The Green at Florham Park

Florham Park, New Jersey

The Green at Florham Park in Florham Park, New Jersey, is a master-planned development containing a pair of world-class office buildings that utilize a hybrid topology to add a 21st Century look to the campus, with the intent to attract top-tier companies.

The term hybrid typology isn’t as complex as it sounds. In this instance, it’s the integration of an insulated panel system layered over ribbon windows to create a dynamic skin that wraps the façade. The design team oriented the building to take advantage of the year-round exposure to sunlight but angled in a way to mitigate heating/cooling inefficiencies, hence the diagonal geometries that inform their appearance.

Mancini contrasted normal building-to-ground relations by placing each building on a podium that creates a second-floor amenity area uncommonly found in commercial office buildings. After thorough research, the design team discovered that roof amenities are most effective in urban areas. Since the site is situated in a suburban setting, most amenities are shifted toward the ground level, so a second-floor roof terrace would yield higher efficiencies in terms of access and use. Now, tenants can lease a full, top-floor footprint that generates the highest revenue in terms of cost per square foot.

Combined, the buildings contain 300,000 square feet of column-free space, perfect for an open and flexible interior that can accommodate many different types of tenants. A central plaza on the podium’s roof engages the volumes and is activated by accessibility to the amenity spaces on the lower floors. The amenity program includes a café, gym, and space for retail and other on-site conveniences.

One challenge Mancini faced was strict zoning regulations in terms of building setbacks and allotted parking per building. With the irregular shape of the site, standard parking iterations did not provide the right yields. The team formed an exclusive parking and circulation scheme for the site that placed the buildings toward the center with perimeter parking feeding inward. This generated a unique and highly efficient parking layout that some might say mimics the veins of a leaf.

Using the shape of the site and the needs of its inhabitants, the team formed an intentional relationship between circulation, parking, building and to mass elevate the design of the standard office park. The design accommodates phased construction that shifts traffic and pedestrian drop off to safe access points as each building is built and the site is completed.