Project Description
McCormick & Company’s new global headquarters in Hunt Valley, Maryland, shows mixing high-performance glass with sustainable design is a recipe for success. The flavor giant’s 350,000-square-foot, seven-floor building features nearly 85,000 square feet of glass fabricated by J.E. Berkowitz, and serves as the centerpiece of a world-class, growing corporate campus.
The Washington, D.C.-based office of STUDIOS Architecture designed the base building of the 130-year-old company’s headquarters to be sleek, modern, and energy efficient. The four-year project involved stripping an existing utilitarian building down to its concrete and steel structure, adding a refined glass curtainwall, and carving out a central atrium to provide natural daylighting, open floor plans, and a variety of workspaces to cultivate innovation and collaboration among nearly 1,000 employees.
“Utilizing glass enabled the design team to optimize the amount of daylight passing through the building—from the exterior through to the offices, amenity spaces, and central atrium—as well as reduce unwanted solar heat gain and match desired aesthetics,” said Ashton Allan, principal at STUDIOS Architecture.
For the project’s facade, JEB fabricated Winduo™ insulating glass units (IGUs) featuring Guardian Glass’ triple-silver, low-E SunGuard® SNX 51/23 coating on clear glass and SNX62/27 coating on CrystalGray® glass. In addition, JEB supplied approximately 5,000 square feet of Vitro Architectural Glass’ tinted Optiblue® laminated glass panels for rooftop guardrails and architectural fly-bys. The IGUs and laminated glass panels were captured in custom aluminum framing provided by Northern Facades, which also incorporates a horizontal sunshade system by Clover Architectural Products on the south-facing elevation. TSI Corporations served as the project’s glazing contractor.
“The vision for the new headquarters drew inspiration from the entire site to express McCormick’s identity—locally and globally,” Allan said. “The landscape incorporates plants that are native to the region, evoking colors and textures that are found in spices around the world. The project’s color palette focused on fundamental agricultural elements—earth, trees, and sky—expressed through materials including stone, wood, and glass.
“Ultimately, we were able to achieve our design goals, while simultaneously establishing a strong identity for McCormick.”
McCormick’s new headquarters is expected to earn LEED® Certification at the Gold level from the U.S. Green Building Council. The building, which is located near three of the company’s manufacturing facilities, also features state-of-the-art test kitchens, as well as a café, coffee bar, pantries, and a culinary training center, among other employee amenities.