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Computer Sciences Corporation HQ

RTKL, Hampshire, 2002

 

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Stone monoliths on the line of a stone wall through the entrance and the reception area 

Paul Bock (website)     Download Original

  • Stone monoliths on the line of a stone wall through the entrance and the reception area    
  • The night view draws the elements together into a whole, even though there is no vantage point from which to see the entire rear of the building     
  • The main approach to the headquarters    
  • The ends of the blocks are lightened visually by tapering the plan and using fair-faced concrete piloti     
  • A wall marking the reception is set among three species of heather to prolong flowering    
  • stone wall continues into the reception    
  • The feature stairs consist of precast white concrete treads, cantilevering from a reinforced concrete spine wall    
  • The reception area, with stairs down to the double-height hub    
  • The fanned layout of the blocks increases contact of office floors with the surrounding landscape    
  • Simple, repetitive desking. Long vistas are punctuated with glass box meeting rooms    
  • The hub facing the landscape has a choice of serveries. The higher level walkway to the left connects to the office blocks    
  • Site plan    
  • Entry level plan    
  • Lower ground level plan    
  • Typical floor plan    

Four interconnected office blocks set in a radial plan in historic woodland, built as the European, Middle Eastern and African headquarters for the Computer Sciences Corporation

The 2.6ha site is heavily wooded, visually cutting off the building from the surrounding countryside. In the four office blocks, the 16 identical floor plates house 90 or more people in flexible open-plan space.

The land rises to a low terracotta-tiled rainscreen wall, glass-canopied, with the four-storey office blocks showing above. The natural and contrived shaping of the land allows a substantial two-storeys of internal streets to sit behind this wall, dug into the ground, and provides a direct entrance level in the wall to each block and a lower servicing/provisioning level.

The building is founded on simple pad and strip footings in the Bracklesham Beds and is cut back into the hillside so the hub forms a half basement.

The hub’s grid was originally radial but became more irregular as the setting-out of the towers was tweaked to avoid several protected trees. The resulting grid is highly irregular with very little repetition, which made a flat slab the obvious choice for the podium levels. It is 350mm thick with spans of up to 10.5m.

Data

  • Begun: Jul 2000
  • Completed: Mar 2002
  • Floor area: 24,510m2
  • Sector: Office
  • Total cost: £42.1M
  • Tender date: May 2000
  • Procurement: Traditional lump sum
  • Address: Royal Pavilion, Aldershot, Hampshire, GU11 1PZ, United Kingdom

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