Urban Outfitters, Inc.
Iconic Home for Corporate Headquarters
Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN) discovered The Navy Yard in 2006 as the ideal place to streamline multiple retail brand offices into a single corporate campus. Growing from 600 employees to more than 2,000, URBN has continued to expand into a now 575,000-square-foot footprint, reclaiming historic buildings as a vibrant reflection of its brand identity, and bringing a palpable cool factor to The Navy Yard.
In addition to the re-use of historic buildings:
- Unused rail lines provide an organizing system for pedestrian paths.
- Concrete and asphalt from old parking lots (dubbed "Barney Rubble" by the project's landscape architect) was broken up and reused as landscaping fill.
- Materials from the original structures were reused, including several large timber pieces that supported a mezzanine in one building reused as stair treads and walls.
- In the large, publicly accessible amenities building, pipe-bending pits now serve as ponds where water lilies grow and koi swim, overseen by a tranquil Buddha.
The Urban Outfitters, Inc campus has been recognized by the Urban Land Institute Awards for Excellence (National and Global) and earned the AIA National Honor Award for Architecture, Pennsylvania Historic Preservation Award, and Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia Achievement Award.