ATD Technology Campus
Mount Pleasant, S.C.
Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects

Modernist forms and vernacular design elements combine in a pastoral setting for ATD's headquarters

© Paul Warchol

For more photos click on 'photos & drawings' above. To see the people and products behind this project click on 'people & products.'

By Suzanne Stephens

Architects like to say that good design is good business, although empirical proof can be hard to come by. Nevertheless, Automated Trading Desk (ATD), a high-tech financial research and investment company outside Charleston, South Carolina, was more than willing to test the axiom. The serenely elegant complex, which occupies 23 acres of land in Mt. Pleasant, appears to be, at first glance, a well-funded retreat for scholars. The tripartite plan, conceived by Margaret Helfand, FAIA, and her former firm, Helfand, Myerberg, Guggenheimer (now Helfand Architecture and Guggenheimer Architects), provides private offices to every employee and offers visual and physical accessibility to its parklike setting at every turn and glance.

The company, which numbers 60, not including 30 in the Chicago office, wanted to expand in such a way that the corporate culture would not be jeopardized. In an organization where traders and software developers work closely together, the staff needed and wanted spaces to allow informal interaction as well as privacy for concentration.

In addition, ATD desired its architecture to reflect an innovative image and impress retail and institutional investors with the company's up-and-coming role as a player in the world of Wall Street. For her part, Helfand desired to create a setting where the employees would experience design as a continuum, extending from the offices to the indoor public spaces and finally out to the landscaped surroundings.

In addition, the program called for a 6,000-square-foot trading room, plus a highly secure 5,000-square-foot data center, with redundant backup energy sources to guard against any contingency, from hurricanes to bombs. On top of that, Helfand needed to fit the 70,000-square-foot building into a site dotted by landmarked live oak trees and laced with cleaned-up storm water retention ponds.

In order to allow for growth in an unpredictable economic atmosphere, Helfand devised a complex where three wings, each two-stories high, would accommodate 120 offices. Only two wings, with 80 offices, are occupied at this moment. The third wing, at the south end of the complex, contains offices, an executive boardroom, and screened porch with a fireplace all waiting for final fit-out.

While adhering to this Modernist deployment of fragmented forms, Helfand and her team looked closely at the local vernacular of old agricultural, commercial, and even residential construction. The roofs' deep overhangs, the second-story porches, the dark, blood-red local brick, and the granite lintels and sills around the windows represent some of the materials and elements well known to low-country architecture.

Helfand also designed the building to voluntarily comply with the International Building Code for seismic resistance and other safety concerns, since ATD wanted to ensure its electronic functions would always operate reliably. In addition, windows contain a polycarbonate film laminated between two panels of glass, as a further measure against hurricane damage.

Read more about this project in our Business Week/Architectural Record Awards section. See the June 2003 issue of Architectural Record for the origional full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Automated Trading Desk Technology Campus

Location:
Mount Pleasant, S.C.

Gross square footage:
68,000 sq ft

Total construction cost:
$26 million

Owner:
Automated Trading Desk LLC
www.atdesk.com

Design Architect:
Helfand Myerberg Guggenheimer Architects
428 Broadway
New York NY 10013
212-925-2900
www.g-arch.com

Executive Architect:
McKellar & Associates, Inc.
Mount Pleasant, S.C