Design Collective plans massive office renovation

In Baltimore, a huge and uncommon office transformation is underway. 

Crews are conducting a gut renovation of the 1.1 million-square-foot former Social Security Administration Metro West building. After the vacant property was acquired by private developers, the State of Maryland arranged to lease 550,000 square feet of office space that would be specially outfitted to serve as a central location for the Department of Health.

For architects at Design Collective, the project presented large-scale challenges. They would have to integrate the complex and diverse programs of multiple Department of Health divisions that are currently scattered across numerous locations, said Matt Herbert, Principal at Design Collective. They would have to create organization, a sense of place and an inviting work environment in a very large space.

“The creation of ‘streets’ and neighborhoods was used and repeated on each floor to create a recognizable plan to orient the building users while still providing flexibility for department organization,” Herbert said. “The design integrates strong graphic and color tones to provide a greatly enhanced environment for today’s government health agent.”

The robust structure of the 1980s building has aided the transformation. Construction experts on the project say the structure was originally designed to support forklifts that would carry pallets of social security documents. But the renovation has yielded a few surprises.

“The coolest discovery was the pneumatic tube system for mail distribution — an amazing piece of infrastructure that became quickly outmoded by the computer,” Herbert said.