter/AIA Award for Nike EHQ
(11.10.01)

Adoption of the CERES Principles
(06.07.01)

William McDonough + Partners Receives Washington Chapter AIA Award for Excellence for Nike EHQ

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (November 10, 2001) – The Washington DC Chapter of the American Institute of Architects has honored William McDonough + Partners, Architecture and Community Design, with its Award for Excellence in Architecture for Nike European Headquarters in Hilversum, the Netherlands. This is the second year in a row that WM+P has won this award, its design of 901 Cherry, Offices for Gap Inc., in San Bruno, California, having received an Award of Excellence in Architecture in 2000. Internationally recognized as architects, planners, and leaders in sustainable design, the firm employed ecologically intelligent ideas and an urbane approach to planning in the design of the Nike campus.

The design for the campus focuses on creating a workplace focused on sport. Nike cultivates a corporate identity of assertive athletic activity centered on the business of sport? ”Just do it.” This attitude is reflected in a design that gives rise to an active habitat and creates a vibrant, comfortable, and healthy environment of its employees and the surrounding community, promoting physical, social, and cultural health in the broadest possible senses.

As the core of a new community and office park, Nike EHQ is decidely not a suburban development, though it lies on the urban fringe of Hilversum, a national media and communications center southeast of Amsterdam. The campus meshes within the town’s existing patterns of geography and mobility by making use of nearby transit facilities, and a “long-life, loose-fit” design approach preserves optimal flexibility to support future alternative office or even residential uses, thus protecting the long-term interests of the client, the developer, and the community.

The pair of oval tracks that dominate the site serves to connect Nike and its corporate mission to a rich local heritage with strong ties to sport. Built on the site of a former horse trotting track, Nike EHQ lies alongside an historic sports park that features a grandstand designed by internationally acclaimed architect Willem Marinus Dudok for the 1928 Olympics. Given the site’s historic importance, the design team engaged the local planning commission and worked closely with them to integrate their objectives as well as those of the client and the developer. As a result, the campus borrows the central axis of Dudok’s grandstand and aligns another axis with the spire of the town cathedral as it bisects a unique Art Nouveau park. “The Commons” building at the heart of the campus offers clear views of the sports park through its central atrium, providing visual connections with the site.

Four office buildings and “The Commons” encircle a central green that encourages formal and informal communication. (The green doubles as a grass roof for the site’s underground parking and can be flooded in winter to create a skating rink.) The buildings’ north-south orientation, curving roof profiles, deep overhangs, large atria, and extensive use of thermal glazing optimize interior daylighting and ventilation while curtailing unwanted heat gain. Masonry cladding relies on a distinctive buckwheat-colored brick favored by Dudok that recalls the region’s history of wheat cultivation. Taking a cue from the adjacent Art Nouveau park, the four office buildings are rotated slightly to maximize the dimensions of the outer courtyards and to relieve the symmetry. A running track that echoes the former harness-racing track encircles the complex and vaults The Commons’ entrance via a 130m wood-and-steel bridge. A covered walkway with a glass roof and a wood frame trellis links the buildings both physically and visually.

Sustainable materials are employed throughout the campus — recycled aluminum windows, certified wood, and polyethelene piping, which replaced polyvinyl-chloride wherever possible. A closed-loop system of ground source heat pumps -- one of the largest in northern Europe -- utilizes the constant temperature of the Earth to provide safe and effective year-round heating and cooling. Cisterns capture nearly four million liters of storm water annually and store it on-site for use for non-potable purposes like plumbing and irrigation. Such strategies create significant positive economic effects: since occupying the campus, Nike has seen significant reductions in absenteeism and per-capita energy use.

As internationally recognized architects, planners, and leaders in sustainable design, William McDonough + Partners has received wide acclaim for giving vital aesthetic form to innovative models of ecologically intelligent architecture and planning. The firm’s work frequently serves as a benchmark for those in search of a sustaining design agenda both in the United States and around the world. The firm’s founding partner, William McDonough, former dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, is the only individual recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development and was named a "Hero for the Planet" by Time Magazine in 1999. With a staff of more than 40 architects, designers, planners, and researchers, William McDonough + Partners serves a wide-ranging group of international clients that includes Ford Motor Company, IBM, Gap Inc., the City of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution, and the University of California, Davis.

* * * * * * * *

To receive additional information, please contact:

Kira Gould
Director of Communications
media@mcdonough.com
William McDonough + Partners
700 E. Jefferson St.
Charlottesville, VA 22902
vox 434.979.1111
fax 434.979.1112