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Structure Type: built works - commercial buildings - corporate headquarters; built works - commercial buildings - office buildings
Designers: Knoll International (firm); Sasaki, Walker Associates (SWA), Incorporated, Landscape Architects (firm); Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), San Francisco, CA (firm); Edward Charles Bassett (architect); Florence Schust Knoll (interior designer); John Ogden Merrill (architect); Nathaniel Alexander Owings (architect); Hideo Sasaki (landscape architect/urban planner); Louis Skidmore Sr. (architect); Peter J. Walker (landscape architect)
Dates: constructed 1971
Overview
The timber and real estate company, Weyerhaeuser, erected this office complex utlizing the talents of a remarkable, highly integrated team of designers. The development's original centerpiece was a five-story-tall office building, set in meticulously-planned, park-like surroundings. Coming at the cusp of a heightened public awareness in environmentalism, it represented an extraordinary synthesis of design talents, merging interior and exterior, making this corporate headquarters one of the most ambitious and extraordinary of the 1970s. Weyerhaeuser, a company long associated with denuding forests through logging, sought to make a new public statement here. It articulated a sensitive vision of how architecture and landscape could be planned together to maximize corporate productivity and enhance employee well-being.
Building History
Charles Bassett (1921-1999) of Skidmore Owings and Merrill's (SOM) San Francisco office was the Partner-in-Charge of this project; the original architect was Gordon Bunshaft (1909-1990) of SOM's New York office, but George H. Weyerhaeuser, Sr., (b. 1926) decided to offer the commission to a Western architect. The magazine Architecture/West. reported in its issue of 01/1965: "Skidmore Owings & Merrill have been retained by Weyerhaeuser Company to survey space requirements, potential building sites for an addition to the headquarters facility of the Tacoma-based firm." (See "Commissions," Architecture/West, vol. 71, no. 1, 01/1965, p. 9.)
Weyerhaeuser went through significant restructuring in 2008, resulting in the closure of some offices in Federal Way, WA, and the relocation of some workers in the city.
Building Notes
In 1977, the construction of this building consolidated the locations of 22 offices in Tacoma, WA. The building contained 360,000 square feet. A new office system manufactured by Knoll, the Stephens Office System, was designed originally for this building.
The building received the American Institute of Architects' very significant Twenty-five Year Award in 2001.
Tel: 253.838.4646 (2007).
PCAD id: 3920
