Fortune 200 Company Headquarters
The breadth and scale of this site for a Fortune 200 company’s corporate headquarters easily has the power to impress if not overwhelm. Located in McLean Virginia, hard by the buzzing Capital beltway, the site included a multi-story office tower, conference center, grand boulevards, and six athletic fields—soccer, basketball, lacrosse, field hockey, and tennis. Amidst all this activity, it’s easy to see that the infrequent or out-of-town visitor might become a little disoriented when arriving for a one-day corporate conference.
Recognizing a need for employees to regroup and recoup, company captains hired FTLA to tone down the grand scale of the site and provide a few quiet nooks and niches. FTLA complied with a winding pathway that passes by several low, dry-laid stone walls. Here visitors can peer into bermed planting beds where rhododendron, cedar, bald cypress, rose, and daffodil help to refocus. The new walkway and its plantings don’t so much detract nor lessen the grandeur of the corporate campus, but help to steady and reorient, allowing a few perches from which to take it all in.