Meeting the sky, meeting the ground

Rafał Ostrowski, Tomasz Szpyt, ‘Eurobuild CEE’ magazine: You come from Chicago, a city with a proud tradition of high­-rise development. What can we learn from the Chicago skyscraper experience here in Poland?

James Goettsch, the chairman and CEO of the Goettsch Partners: Not only in Chicago, but in every city in which we work, we hear the same comment that too much office space is already available. When you get down to what the issues are, the amount of vacancy in relatively new buildings, say those that have been built in the last five years or less, is very, very small. The reason is that those buildings offer the latest advances in technology. The buildings that really suffer are the older ones that don’t have the latest and most advanced building systems, such as modern elevators, the latest heating and cooling systems and the accommodation for data and communications – and they probably don’t have the same planning efficiency, like column free floor plates. So when large tenants move from an existing building to a new one, very often they are able to actually reduce the amount of square metres they occupy. They may be paying more money per sqm, but at the same time, because they are occupying less space, their total occupancy cost goes down. In this instance we are talking about larger and more sophisticated tenants. For smaller tenants it is often easier to find a way of satisfying their needs. The larger tenants need that kind of basic planning efficiency and insist upon it. So what could be learned is that with the advances in technology and increased planning efficiency, new office space will be in demand and leased, and it is the older buildings that will suffer.

What do you think about Warsaw skyscrapers in terms of their shape?

That is something that I am always struggling with. What people think is attractive is changing all the time. There was a period where we had modernism and after a while people got tired of that because it was so minimal and boring; and then the trend was to build that kind of post-modern architecture where the goal seemed to be to make a new building look like it was an old building. Now, why somebody would like to make a new building look like it was 75 years old, I don’t know. And clearly after some time people said, this doesn’t make any sense. Then there was the deconstructionism period where the goal was to make a building look like it was just an assembly of forms with no logical connection. And after other periods of fashion came and went, then we arrived at this moment in time. Buildings have become more transparent due to the amount of glass – and this is also one of the most economical ways of building high-rise buildings, but I think it is also a great benefit. It is difficult to say which style is best. There will always be periods when what is attractive is interpreted in a different way. The fact is that buildings are so expensive that you cannot just discard them, so I think the best buildings of any era are the best interpretation of whatever that style is at a certain time. The best buildings of an era will remain and become more valuable in time. That is why we try to make sure that our buildings have the highest quality in every aspect, with state of the art building systems as well as designs.

Mennica Legacy Tower is not the tallest building you have ever made, nor the most complex, and not the most expensive. What is the main quality of this project?

All of the Warsaw buildings are built under a variety of restrictions, including those set by the city’s masterplan. These determine how tall the building can be and where can it be placed on the site. Then there are factors such as the daylight requirements. I don’t like to look at all of those things as limitations, since they actually help you to design a more interesting building. Studies – including the limitations on the amount of sunlight that falls on adjacent buildings due to a new proposed building – often result in a more interesting project. If we end up with a square building, this may have a greater impact on surrounding existing dwellings. It is the entire combination of such factors that has an influence on what shape the building will eventually take.

But coming back to my previous question, what kind of value does this add to Warsaw’s architecture?

Well, I think it is representative of this period of time, where you want to build tall and you want to have a building that is iconic – but I don’t particularly like that word. I always look it up in the dictionary and it is defined as some kind of religious symbol. What we try to do is to integrate many factors into the design process and build what we think will be a unique and appropriate statement for Warsaw. I can tell you we spent a great deal of time designing this building with Czarek Jarząbek and Eugene Golub going back and forth on economics, urban concerns and the most important aesthetic aspects. I wish I could simply state that we did this, this and this, but the design process was the result of almost a year’s work. It is my hope that people look at it and think that we came up with a building that not only serves the tenants but that it will enhance the public realm of Warsaw. Today the most economical approach to construct high-rise buildings is to enclose them with glass – and to reduce the amount of energy consumption a coating must be applied to the glass which gives some degree of reflectivity that allows the glass to reflect the heat from outside the building in the summer and in the winter helps to maintain the heat within the building. One of the problems for buildings with reflective glass is that the glass never reflects accurately, so the reflections often look shattered or fractured and are unpleasant. By doing more of a saw-tooth faćade we can reduce the flatness, so you don’t see distorted reflections. This gives the building more texture and solidity while reducing the impact of any unpleasant reflections.

