Becton
Dickinson Corporate Headquarters II
Franklin Lakes, New Jersey
The
second building of the Becton Dickinson campus houses in its 450,000 sq.
ft. the Divisional Headquarters’ offices and research laboratories
which complement the Corporate Headquarters built 5 years earlier, and
further develops the thematics of a workplace in a country setting.
Like its predecessor, it is laid out as a low extended structure with its wings stretching out in a finger-like arrangement northwards into the site, allowing for a majority of offices to be placed along its exterior wall. Since there are no doors to these offices, the adjacent interior work spaces can equally enjoy views of the landscape. A transverse concourse gives access to all the fingers of the plan. It joins the three atria, each designed with different materials and a different ambience, and connects the three major staircases for vertical interaction. The two long fingers of the plan enclose a block of vertically stacked laboratories, while two shorter ones contain a cafeteria, private dining and classrooms. A knuckle placed slightly off-center houses the entry, lobby, grand staircase and loggia, and a lecture hall amphitheatre below. Garden terraces are laid out as bas-relief in collaboration with the sculptor Michael Singer. The architectural language and materials of the building follow the precedent of the earlier building, its planimetric form and the tectonic elements of walls, columns, window assemblies and roof overhangs. The honey color brick and granite base, the lime-stone framed windows, copper roof and bracket supports are common to both buildings. Due to its different purpose and lack of representational function, there is in this building more of the neutrality of systemic rhythms and less of the hierarchy and figural variation of the corporate headquarters. Yet the continuity between the two buildings on either side of the central lawn remains clearly established. |
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Project Data Completion
Date: 1992 |
Awards: •
1998 AIA Honor Award for Architecture Publications: |
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