Willis Faber Dumas HQ Ipswich

摘要

Completed in 1975, this open-plan office complex housesrn1300 staff on three floors in central Ipswich. The open-plan concept is given focus by the large escalator well which permits vertical circulation and spills light down into the core of the building. The bank of escalators leads up through the building from the entrance lobby to a rooftop staff restaurant which isrnsurrounded by a landscaped roof garden. The plan shape of the building, with its mixture of curved and straight external walls, reflects the site geometry and the surrounding street pattern and occupies the whole of the site. The potentiallyrnoverpowering effect of this is mitigated by the pioneering way in which the walls are formed from suspended 'curtains' of toughened bronze float glass.