- The LEED Platinum–certified Serena Williams Building demonstrates Nike’s commitment to championing athletes.
- The 1-million-square-foot building signifies Nike’s biggest investment in design and creativity.
- The space allows for the pinnacle of collaboration, bringing Nike’s design, insights and product-merchandising teams together for the first time.
- The building's tripartite structure is inspired by Serena’s greatness; it references the goddess Nike’s wings and interprets its namesake’s role as phenom, warrior and muse.
Covering the equivalent of 140 full-size tennis courts — that’s 1 million square feet! — the Serena Williams Building (SW) is the largest office building at Nike World Headquarters. It’s also where Nike’s Consumer Creation teams have access to 200,000 square feet of lab space, allowing them to test new ideas in developing, presenting and merchandising Nike products. These residents, representing Design, Consumer Insights, the Women’s, Men’s and Kids constructs, and Apparel and Footwear Product Merchandising, spend their days collaborating on and creating the future of sport.
“The whole building takes your breath away. Every element, everywhere you go, is an opportunity to be inspired. I hope this building encourages people to bring out the best of themselves and to dream bigger than they thought possible,” says Serena Williams.
Nowhere is Nike’s commitment to championing athletes more strongly enabled than through its unmatched investment in world-class design and research labs. SW, designed by Portland-based Skylab Architecture in collaboration with Mark Parker, Executive Chairman of NIKE, Inc., builds on Nike’s legacy and follows its namesake’s dedication to progress.
Specialty spaces in SW include 140,000 square feet of showrooms and work space; a footwear materials library; a color lab; and the two-story, 140-seat Olympia Theater, named after Serena’s daughter. The work spaces are curated to inspire each respective working group and are filled with stories about athletes, sport, innovation and Nike culture. Immersive spaces with 180-degree wraparound visual projection allow Nike teams to visualize data in completely new ways and bring product to life at new scale.
“Architecture has long been a creative catalyst for Nike. A manifestation of form and function following footprint, this building embodies Serena’s legacy as a force for positive change. It is the art to the LeBron James Innovation Center’s science, allowing us to know and serve athletes like never before,” says John Hoke, Chief Design Officer.
Attention to creating the future is matched by SW’s attention to protecting the planet. More than 20 percent of SW, which is LEED Platinum–certified, is made up of recycled content that was harvested and manufactured locally. It is outfitted with 648 solar panels, adding to an anticipated energy-cost saving of 41 percent compared to a baseline building. Additionally, the building sits beside federally protected wetland, and its design preserves and supplements the environment with thousands of native plant species.
Enter the Serena Williams Building here.
SW is a LEED Platinum–certified building and was designed to be energy- and resource-efficient, with a focus on water efficiency, material usage, indoor environmental quality, and wetland improvements. (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
East Compton Hills Country Club Tennis Court (left lower corner), a sub-grade court located right outside the building, is a nod to a joke the Williams family had when Serena was growing up: They used to call their community tennis court in Compton a “country club.” (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
The building is part of Nike’s “salmon-safe” campus, meaning stormwater run-off and source pollution have been reduced to protect Pacific Northwest salmon watersheds. (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
The multistory SinewFlex sculpture is located in the fourth-floor atrium and designed by Jenny Sabin Studio. Sabin, an artist, architect and professor at Cornell University, investigates the intersections of architecture and science while applying insights from biology and mathematics to the design of material structures. Sabin first collaborated with Nike on the myThread Pavilion in 2012. (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
Pulsation sculptures by installation artist Daniel Canogar are showcased on four LED towers located in the courtyard outside the building. The graphics capture the dynamic and versatile energy of Serena. (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
The U.S. Open Café features murals by NYC-based female artists (including Lady Pink and Brittany Williams) along with six laser-cut wood panels commemorating posters from Williams' six wins at the tournament. (Jeremy Bittermann/Courtesy of Nike)
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