Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair

Project of the Year: Commercial (Small)

The Inter-Industry Conference on Auto Collision Repair is an international, nonprofit corporation in Hoffman Estates, Ill., dedicated to providing technical education programs on collision repair.

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I-CAR's lease for its previous office space in Rolling Meadows had expired, and the organization re-evaluated its needs and decided it needed to expand offices, add a training center and establish brand recognition through the building's architecture.

The previous offices were 12,000 sq. ft., but the new facility is 25,000 sq. ft. Spaces include classroom and training facilities, computer room, mail room, storage, office space for executives, administration and marketing.

The facility is sited to accommodate a 15,000-sq.-ft. addition, which fits the board of directors' expectation that the organization will grow.

Classrooms Covers Cars

The biggest improvement is the addition of 2,100-sq.-ft. classroom that can be used for training and multimedia technology presentations by manufacturers and parts makers. It has the flexibility to accommodate up to 100 participants.

I-CAR's image has improved. At the old site in Rolling Meadows, I-CAR was located on the fourth floor of an office building.

The facade of the new headquarters is predominantly architectural precast concrete. The reveals in the precast are aligned with prefinished metal louver sunshades to present continuous horizontal lines the length of the building.

Because the owner's corporate colors are gray and blue, the precast was colored gray, and along with the blue metal and glass accents, the facade reinforces I-CAR's corporate identity.

The building demonstrates a high level of integration among its components and projects a refined appearance.

The exterior has only four components but is expressive through the use of color, form and line.

The components are architectural precast concrete panels, blue-tinted glass, blue aluminum mullions and aluminum fins or louvers.

The architectural panels are dual purpose, serving as building enclosure and building structure, and they aided in creating a striking design on a modest budget.

Inside, visitors encounter a custom-translucent skylight stretching for 100 ft. along one of the main corridors that visually and physically leads to the executive offices.

The sky-lit diagonal slice through the building adds drama and subdivides the floor area into blocks of programmed space.

The interior moves away from the corporate standards of lay-in ceilings, rectangular offices and a sea of office cubes. Instead, the building's structure was left exposed, in a nod to the auto-body-shop roots of the organization.

The exposed ceiling construction transitions into floating ceiling "clouds" that define work groups within the open-plan work areas. An unusual carpet pattern creates visual interest in the long circulation spines and unifies the open-plan floor areas.

As a playful element, real operating stoplights mark the intersections of the major hallways, immersing the staff in the world of automobiles.

Inside, circulation is accomplished through a main, diagonal arterial corridor, intersected by secondary corridors parallel to each other, a metaphorical expression of typical American roadways.

A Prairie Project

The project is sited on the grounds of the Prairie Stone business park, a 780-acre multi-use development adjacent to a forest preserve, located near the Northwest Tollway, making it highly visible.

The design ties the building into the topography and maximizes the site's natural features. The building's nontraditional shape, with angular projections of floor-to-ceiling, blue-tinted glass at each end, allows the building to penetrate the landscape and creates interior spaces that float into the surrounding prairie grasses, shrubbery and trees.

The building's training and conference center created the need for two distinct entrances, one being the main entrance and the other a secure entry to be used after normal business hours by attendees.

The dual function is expressed on the facility's interior, through the ability to isolate the more public conference center from access to the rest of the building. Due to the staggered hours of use of the offices and conference center-most of the training sessions are after work or on weekends-the parking lot was designed with fewer spaces and is to be shared with a future adjacent building.

As part of the overall landscape plan for Prairie Stone, the I-CAR landscaping uses native Midwestern plantings that allow the long, horizontal building to settle gracefully into its surroundings.

Jury Comments: "They did a fantastic job on the interior. The using the layout as a metaphor for the road was unique. The exterior is arresting and seizes one's attention with the coloration and angling."

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