Portland-based Skylab Architecture has shared new photos of its recently-completed signature office building dedicated to an American tennis legend (and design aficionado) and located at Nike’s World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. 

The more-than-one-million-square-foot Serena Williams Building, anchored around a 12-story tower, was designed to help the sportswear giant maximize creative workflow and efficiency inside a new 2,750-person office whose focus is similar to recent workplace designs for other large corporations that are equally bent on re-instilling collaboration in a post-pandemic world.

According to the architects, the theme of the “warrior muse,” a nod to the building’s namesake, served as material inspiration throughout the LEED Platinum-certified facility’s art-filled collection of workplaces, conference rooms, dining areas, laboratory spaces, and other coworking amenities.  

Outside, the metallic, armor-like exterior connects to inhabitable, interlacing green roof terraces and a south-sloping 260 kW array of solar panels, stormwater collection capabilities, and crystalline skybridges to connect each of its three wings.

Skylab teamed with landscape architect PLACE to reconnect what they say was an overlooked portion of the campus to adjacent wetlands via a new pedestrian bridge that allows for increased access to the rest of the 286-acre site.  

“I am looking forward to the building supporting future generations of designers and hope that they will be inspired by our work,” Skylab's founding principal and design director, Jeff Kovel, who led the project team, previewed in our 2020 Studio Snapshot interview with the studio. 

This is now the second piece of showcase architecture Nike has completed after a recent collaboration with Olson Kundig and LeBron James in 2021.