For Immediate Release: January 25, 2006
New Headquarters for St. Paul Regional Water Services Takes Cues from Art Deco Treatment Plant
Minneapolis, MN - For St. Paul Regional Water Services, "flow" came to mean much more than water pressure and output when the utility decided to relocate three diverse operations to its McCarron's Campus in Maplewood, Minnesota. The term "flow" also defined a variety of traffic patterns introduced to the small campus with the addition of a new headquarters building, a facility for meter-reading trucks and maintenance, and a warehouse for materials distribution and storage.
HGA Architects and Engineers, Inc. (HGA) used industrial-process engineering to untangle the utility's complex streams of traffic and create a master plan of clarity, safety and efficiency on the already highly used and tightly managed site. Moreover, HGA designed a new headquarters building that takes its cues from the site's existing 1920s water-treatment plant, a beautiful example of Art Deco architecture. HGA also custom designed the exteriors of the two new, pre-engineered maintenance and warehouse buildings to complement the industrial character of other structures on campus.
"Through industrial-process engineering, HGA architecturally mapped the site to resolve the client's infrastructure and architectural issues at the same time, "says HGA's Tim Carl, AIA, the project's lead designer. As a result, the McCarron's campus has a holistic rather than piecemeal feel, in which new and existing buildings strengthen the utility's presence and identity at the site.
Managing Flow. The 58-acre site was already home to a water-treatment facility and auxiliary structures when Water Services decided to relocate its downtown St. Paul offices, as well as its distribution and maintenance facility into new buildings on the McCarron's Campus. HGA industrial-process engineer, Brent Peterson, was involved during the project's early planning stages, to ensure new functions, traffic flows and work patterns introduced to the site would coordinate efficiently with existing flows and processes.
"The campus already had a lot of traffic associated with employees and service trucks," Peterson explains. "But the tight site would also have to host a number of new functions, including warehouse distribution and storage, metering and maintenance vehicles, and employees transferred to the new administration building, each with its own traffic patterns that required programming into and out of the campus."
HGA's multi-disciplinary team first had to understand the "core processes" of each group--the types of work the employees do on and/or off site, the vehicles they drive and the access they require--before programming the site to accommodate the divergent needs of each type of work group.
"We looked at integration, coordination and successful synergies to find the appropriate balance in the master plan," Peterson adds. As a result of Peterson's assessments, Carl says, "we were able to separate out these traffic flows and orchestrate them on all three sides of the site into a master plan."
Introducing New Architecture. In the siting and design of the new administration building, and new warehouse and truck buildings, "we architecturally filled in the gaps on the site, rather than creating new ones," Carl says. The two-story, brightly lit, glass lobby of the new 30,000-square-foot administration building, which is perched on top of a grassy slope at the end of the utility's road off Rice Street, welcomes employees and visitors. Silver and blue-metal panels with over-sized, Art Deco-style letters identify each entrance (visitor, employee or loading dock), "giving the building presence from the outside," Carl says.
The architecture and colors of the new administration building were inspired by the site's existing, Art Deco-era water-treatment plant. The repetitive windows in the new building echo the repetitive bays of the plant's exterior. Inside the 1920s building are "stunning Deco interiors," Carl says. "They're not ornate, but all of the concrete ceilings and walls were painted with two to four different greens and blues. We took that color palette and transferred it to the new structure."
In the administration building's main corridor, for instance, large wall sections are painted with Art Deco greens and blues. This patchwork effect, Carl adds, mimics "the quilt pattern of colors and materials industrial buildings often acquire over time, as they're patched and repaired. We took that idea and refined it in the new building, so color and architecture complement each other while referencing to the style of the water-treatment plant already on the site." Exposed ceilings and ductwork reinforce the building's industrial aesthetic.
Work processes at the administration building--office spaces and industrial functions--also informed its design. The rectangular building is actually composed of two rectangular forms pulled apart from and slightly shifted away from each other, with the blue-and-green painted corridor located down the middle. "These proportions," Carl adds, "mimic the Deco proportions of the treatment plant." The two-level glass lobby dramatically connects the two sides at the public end of the building.
Two pre-engineered buildings--one a warehouse for meter-reading trucks, the other a warehouse for Water Services material and storage--were threaded into the existing campus, and sited for efficient truck access. To ensure the buildings' design complemented that of the other buildings, HGA customized the skin with a ripped-metal panel that coordinates with the rest of the project. In addition, HGA customized the entrances and dock doors with a color scheme and metal panels that reflects the character of the new administration building, thus bringing creative value to the pre-engineered buildings.
Through industrial-process engineering and architecture, HGA added value, identity and efficiency to St. Paul Regional Water Services at McCarron's Campus.
:: View Saint Paul Regional Water Services McCarron's Campus
HGA Contact: Julie Luers (612) 758-4000 e-mail JLuers@hga.com
Media Contact: Susan Evans, Evans Larson (612) 338-6999 e-mail susan@evanslarson.com