Many people say that commercial buildings need to include public space. Is there also a risk of messing this up, of not using the space the right way, resulting in having some areas that simply don’t work too well? What is the key for developing such space?

I think the public spaces have to be designed to look good, not necessarily for them to be used in a special way, but the space should also be designed in a way that allows for events or performances and I think the quality of the space will have a lot to do with the management of the building. How they manage certain kinds of events and maintain the space. I cannot imagine that the Mennica Legacy Tower’s public space will have anything other than a positive effect on the project. I think the retail leasing strategy should be to have good, high quality restaurants that will animate the plaza. It is not all about the design; it has a lot to do with the management.

You are an architect active in China, in the Middle East, in the USA, but not so much in Europe. How did it come about that you came to work on this project?

That is a good question, but the answer is relatively simple. In Europe there are many very good experienced architects. When we started working in China in 1994, an architectural profession did not exist then in the same way that it does today. When we started working in China it wasn’t a case of having experience in China or anything like that, because no one had experience in China, you started from scratch. Another example is in the United Arab Emirates, where they went from having no roads forty years ago to now, when they have the busiest airport in the world. So again, in the Middle East everything had to start from scratch. In both the Far East and the Middle East it was natural to bring in Western know-how. There are as many Europeans practising architecture in China and the Middle East as there are Americans. In China we are competing against almost every big firm from every country in the world. It’s the same in the Middle East. In Europe there is a very well developed system of professionals, so there isn’t the need to import knowledge and experience. In the case of Mennica Legacy Tower, we have Golub GetHouse as the client, and we have done a lot of work with that organisation through the years. I worked on my first high-rise building with Eugene Golub forty years ago, so when they wanted to build a US-type high-rise building; it was natural that they asked a US firm, in particular GP, to work with them on it.

But first they chose a Polish architectural studio, then they changed them and selected you. Their costs must have risen. Do you think it pays off to bring aboard a US-based company for this kind of project?

I don’t know the specifics about those costs, but let me just say that in commercial office buildings the value of the building, regardless of what it looks like, is in the leases. So when you have creditworthy tenants, the value goes up. If you don’t have such tenancy, the value goes down. Large credit-worthy tenants are usually looking to have a higher quality of workplace for their employees. So they want a building that is more efficient, where they can place more people over fewer square metres.
This type of tenant wants a building that is economical, with state-of-the-art building systems, as well as a full complement of amenities. These high credit worth tenants also want a building with an outstanding architectural design. My experience, for instance, in the US is that when you put such a combination together, when the developer designs and builds an outstanding building, the developer is usually able to sell it to an investor – and they usually end up selling it at the highest value of any building that has been built up to that point in time. Each of the five buildings we have built in Chicago in the last 15 years, when they were sold attracted the highest prices of any buildings up to that point. The lesson is that when we are dealing with larger and more sophisticated tenants, quality is what they are looking for. At the end of the day our fees probably don’t really become a factor when you put together all of the costs involved in a large high rise office building. The development costs may be greater, but the rents may be higher and the ability for the developer to make money also increases. Better design is a good investment.

Are you hoping to do more work here in Warsaw?

We would love to. Two years ago we were in the competition for the UBS building on the Rondo ONZ roundabout, and of course we didn’t win that competition, but I have noticed that the project hasn’t gone ahead yet. They still haven’t torn down the existing building on the site.

Web surfers have picked up on the fact that the UBS building you designed was very similar to Mennica Legacy Tower.

