The corporate office park is a landscape and building typology that has been rapidly spreading along freeway exits in American suburbs for the past fifty years. The corporate park may be perceived as another placeless typology of suburban sprawl, adopting the domestic language of the green lawn, enlarging it and overwriting it with corporate identity. The unvarying language of the corporate lawn appears in suburban regions throughout the country, indifferent to local natural systems and processes. However, defining elements of the office park such as their expansive scale, maintenance systems, and networking resources can be re-examined for the benefits they may offer their various contexts. The research will attempt to develop an understanding of potential relationships between the suburb, an office park, and local natural systems and to formulate proposals for the better integration of those systems, to be explored through the specific case of Ford Motor Company's Fairlane development in Dearborn, Michigan.
--A brief history of office parks
--The 3 main typologies of office parks
--Current trends in office parks
Since their inception as a new workplace typology, office parks have continued to increase their presence across the American landscape. The prevalence and commonality of the office park distinguishes it as an important type that should be closely examined by designers and planners in order to better take advantage of the specific conditions that define it.
The following characteristics of office parks can be examined as opportunities that can be tuned to create better relationships between office parks and their contexts.
--Size
--Centralization
--Resources
--Networks
The grass lawn is the most visually significant characteristic of the office park landscape. In the United States, grass lawns were initially associated with private residences before they were adopted by corporations, but the lawn is usually historically traced to the constructed landscapes of Capability Brown in England, famous for important estates and such famous landscapes as Kew Gardens. While the aesthetic of vibrant green fields was attainable in England’s rainy climate, it requires significant technology and labor in the many other climates of the United States. In many areas of the U. S., grass is one part of natural plant succession, but the quality of grass that develops ‘naturally’ is not the same as the uniform green ‘carpet’ image of the popularly idealized lawn found in office parks and homes and advertisements. The desire for the ideal lawn contributes to the many shortcomings of this landscaping type.
The following describe some of the problems related to the ideal lawn.
--Maintenance
--Cost
--Pollution
--Ecology
Fairlane is a master planned corporate community located in Dearborn, Michigan, the hometown of Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company. Fairlane began development in 1970 by the real estate branch of Ford Motor Company and is currently considered about 95% built-out. As a case study for potential opportunities in corporate landscapes, Fairlane is a prototypical example of the office park landscapes found all over the country, with grass lawns and seas of parking lots sprawling around office buildings.
Fairlane has recently undertaken several initiatives that attempt to reposition it in a better interrelationship with its specific natural and social context. While there have been several high profile designs for new 'green' corporate headquarters, such as for the Gap and Hermann Miller, both by McDonough + Partners, the Fairlane office park presents the more widely relevant and difficult challenge of ecologically improving an already existing office park development. They have experienced certain successes and developed some innovative strategies through their recent efforts, but still face tremendous room for improvement, due to a combination of perceptual, cultural, and economic limitations within and outside of the Ford Motor Company.
The following begins a discussion of the circumstances surrounding Fairlane and describes the projects that they have begun, along with their successes, limitations, criticisms, and suggestions for future improvements.
--The Urban and Natural Context
-- Fairlane in Dearborn
-- Examples from Fairlane
-- Reasons Behind the Fairlane Projects
-- Evaluations
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