Description

The new head office of the Swiss Bank’s American branches was erected in Stamford, Connecticut, some distance from Manhattan’s financial district. The stock exchange trading floor is located on the roof of the multi-storey garage, while the centre of UBS, both spatially and in terms of the business itself, is accessed via an imposing, five-storey-high entrance hall, whose elegance reflects its importance. Among office environments, the trading floor, as the place with the highest density of information and communication, takes on particular significance. Linked to the outside world by multimedia: monitors, telephones, etc., 950 traders are squeezed into the 2,500 m² hall. The requirements of non-verbal communication – eye-to-eye contact and an uninterrupted overview of events taking place in the room – are the motivation for developing the space as a hall without columns.

High employee fluctuation rates and a high degree of employee mobility (they frequently have to reform into new groups) require a building that can react to ongoing change. The workplaces in the hall, which are networked with flexible cables and floor level data outlets, are rapidly adapted several times a year to changes in team composition. The team leaders’ offices, surrounding the hall on three sides, are furnished with glazed system partition walls that can be reconfigured overnight if necessary. A large number of variously equipped meeting and conference rooms of different sizes provide space for internal and external meetings, either spontaneous or scheduled. The traders use their (normally short) break time for a refreshing shower in the adjoining bathrooms, for relaxation in a lounge, with snacks from the vending machines, or to go to the cafeteria for proper meals. In summer, the terrace, the restaurant and the café in the new park offer additional opportunities for relaxation. The technical infrastructure, the most sensitive area of the building, is designed to deliver top performance. Underneath the hall, an entire floor provides space for the network backbone, the servers, the monitor systems and the electrical power supply, which has been designed to function as two separate systems. In the unlikely event that both systems go down, an emergency generator ensures that business can continue.

The hall is covered with an arched roof at a height of 9-13 metres. The suspended ceiling of wave-like, perforated fibreglass panels is an important element in the room’s climate control. The perforation evenly distributes the fresh air brought into the building by ducts integrated into the structural frame and at the same time supplies acoustic insulation. The northern light from the bands of windows together with the wave-like fibreglass panels equipped with reflectors envelope the room in an even, glare-free light. The stock market demands top performance and efficiency, both from the traders and from the building with its technical infrastructure and interior fixtures and fittings.

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Originally published in: Rainer Hascher, Simone Jeska, Birgit Klauck, Office Buildings: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2002.