In early 2000, Ford Motor Company announced that it was constructing a 300,000 s.f. Class A facility and moving its Premier Auto Group (PAG) headquarters to Irvine, CA. The new facility, named One Premier Place, would include an 181,000 s.f. office tower, 90,000 s.f. product development wing, conference center, vehicle display area, fitness center and cafeteria. The facility would also be the first completed LEED NC project in the U.S. and includes:

• A natural gas fuel cell that provides 25 percent of the building’s power and hot water.
• Raised floor air distribution system that allows substantial savings on energy costs.
• A green roof on the Product Development wing with more than 30 categories of vegetation that helps save on energy costs due to added insulation. See the Premier Automotive North American HQ/Taco Bell HQ Greenroof project profile.
• Green facade walls that provide shading benefit and help to screen adjacent vehicular traffic from interior office space.
• 35 Electric Vehicle stations powered by building’s main source.
• Use of recycled and recyclable materials.

One Premier Place was completed in 2001 at a cost of $68 million and today is considered one of the largest green facade wall installations ever undertaken. The project consists of 16,241 s.f. of greenscreen® trellis panels in three specific applications.

A 24’ tall freestanding installation surrounds a storage area of the Product Development wing and connects the green roof with at grade planting beds. Fully vegetated panels effectively screen the storage area from an adjacent access road and provide an attractive buffer in a narrow planting strip.

An additional installation extends 300’ across an entire elevation effectively screening surface vehicular circulation from the cafeteria area, ground floor and second story offices. This freestanding application reaches 20’ tall and also provides a secure area for on-site day care operations.

A third installation is incorporated into a wall mounted, steel support structure attached to a four story parking facility. The 24’ tall stacked panels tone down the monolithic architecture of typical parking structures and provide a vertical “green ribbon” visual aesthetic that thematically ties the building programming to the landscape.

By incorporating green facade wall technology into the project scope, designers were able to achieve additional LEED credits, contribute to the energy efficiency of the building envelope and extend the landscape programming to the vertical plane.

Project Update: In 2010, after selling off the Aston Martin, Land Rover and Jaguar brands, the Ford Motor Company leased the 181,000 s.f. office tower to Yum Brands, Inc. of Louisville, KY and the space is now home to the corporate headquarters of Taco Bell.

Site Specifics:
467 greenscreen® trellis panels
16,241 s.f greenscreen® trellis panels
$6.65 cost per s.f.
Mounting: standard clips and hardware to structural steel supports (by others)