Foster + Partners’ project for BENCH, one of the Philippines’ leading clothing and lifestyle brands, has started construction in Manila. The 24-storey headquarters building offers offices, design studios, event spaces, and the necessary amenities to create an enjoyable environment for the company’s employees. Located on the east-west axis in the Bonifacio Global City, the building opens up the ground floor to create a visual connection to the green space surrounding it.
As an adaptation to the character of the brand, the ground floor atrium is designed to double as an event space to accommodate large-scale fashion shows. A secondary four-storey atrium is located at the top of the building, providing natural light to the studios positioned around it. Driven by the brand’s desire to create a collaborative working environment, naturally lit lobbies, and cores are placed laterally to increase the flexibility of the office spaces above. Additionally, the flexible furniture system designed by Foster + Partners’ Industrial Design team will be used to create an adaptable environment responsive to the company’s changing requirements. The system also creates divisions in the space for more intimate working conditions.
The façade of the building has been calibrated to allow sufficient light into the floorplate without creating glare and thus reducing the cooling loads. A novel awning system with deep overhangs on the eastern and western facades protects the building from the highest levels of solar exposure. The interior design features a minimal palette of materials, featuring exposed concrete columns and precast concrete soffits paired with terrazzo floors with recycled stone aggregates.
The rooftop of the building is accessible for its users, providing them with a green amenity space with views of the surrounding city. Designed to host smaller events or team gatherings, the space also offers small urban farming opportunities and is shaded by an array of photovoltaic elements that generate 10 percent of the building’s total energy demand on site. With the aim of minimizing the embodied carbon in the structure of the building, the design team has built carbon calculators to track all the materials used in the building and measure their associated carbon emissions. According to the architects, this allowed the team to make informed decisions about the design to actively mitigate the building’s carbon profile.
The new BENCH HQ building is tailor-made for the company and driven by its desire to create an interconnected, flexible workspace. It is designed for its location with passive design strategies and optimized solutions, aided by our in-house tools for reduced embodied and operational carbon. - Luke Fox, Head of Studio, Foster + Partners
Recently Foster + Partners has announced a collaboration with Arup to design four new stations for the California High-Speed Rail in the Central Valley. During the 2023 Architectural Biennale in Venice, Holcim and the Norman Foster Foundation have also announced the Essential Houses Research Project created to provide necessary housing to displaced communities.
