metroburb

The "before" -  the former Bell Labs corporate campus 

Today I learned a new word: metroburb.

metroburb 

It's probably not in any dictionary yet, but perhaps its time will come, if more corporate campuses are reborn like Bell Lab's.

If you're not familiar with corporate campuses, they are huge purpose-built structures designed to hold all of an organization's staff under one roof. I've been to a few, including a number of visits to the a certain big box supplier's campus in Minneapolis (think a great big yellow tag). So specific are the designs that its hard to imagine a new use once the the corporate giants have downsized, decentralized or disappeared.

Architect Eero Saarinen designed more than one of these properties, including Bell Lab's monstrosity in Holmdel, New Jersey, USA.

Developer Ralph Zucker had a rather brilliant vision for what the building could become, creating one of his "metroburbs", the word he uses to create each "metropolis in suburbia" transformation of such spaces. The result, in this case named Bell Works, features offices, co-working spaces, retail, restaurants, meeting spaces and a library. A hotel and residential developments are to come.

In A New Urbanist Developer Gives Saarinen a Reboot, CityLab describes the vision and the outcome well. It's a good read. Check it out.