While the making is alone an arresting architectural variety, significantly of its fundamental design and style idea emerged from a subtle goal: To remediate the ecology of its web-site and the bordering campus. Operating on a internet site that had been a surface level parking large amount, impervious to water, Skylab built inexperienced roofs and a catchment procedure to reduce stormwater operate-off, contributing to Nike’s commitment to make what it calls a “salmon-safe” campus.
Just one of the site’s edges was bordered by a service road—a workaday corridor trafficked by shipping and delivery trucks. Past the street was a extend of wetlands. As Kovel places it, “We did not want to have a bottom to this setting up.” So, to give the constructing a comprehensive 360-diploma presence, Skylab buried the service street, developing an underground passageway, and connected the constructing with the wetlands landscape. Along this new edge, a cafeteria opens to outdoor room, producing an indoor-out of doors shared environment that speaks instantly to the layout team’s drive to link architecture with character.
Nike committed the creating to an formidable environmental functionality. With its concentrate on water conservation, economical constructing techniques, sustainable components, and wetlands remediation, the Serena Williams Developing is created to be LEED Platinum–certified. But, as Susan Barnes, a principal with Skylab, claims, “We looked for approaches to be Platinum-in addition.”