Profile

IBM Corporate Office Building
[now MasterCard International Global Headquarters]

Purchase, New York
Completed 1984

3-story office building with parking
 

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This expandable corporate facility provides offices and parking for 1,500 people on a semi-rural site 45 miles north of Manhattan. The client requested a complex that would convey solidity and strength but which would also allay community concerns about increasing corporate development. In solution, a travertine and architectural concrete building was designed to maximize natural resources for the mutual benefit of both public and private sectors.

Apparent mass was reduced by fragmenting the nearly half-million square foot office building into three linked components and by nestling a three-story employee garage into a hillside, out of view. The whole is set back a quarter-mile from the street and semi-secluded in a remote corner of the site. Occupying less than 20% of the extensively rehabilitated grounds, the complex preserves for the community forty acres of land, green and unoccupied.

A saw-toothed parallelogram at the center of the office building serves as its functional and ceremonial heart. Linked on the north and west are two quarter-circle wings, all three components being organized around skylit atria that promote a sense of community and aid orientation while admitting natural light and color into the interior. Reflective floor-to-ceiling window walls further bring the outdoors inside, as they animate and seemingly expand the exterior.

Major Components

473,000 s/f office building including 160,000 s/f Central Pavilion with 33,000 s/f typical office floor; 8,000 s/f atrium, 4,000 s/f garden lobby; 3,300 s/f auditorium (150 seats); 15,300 s/f dining; North & West Wings: each 156,000 s/f with 37,000 s/f typical office floor and 7,000 s/f atrium; 290,000 s/f parking for 1,100 cars on 2 levels below grade, 1 above + roof

Awards

I. M. Pei & Partners services

Master Planning; Complete Architectural Services including Interior Design

Structural

Weiskopf & Pickworth, New York, NY   

Mechanical / Electrical

Segner and Dalton, Valhalla, NY  

Landscape

Hanna/Olin, Philadelphia, PA

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