This was a student project by Christina Tefend and Rachael Dzierzak for Ashley Schafer's course ARCH 8410 in Autumn 2017.
Three quarters of this semester were spent studying the existing conditions of the Ford Foundation, deeply researching what makes this building canonical. Through this process, we were able to identify some key areas of improvement - public access, and employee work environment. The current trajectory of a modern office is to implement an open office floor plan. This plan, through promoting employee collaboration, has been proven not to be entirely optimal. Our approach to this is to find a median between closed offices and the modern open floor plan by carving out interior garden spaces and using them as an intermediary zone for working. This move also ultimately allows for the atrium garden to be opened entirely to the public, speaking towards the Ford Foundation’s new desire for transparency.
