  |
 |
|
|
|
  |
 |
|
| Get More Connected |
 |
|
|
| 3Com, founded in 1979, has constantly boosted its
sales and kept expanding its operations, backed up by its core strength, foresight
and technological superiority. The company is about to shift from a networking
system maker to a solution provider in order to meet the pressing needs of the
times. 3Com's faciiities strategy is as flexible and daring as its business, which
has always found new business chances. The company has been based at the edge
of Santa Clara in Silicon Valley for ten years. Its headquarters embraced by bright
California sunlight is a reflection of its flat and open culture and has evolved
through different phases to a stage where "connectivity" is an all-governing
theme throughout the whole campus. |
| |
 |
|
| 3COM
CORPORATION/ Santa Clara, California, USA |
| "The facility should reflect everything
about the company which builds it." |
|
Driving on the Interstate 290 from lowa towards
Chicago, soon after you see a sign for Chicago, a unique and dynamic structure
will come into your view. It is 3Com's Midwest Corporate Campus.
In 1997, following the merger with U.S. Robotics, 3Com decided to consolidate
the bases of the two companies in the Chicago area into U.S. Robotics' Rolling
Meadows campus, which had been leased to U.S. Robotics for use as its headquarters.
3Com bought the building as well as the entire 41-acre land and created the new
base for their Midwest operations. The two-story building constructed in the 1960s
were totally renovated into a new office which inherits 3Com's corporate culture
and at the same time integrates U.S. Robotics' corporate color and Midwest's local
flavor. |
| |
 |
|
| 3COM
CORPORATION/Rolling Meadows, Illinois, USA |
| The Functional Landmark |
|
 |
|
|
| Making Your Workplace Work |
|
|
|
| Business is changing at an unprecedented speed
and scale. How should corporations deal with this change? It may be easy for a
company to explain its corporate goal by word but it is difficult to give it a
visual and tactile reality. Much more so for a consultancy to embody its goal
in a way easily perceivable to all employees and presentable to clients. The head
office of One Workplace L. Ferrari(to be referred to as One Workplace), completed
in September, 1998, is a solution to this hard task. It is a work environment
where all the workers engage themselves in their jobs with clear ideas of what
to be done, and the slogan, "Make Your Workplace Work," permeates every
corner of the office. It is a live office full of original ideas to survive any
changes in future. |
| |
 |
|
| ONE
WORKPLACE L. FERRARI/ Milpitas, California, USA |
| The Entire Office Is a Catalog of Solutions |
|
 |
|
|
| Harmony with Nature |
|
|
|
| Shaklee Corporation's head office completed in
1999 is an embodiment of its concept, "Harmony with Nature." The office,
designed for low energy consumption, built with recycled materials, inundated
with natural light and surrounded by an expanse of green lawn, is truly a nature-friendly
architecture. Pioneer in the field of nutritional supplements and foods, Shaklee
was founded by Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee. Dr. Shaklee had been a sickly youth but
became invigorated by living in a suburban country blessed with abundant gifts
of nature. This experience was a driving force behind the creation of the company.
The new, pure-white office reinforces Shaklee's corporate image it has been building
up since the days of Dr. Shakiee. The ecologically designed green office has been
in the spotlight in recent years in tune with swelling ecological consciousness.
The times have finally caught up with the lofty ideas Dr. Shaklee began to advocate
half a century ago. |
| |
 |
|
| SHAKLEE/
Pleasanton, California, USA |
| Bring the Outdoors Inside |
|
 |
|
|
| Everything Exposed |
|
|
|
Today we are on the verge of entering a mobile
information society where mobile phones and the internet are integrated. Destined
to leading such a network age as a standard-bearer is NOKIA. The office of the
IPRG (Internet Protocol Routing Group) built in Mountain View in Silicon Valley
is one of the bases supporting business operations in the new age.
Though equipped with state-of-the-art facilities. the office interior is bare,
with exposed ducts and unpainted columns and walls. making you feel as if you
are inside a construction tunnel. An image appropriate to an office built for
workers who call themselves "plumbers of the Internet." |
| |
 |
|
| NOKIA/
Mountain View, California, USA |
| This Office Clearly Embodies NOKIA's
Branding Strategy |
|
|
|
|
| Let's Start with Who You Are |
|
|
|
| In the modern society inundated with waves after
waves of information, whether a corporation succeeds or fails rests on how it
builds its own image. Threading the tradition and culture of a corporation into
an identity is called branding. Branding covers not only products and advertisements
but also working environments. Gensler, a long-time advocator of the importance
of "design continuity" well before "branding" became a common
term, employs branding specialists as well as architects and interior designers.
When Gensler is commissioned to take charge of a project, the first thing it does
is to make its client understand who they are. |
| |
 |
|
| GENSLER/
San Francisco, California, USA |
| Branding Practice |
|
|
|
|
