| Cathay Bank, our client, acquired a property in El Monte, sited on the San Bernardino (I-10) Freeway. Having an objective to create a headquarters facility that collocates scattered business units, the site was chosen for its proximity to the bank’s employee base in the Asian enclaves of eastern Los Angeles County. The site already contained an office building, Park Place, originally built in 1973. Nearly vacant for years, the building which was originally built on spec had deteriorated significantly. The roof leaked, the exterior enclosure was coming apart and the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems had reached their life expectancy.
Client and the design team concluded that renovation was preferable to new construction, though costs were similar for the following reasons:
1. advantageous non-conforming features such as height, which, would not be permitted in a new building at this location.
2. recycling an existing building is the environmentally preferred option
3. new construction would have required a full EIR phase, delaying move-in by at least a year.
The program objectives included a full renovation of the building to accomplish the following goals:
1. Transform image of the building
2. Create a flexible day-lit work environment
3. Building seismic and energy performance enhancements
4. Enhance freeway visibility to project the bank’s identity
A full scope of work including architecture, interiors, landscape and environmental graphics was provided. The cost goal for the building was market-average and an aggressive delivery schedule was set.
The existing building posed numerous technical challenges that were solved through collaboration with the extended design team. This process led to innovations resulting in a completed project that reduced the building’s energy usage by over 50% among other metrics.
Our formal and spatial goal was to re-shape the building in such a way that we enhance the dialogue between it and the freeway. Locked into a set of mediocre proportions by the structural frame, the building could neither be dramatically tall, slender nor long. However, through a series of operations that did not actually add height to the building, we altered the way the building is read from the road. The resulting increase in visual prominence and the outstanding level of transparency in the façade help provide a distinct identity for the bank as it enters a new era. While the maximization of transparency helps convey the bank’s intentional message of openness, it also plays an important role in day-lighting the workplace within. A critical balance of visual transparency and energy performance is made through the variation of each building façade in relation to its solar orientation. Not just skin deep, solar was also a key driver in the planning of the workplace floors to optimize comfort and energy utilization. As day turns to dusk, stylized goldfish spanning multiple floors appear inside the building. A way-finding device to occupants by day, these Chinese symbols of prosperity appear at dusk to the static observer from north of the freeway, thus a new dialogue with the community emerges alongside the ubiquitous freeway.
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