Well, that building was going to be a little taller. I think architects are very often preoccupied with what the building is going to look like in the skyline – and certainly for a tall building that is a factor, but the way most people experience a building is at the street level, as part of the street-scape. Everybody who enters a building sees it in that way. I feel it is more important to think about how the building meets the ground than how it meets the sky. We to try to reduce the barrier between the interior and exterior space, as this makes this whole experience at the ground level much better. If you can see what is going on inside a building with transparency you feel comfortable, but when you have areas where you cannot see what is going on inside, you wonder what is happening there. In a way this transparency is also a form of security, in the sense that it gives you some confidence that things are under control and you have nothing to worry about. So all of our designs, in one way or another, try to reduce the feeling that there is a barrier between the inside and the outside. This is just something that we have been able to convince people is a good thing to do. To some extent, with all office buildings the interior functions are more or less the same. There is a lobby, the elevator, typical floor space on the upper floors. To try to do each one in a different way is a challenge, but at the same time we try to make each project uniquely appropriate. What we are doing for Mennica Legacy Tower on the ground level is fundamentally different to what we did for the UBS competition. I think the Mennica Legacy Tower design is a significant improvement on the UBS design. It is more refined, it is more worked out. The problem with competitions is that you never get to interface with the client, you have to just guess what they will like – and not only that, you do not have the opportunity to convince them that what you are proposing is the right thing to do.

So what you have designed for the UBS competition was good and you didn’t want it to be wasted?

Well, what we did on the UBS tower building was still different to what we are doing for the Mennica Legacy Tower
building. The UBS tower had two completely different designs for the exterior wall. One was oriented to the south, which was one kind of environmental response, and one to the north, which was something rather different. We changed some other things in terms of the elevator core and so forth. UBS was a taller building, so it had three elevator banks, whereas this one has two. Mennica Legacy Tower just feels like it would be an appropriate building in this location, and in particular one of the things that I wanted to try to do is to make sure it didn’t end up with a wall of reflective glass, I wanted the building to have a memorable space as well as texture and detail. Not too many buildings have the kind of texture and detail of the Mennica Legacy Tower. This is what I think elevates the final result.

What is more important for you, style or function?

I have to say I never separate the two. I have almost always worked with developers – and developers are always trying to get the maximum for their money – and our buildings ultimately have to compete with other developments. We try to give each building a unique kind of appearance and architectural effect, but the building also has to be economical and efficient. I know from the outset that it is not just a matter of what it looks like: it has to be efficient, it has to be relatively economical. Otherwise we are not in the game and the developers would not hire us in the first place. We have a particularly good track record in terms of repeat clients. I think I can honestly say at the end of the day there might be many ways to do an economically efficient building, but if the building does not embrace some kind of unique style or architectural characteristic, in my opinion it is a failure. Maximising both style and function is what it is all about.

Mennica Legacy Tower

Mennica Legacy Tower will be a high-rise office complex comprising two buildings, situated at the junction of ul. Prosta and ul. Żelazna in Warsaw. The project, which is to be developed by Golub GetHouse and Mennica Polska (the Polish Mint), will offer 65,000 sqm of gross built-up area. It is to include a 130m tower offering 49,600 sqm of space, while the second, nine-storey (36m in height) building will provide 14,200 sqm of space. Both structures will also offer 4,500 sqm of retail and services space in total. A four-level underground car park with 620 parking spaces is also planned. The construction work is set to start at the end of 2015 or early 2016, while the completion is planned for 2018. The complex will feature a glazed, marble-lined lobby with a 13m ceiling, as well as a restaurant, a fitness centre and a conference centre with an auditorium. The developer intends to apply for BREEAM ‘Excellent’ certification for the project.

The bio of an architect

James Goettsch is an architect and the chairman and CEO of the Goettsch Partners architectural studio as well as the company’s design director. His noteworthy projects include the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois headquarters in Chicago; the Sowwah Square office complex in Abu Dhabi, which houses the headquarter building of the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange; 111 South Wacker in Chicago, the first-ever project certified LEED Core-and-Shell ‘Gold’; the China Diamond Exchange Center in Shanghai; the 400,000 sqm Nanjing International Center mixed-use development and the 900-key Hilton Riyadh Hotel & Residence. Mr Goettsch joined Lohan Associates as a design principal in 1992 and helped guide the firm’s transition to Goettsch Partners in 2005. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the Urban Land Institute, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and the Mies van der Rohe Society. He has previously served on the boards of directors for both the AIA Chicago chapter and the Chicago Architecture Foundation.