Shortly after unveiling its new three-story, 75,000-square-foot world headquarters campus in Bloomington, Minn., in July 2014, the
Toro Co. celebrated its 100th anniversary. The new building is designed to provide expanded product development and testing areas, as well as office, training and conference spaces.
Designed by Leo A Daly, Minneapolis, the $25 million multipurpose building’s design was influenced by the engineering design of Toro’s lawn care, golf course, landscape, irrigation and construction equipment. Many of the company’s product offerings feature dark machine parts covered by protective shells in Toro’s signature red color.
“The building idea was derived from the way the Toro products are designed and made,” explains Bill Baxley, AIA, vice president, director of design at Leo A Daly. “Toro products typically consist of the functioning mechanical aspects (black) of the products and an ergonomic, protective covering (in red polycarbonate or steel). The highly designed interior of the new building is covered by a shell, similar to a Toro product. The metal panel is the protective shell for the building.”
To capture this product design architecturally, designers chose two colors of Alucobond naturAL aluminum composite material
(ACM) by 3A Composites USA Inc., Statesville, N.C., as building cladding. The project features 24,000 square feet of 4-mm Alucobond naturAL in Rusted Metal and 11,000 square feet of 4-mm Alucobond naturAL in Brushed Graphite.
As Baxley explains, the Rusted Metal Alucobond ACM panels provided Toro with the opportunity to incorporate the look of weathering steel in the building design without incurring the costs of steel cladding, while the Graphite provided a flat black product that would not be shiny, but would absorb the light.
The Alucobond forms a big shell over the building with the light color over the dark color. “Aluminum composite panels offered a lightweight, maintenance-free, and cost-effective, long-term, high-performance building envelope solution,” Baxley explains. “The product was also flexible and adaptable to many challenging detailing conditions. We were able to leverage this adaptability to provide consistently simple, elegant and high-performance details that supported the overall idea of the building.”
The design of the new building connects Toro products to campus landscapes, which serves as both product testing and demonstration grounds. The building is designed with glass-filled, L-shaped sheds/galleries connected with moveable window wall sections for indoor/outdoor access by both people and machines. It also features green roof areas demonstrating Toro’s irrigation products.
“The color selection for this building played a huge role in its design,” says Baxley. “Alucobond is a product that we know and trust. It was installed in a rainscreen application and configured in a shroud with cantilevers on the north and south sides of the building. It appears to almost be a singular piece of material.”
Plymouth, Minn.-based specialty cladding contractor InterClad, an Egan Company, was the design-builder, and worked with Metal Design Systems Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to fabricate the Alucbond naturAL material into approximately 1,500 panels, most measuring 4 feet by 14 feet. InterClad installed the Alucobond in Metal Design Systems’ Series 20 Spline Reveal Drained and Back Ventilated Rainscreen System.
Baxley says the new building has changed the face of Toro’s headquarters. “Toro previously maintained a very low profile on the site,” he says. “The original building was spread out and low. With this new building, you now notice Toro. It has a tight, engineered, refined aesthetic. Now, it’s a cohesive corporate campus.”
The Toro Co. Corporate Headquarters, Bloomington, Minn.
Award: 2014 Honor Award from AIA Minnesota
Architect: Leo A Daly, Minneapolis
General contractor: Ryan Companies US Inc., Minneapolis
Design-builder: InterClad, an Egan Company, Plymouth, Minn.
Distributor: EBP LLC, Excelsior, Minn.
Metal panel fabricator: Metal Design Systems Inc., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, www.metaldesignsystems.com
Aluminum composite material: Alucobond by 3A Composites USA Inc., Statesville, N.C., www.alucobondusa.com
Glass: Viracon Inc., Owatonna, Minn., www.viracon.com
Photo: Bill Baxley, AIA