Santa Clara Square by Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP | World Design Awards 2020

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP: Third Award of World Design Award 2020. Santa Clara Square embodies a design vision unique for commercial development, featuring an array of carefully developed components: pedestrian-friendly open space throughout; a variety of neighborhoods, ranging in character from formal to meandering; buildings that frame space, with arcades that weave the structure into the environment; lively amenity buildings that punctuate the landscape; and parking for 8,000 vehicles, sited so as not to diminish the cohesiveness of the campus.

The result is a highly walkable, interactive, and engaging workplace, ideally suited to today’s workforce.

Santa Clara Square office campus is part of a larger development plan that also includes a shopping area and new housing. By bringing these programmatic components closely together, the plan allows residents of Santa Clara to live in a more sustainable way.

Buildings on the west campus are organized around a central dining pavilion flanked by recreational green spaces. Indigenous redwoods, carefully preserved throughout the campus, animate its southern edge and create an integrated buffer with adjacent mixed-use areas while connecting the campus to the natural landscape of Northern California.

In contrast with its counterpart on the west, the east campus offers a more informal, meandering experience, with pathways that allow for relaxed, spontaneous navigation around clusters of indigenous redwoods.

An array of elegant glass-and-metal-clad buildings frame courtyards where users can enjoy community amenities and beautifully landscaped gathering places. Generous arcades create clear circulation paths and engaging transitions between exterior and interior, while the high-efficiency glazed facades serve as a dynamic backdrop for both the internal workplace and the communal courtyard spaces.

In each office building, tenants and visitors are welcomed by generously scaled front and rear lobbies leading to a central elevator bank, where state-of-the-art destination-dispatch lift technology moves people efficiently through the building. Typical office floors are 31,200 square feet with 45- and 60-foot spans of column-free space, allowing for a flexible work environment. Open, column-free corner offices provide expansive views of the campus and beyond.

Campus amenities include three dedicated fitness and café buildings, strategically located to complement the office buildings and further enhance the space-shaping planning strategy fundamental to the organization of the west and east campuses.

Firm: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP
Architect: Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects LLP
Category: Commercial Built
Project Location: Santa Clara
Team: Lead Designer Michael W. Bischoff
Country: United States 
Photography © Credit: Brad Wheeler, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners

Pei Cobb Freed & Partners is an American architectural firm based in New York City, founded in 1955 by I. M. Pei and other associates. The firm has received numerous awards for its work. The firm provides architectural services, as well as planning and urban design.

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