(continued)

Grebe continues: "The structural system for the office, laboratory pavilion is a system of heavy timber girders and columns. Foundations and suspended floor slabs are of reinforced concrete. Concrete masonry shear walls brace this support structure and anchor the 220,000-square-foot (20,000-square-meter) plywood diaphragm roof."

The five-story, 358,000-square-foot (33,000-square-meter) building is arguably most notable and influential in that it was one of the first major office buildings to embrace the concept of open office landscape. This interior was designed by SOM in collaboration with Knoll International and Rodgers Associates.

Edward Charles Bassett, FAIA, the project's lead design architect said: "It was an idea that required the building to be designed specifically for open space, which could not be converted back to traditional layouts. Architecturally, it required a full commitment to the open plan to be successful."

The Other Landscape

Also notable is the building's relationship to the exterior landscape. Through its huge expanses of glazing, made possible by its internal structure, employees have vistas over the 230-acre (93 hectare) wooded campus.

In nominating the Weyerhaeuser Headquarters for the award, Louis R. Pounders, AIA, a member of the AIA's Committee on Design, wrote: "The Weyerhaeuser Headquarters is a milestone project. It is the perhaps one of the most famous and one of the earliest examples of a large corporate headquarters complex that has been totally integrated with its natural setting, becoming an integral part of the landscape."

Bassett recalls his approach to the site: "The climate in the Northwest is so beautiful, with the mists and fogs and the grayed greens. Very Whistler-like, very oriental. The site itself had an interesting character which immediately suggested a solution.

"It had been cut up badly over a long period of time by county roads, abandoned access trails, and spotty, semi-rural development. Once we decided how to place the building on the site, we began to work on a plan to reclaim and heal the property under Weyerhaeuser's stewardship."

The rehabilation seems exemplary. But the beauty of the headquarters setting is ironic in light of the less attractive transformation of vast tracts of the Pacific Northwest through the industry's continuing practice of clearcutting.

Irony notwithstanding, the building has been influential as a landmark in office design. While its open-plan office floors have changed constantly to meet new work patterns, the building itself has not been substantially modified except to improve energy performance.

Reflecting on the innovative interior landscape and the integration with the natural landscape, Roger Montgomery wrote in Architectural Forum: "the integral realization of landscape in its twin meanings will give Weyerhaeuser its lasting architectural value."

Landscape architect Peter Walker placed the building on a 230-acre (93-hectare) wooded campus. Image: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill The open-plan office landscape was designed by SOM in collaboration with Knoll International and Rodgers Associates. Photo: Ezra Stoller/Esto Terrace section. Image: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill The Weyerhaeuser Headquarters in Tacoma, Washington, has just received the 2001 AIA Twenty-five Year Award. Photo: Ezra Stoller/Esto It was described as the "most ambitious American effort at a totally partition-free office interior." Photo: Ezra Stoller/Esto The design emphasized the integration of architecture and landscape. Photo: Ezra Stoller/Esto Transverse Section. Image: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill View to the lake. Image: Skidmore, Owings & Merrill   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.