Landscape architects played a key role in transforming Great America Commons, an aging single-tenant complex in Santa Clara, from an underutilized outdoor space into active, valuable tenant environments.
Strategic Landscape
Landscape architects are often the secret weapon in targeted, multidiscipline interventions that find value in underutilized spaces on corporate campuses.
In the arms race of Silicon Valley–area office campuses, the complex formerly known as Towers at Great America was struggling. With two towers surrounded by parking, the former single-tenant complex was full of amenities, but no life. The vacancy rate was high, and COVID didn’t help.
By 2023, the owners were eager to announce to the community that the campus was entering a new era, and they wanted to do it as quickly and as cost-effectively as possible.
“The emphasis was on ‘What can we do tomorrow?’” recalls LPA Managing Director Kim Izadi. “We needed to show the community that they were making changes.”
The Santa Clara complex was confronting the issues facing many aging commercial campuses. In an ultracompetitive environment, they might have great facilities, a major-highway location and a menu of amenities, but they are still missing the special ingredients, the elements that create a thriving, vibrant workplace. They don’t need a big-budget transformation, but they need something.
For the rebranded Great America Commons, the big move was turning underutilized outdoor spaces into valuable tenant spaces, while remaking the street presence. The strategic intervention created a series of active indoor-outdoor spaces, with landscaping and wayfinding combining to redo the complex’s welcoming sequence. In the two years since the refresh, leasing has increased in a highly competitive market, as tenants embrace the new environments.
Patrick McClintock, LPA San Jose Studio Director
As commercial campuses look to upgrade, the outdoor spaces often offer the best opportunity to deliver the biggest bang for the buck. When combined with targeted architecture and interior upgrades, landscape design has the ability to create new environments, marketable space and fun work and active areas, without constructing new buildings.
On a series of recent projects, LPA’s integrated design teams have been working with building owners, brokers and tenants to create indoor-outdoor spaces that expand a campus’s usable spaces, while creating environments that build culture and change the staff experience.
“These are places that people call home, that fit their vibe and who they are as a company,” says LPA San Jose Studio Director Patrick McClintock. “They are authentic spaces, where people can engage and be fully present.”
A Targeted Approach
The intervention can take many forms. For the new owners of The Tennyson, a four-story office building in Plano, Texas, landscape architects helped transform an underutilized patio into a functioning, active space with a customized shipping container, outdoor kitchen, bar area and firepits. The light touch brought life to an unused space and created a new amenity for all the tenants.
In Glendale, California, where more than 20% of offices were vacant, 801 North Brand, a 1980s office building on a stretch of concrete-and-glass towers, was a candidate for a high-gloss luxury redesign. Instead, designers focused on a barely used plaza, which became an active connection for tenants and the community, with an Airstream trailer café, shade structures and a wide variety of seating areas. Linked with strategies to open the interior, the plaza has become a center of activity for the re-energized building, which now hosts a weekly farmers’ market.
Every project is different. Every company has its own rituals, ideals and goals. When landscape designers are part of the initial explorations and analysis, they can take the project in unexpected directions.
“The unique solutions fit a client’s culture,” says LPA Director of Landscape Architecture Rich Bienvenu. “When we talk to staff, we like to ask: ‘If you guys could think differently, how could you use outdoor spaces?’ That’s where the unique things come from.”
For Glaukos, a leader in the treatment of chronic eye diseases, landscape architects played a key role in helping turn a traditional Southern California low-rise office campus, surrounded by surface parking, into an office-lab headquarters that reflects the organization’s familial culture. Post-COVID, the firm wanted to create the type of workplace that made people eager to return to the office and give them a place to celebrate.
“When we talked to CEO Tom Burns, it was never about ‘I want it to look like that,’” says LPA landscape architect Danielle Cleveland. “It was always about the experience for his people and how the spaces would be used.”
There was no real usable outdoor space in the existing complex. The design team worked to extend the interior spaces to the outdoors. A shaded patio with a TV, areas for dining and a firepit connect to the employee break room. No space was wasted. Seating areas, a small garden and winding path give employeesa chance to discover their own space to relax and find respite, helping to create a homey atmosphere.
In Plano, Texas, designers worked with the new owners of The Tennyson to turn a little-used patio into an active social space with an outdoor kitchen and fire pits.
Extra attention was paid to creating a meeting space for the events and community gatherings that are a core part of Glaukos’ culture. The landscape team dove into the specifics of the events, looking to determine how much space they would need and use. The company’s culture was built around its regular gatherings and role in the community; the space would get a lot of use, from all-hands meetings and conferences to family gatherings and formal evening events.
“We created a park in what used to be an asphalt parking lot,” Cleveland says. “And our goal was always to create impactful spaces for employees, meeting their needs without overdeveloping the site.”
Danielle Cleveland, LPA Landscape Architect
A similar calculation was essential on recent work for Blizzard Entertainment, where a courtyard formerly used for a sand volleyball court is getting repurposed to serve many roles for the global gaming company. Blizzard wants the courtyard to host meetings and performances, including regular all-hands gatherings. The design combined a large performance space, shade structures and technology to efficiently meet the company’s big-picture goals, while providing more intimate spaces the staff would use on a daily basis.
“We looked at how the spaces can be used throughout the day,” says LPA Director of Landscape Architecture Kari Kikuta. “What makes the space comfortable? What will draw people in, so they want to hang out in the spaces, even when there is not an event?”
For Tennyson, the outdoor spaces expanded the workplace, creating value-added spaces.
Added Value
The COVID pandemic awakened people to the importance of outdoor spaces. Everyone was looking for safe, healthy environments. Today, studies confirm the benefits of outdoor environments and connections to nature on mental and physical health, as well as productivity. Safe, healthy spaces are simply a prerequisite for many occupiers.
Yet, in the rush to tear down or replace, the value of the outdoor environments is often underappreciated.
“The thing that makes a property unique is often the outdoor spaces,” McClintock says. “When we add variety and choice, we make the outdoor spaces more than simply an amenity that you can walk through, and turn them into places that people will really go out and use.”
For Glaukos, an unneeded parking lot was turned into a multi-function events and meeting space (above), while a new shaded patio (below) extends the indoor workplace with spaces that can be used in a variety of ways throughout the day.
Active outdoor spaces provide new options and flexibility, supporting more than one activity and more than one user group. They are also easily adaptable as tenants’ interests and tastes change.
On a more immediate level, in project after project, it’s been landscape design that changes the face and culture of a development. As much as any building facelift, it’s the outdoor spaces that dramatically change a facility’s culture, lifestyle and the relationship with the community.
“It’s really about placemaking,” Cleveland says. “We’re always looking at how do we get more out of a repositioning or reimagining project, and it’s landscape and outdoors spaces that can bring that added value.”
