Q| How do you align a high-performance campus to the brand while elevating all Under Armour teammates?

UNDER ARMOUR GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS

HIGH PERFORMANCE CAMPUS FRAMEWORK, SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE PLANNING, FACILITATION

In 2017 Under Armour (UA) announced that it planned to move its headquarters to a new high performance global campus in Port Covington, in Baltimore, MD. To advance the strides made at the company’s current Tide Point Campus (only a few miles away from their new home), UA unveiled its new campus master plan, which strategically accommodated the company's expansion.

The new UA campus aspired not to just be a high-performance set of buildings, but to provide economies of scale and co-benefits that only come from exploring big, bold ideas. Working closely with the integrated team, Steven and his team explored various system options and brought ideas to team huddles to workshop. These sessions were built into the masterplan schedule and provided invaluable opportunities to bring ideas to the room and to challenge convention, scale and ownership norms - but most importantly allowed the team to find synergistic solutions for increased impact and value to Under Armour.

Steven was part of a core-team leading this effort while at BuroHappold.

Location: Baltimore, MD

Client: Under Armour

Collaborators: BCJ, NBW, BioHabitats, STV, and Kimley Horn.

A| Build new decision making framework with diverse voices and connect every decision back to brand.

A key outcome of working sessions was a key infrastructure solution of a bay heat rejection (and direct cooling option) in lieu of a full chilled water plant and cooling towers. This decision created a series of benefits for campus phasing, building performance, space utilization, bay ecological quality and even relationships with the community.

Working closely with the integrated team, various system options were explored and brought back to team huddles to workshop. These intensive sections, worked intentionally into the schedule of the masterplan, were opportunities to bring ideas to the room and to challenge convention, scale and ownership norms - but most importantly to find synergistic solutions for increased impact and value to Under Armour. A key outcome of these sessions was a key infrastructure solution of a bay heat rejection (and direct cooling option) in lieu of a full chilled water plant and cooling towers. This one move created a series of benefits for campus phasing, building performance, space utilization, bay ecological quality and even relationships with the community.

High Performance Campus (HPC) Framework was a set of guiding principles for Under Armour’s Global Headquarters. Steven and his team developed the HPC Framework to ensure that the UA campus embodied Under Armour’s core values and that each element of the campus directly supported the company’s “Wills” (or core values). It was organized into ten Performance Areas representing a wide array of topics to guide Under Armour to a best-in-class campus allowing teammates to do their best work. High performance started with ensuring that every teammate was empowered to perform at her or his highest level. The HPC Framework recognized that performance was embedded in every aspect of the creative working environment: from land utilization and building configuration to fit-out and the advanced systems that power and light the campus. Each Performance Area with the HPC Framework connected to the “Wills” in ways that best exemplified the brand, and each was a lens that focused design efforts on maximizing performance in that Area. Under Armour’s Mission and Wills set the tone and aspiration appropriate to each Performance Area with the HPC Framework. The HPC Framework guided the master plan toward achieving levels of performance true to the brand.