Can high rises connect one another? Can people feel healthier after visiting a building? Why can’t cities be the greenest places on earth? An environmentally sensitive design firm, NBBJ answers thought-provoking questions in the quest for design solutions. NBBJ is a firm with strong beliefs in creating healthy spaces, strong communities, and a resilient environment. They believe design possesses a power that heals, unites, empowers, and inspires. Communities are connected through design, and it enhances the bond between humans.
Design Philosophy | Hana Bank
NBBJ builds for a better future and has a sense of responsibility towards the environment, creating spaces that improve end users’ health and performance and giving importance to clients’ cultures and values to bring change. They follow an empathetic design process, all while paying heed to their business needs as well.
NBBJ had to devise solutions for Hana Bank’s new Headquarters office. Unlike the regular mundane workplaces, the headquarters for Korean fintech company Hana bank focuses on restorative work- “The idea that people can leave workplaces feeling better than they arrived”
Even before the pandemic struck the world, they together aimed for a design solution that focused on a healthier space, enhanced employee engagement, focused on providing better mental health, and infused with the thrill of work. For years, the thought prevailed in low whispers. As one of the offices designed during Covid19, it especially understood the importance of green on our health and its role in recovery. Workforces were in dire need of a change from a stringent work culture. Employees suffered from deteriorated physical and mental health. Whereas the pandemic ignited this spark, it provided a concrete reason to bring about this change.
Unlike regular cubicles, Hana bank’s design incorporates nature inside the building with team-focused and united workspaces. It houses a ribbon park, also referred to as an infinite Park. This continuous single 12-story pathway is interwoven with green spaces and holds the building together. These paths connect major hubs, alternative focus work areas and collaboration spaces, wine bars, and outdoor terraces where employees can interact.
A 1,00,000 square feet corporate office building, Hana bank calls its new headquarters “Mindmark “. NBBJ believes that work shouldn’t be a place to finish a checklist but a place to carry out creative tasks and learn. Hence terms like learning centres or innovative spaces were introduced to induce a sense of belonging in employees. Located in Cheogna Korea, It features a holistic approach and makes people look forward to coming to work. The green ramps running throughout the building acts as a space for one on one walking meetings, creative ideas, socialising, more importantly, to relax.
Planning
Employees and visitors enjoy different vantage points. At the building’s lower level indoor atrium, the glass atriums fill the space with natural light, with no barred external views. The use of wood as material and different elements adds warmth and comfort to the building. Overlapping curved corridor spaces are like exploring the wild, supporting structural systems giving an idea of tree trunks, which hold the floor plans together with a healing built environment.
An alluring edifice unites employees and visitors with immersive landscapes wielding the health benefits of green space, extensive plants, and outspread landscapes to create a sense of leisure and a welcoming experience. The Hana Bank’s headquarters aims to reduce energy use by using waste heat from the nearby data centre. It also plans to generate renewable energy through solar panels on the roof and throughout the campus, along with the use of geothermal heat PMP systems to attain sustainability by following healthy building guidelines.
Post Covid-19 | Hana Bank
The era of covid 19 has raised concerns for the built environment, compelling organisations to ask questions – what kind of change their existing infrastructure requires? Whether they are upbeat with the current trends? Should they rethink their mission, values, and responsibilities for the future?
“NBBJS Hana financial group headquarters will be a visual expression of Hana values and showcase its commitment to human health knowledge and life experiences, not just the bottom line.“
To scrap the idea of conventional offices with enclosed forms and elevator access, a proposal of organic built form, continuous & engaging pathways interconnected to activity spaces was given. The warmth of Natural materials and landscapes are intertwined to make it a whole. It brings the outside in or, to say, ‘The outside‘ itself.
It is apparent that people run for the hills to relax, experience leisure, and take a moment to rethink decisions, all by getting close to nature and finding answers. – Nature heals. The green plazas and pocket green spaces with splendid undulating landforms, infinite terraces with direct connection with the exterior and points of interest encourage people to pause, relax, take a deep breath then to carry on with their respective agenda. NBBJ envisioned the idea of the possibility to live, work, and create, all together. For Hana Bank headquarters, working here is just like taking a walk in the park!
References:
Citations for websites:
Kat Barandy(2021). NBBJ envisions a sculptural future for post-COVID workspaces in korea. [online]. (Last updated: jun 29 2021).
Available At:www.designboom.com/architecture/nbbj-hana-bank-post-covid-workspace-cheongna-korea-06-29-2021/[Accessed date: 01/10/2022.
(2022). Hana Bank Headquarters. [online]. (Last updated: 2022).
Available at: www.nbbj.com/work/hana-bank-headquarters [Accessed date: 01/10/2022.