San Francisco based Heat & Control contracted with K&KA to design a new east coast regional center for their Sales and Service Divisions. The commercial foods production company manufactures and services food processing, packaging, weighing, and product handling equipment in North and South America and Canada from the Lancaster County location. The building program triples the size of the prior facility and includes office, conference, demonstration, training, and light manufacturing components. The design addresses controlled use of daylight and indirect artificial light sources as well as flexible distribution of data/voice/electric services through a floor duct grid system.

The project promotes a significant number of sustainable building practices prior to the creation of the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification program. All doors and custom cabinetry are fabricated utilizing rift sawn veneer from a single, hand selected, Pennsylvania white ash tree. The wood veneer is slip matched and sequenced throughout the expansive installation and meets Architectural Woodwork Institute criteria for premium quality workmanship. Clear gazing is shaded by cantilevered, bladed sun screens. Exposed concrete floor areas are sealed, waxed, and polished to a high sheen. Open office areas are clearly defined by landscape furniture systems, carpet tile floors, and an indirect light source. Ceiling planes are suspended in clouds placed within the steel structural frame. The open reveals of the ceiling grid serve as return air paths for the HVAC system and help accentuate the modulation of the structural grid. The axial organization of exposed steel column bays shifts at the central lobby space, affording the opportunity to break from the rigidity of the structural system by imposing custom, curvilinear, ash wood wall screens that define circulation between the sales and service departments.