Home on the Range: In the foothills near Los Angeles, ZGF Architects creates a serene, environmentally sensitive new HQ for the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.
Agoura Hills, California, is an affluent bedroom community 30 miles northwest of central Los Angeles, marked by lush valleys and broad canyons. But its building stock is less picturesque: along U.S. Route 101, which runs through this small city of about 20,000, drivers are more likely to see banal red-clay-tile-roofed strip malls and gas stations than anything architecturally attractive or intriguing. So the new Conrad N. Hilton Foundation Headquarters, by ZGF Architects' Los Angeles office, is a welcome change of pace. The 22,240-square-foot, $24 million building is a simple rectangular volume clad in strips of auburn, burnt-orange, and deep-yellow split-face sandstone evoking the area's vivid landscapes. The Hilton Foundation, a 69-year-old nonprofit organization, has made its mission “improving the lives of disadvantaged and vulnerable people throughout the world.” It didn't just want a beautiful new office, but one that reflects the foundation's altruistic goals and acts as a model of sustainable design for other organizations across the globe.
The finely detailed, LEED Platinum–certified headquarters, designed for net-zero energy consumption, is the first of four two-story office buildings planned for the 67-acre site. The long, narrow rectangular shape allows daylight into and views out from most of its interior spaces, which include an airy entry, offices (along the center's perimeter), three conference rooms, and central cubicle workspaces on both levels. Among its many green features—a solar thermal-heating system, water-cooled chilling, a planted roof—the building employs a passive-downdraft HVAC system, which provides ventilation and cooling for the 49 occupants. The system comprises 17 downdraft shafts or “chimneys” that punctuate the building's perimeter at regular intervals. Air travels down these shafts, entering the floors of the second and ground levels. “The passive-downdraft system takes advantage of Agoura Hills' moderate weather,” explains Andrew Corney, vice president at environmental design consultancy WSP Built Ecology. “If you have a good ventilation system, you really don't need to put much energy into it.”
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