HF Capital Office Renovation and Expansion on Union Avenue

This renovation for the new downtown Knoxville headquarters for HF Capital is located in the historic Pembroke building on Union Avenue. The Pembroke was built in 1927 by Knoxville developer Benjamin Sprankle, was converted into a hotel for the 1982 World’s Fair, and now features mixed-use commercial office space on the ground floor with owner-occupied residential units on the upper levels.

The renovation combined several separate tenant spaces into one functional office with a highly efficient floor plan arrangement. The design prioritizes streamlined circulation and natural light - while also allowing for visual and acoustical privacy. The interior design reveals and restores original terrazzo floors, renews window openings covered by prior renovations, and celebrates historic detailing of the original architecture.

HF Capital’s offices, conference rooms, lounge areas, and employee breakroom are unified by glass partitions throughout the space, allowing natural light to filter throughout. Fluted glazing panes at eye level offer visual privacy. In each office, lighting controls allow users to customize their lighting levels — improving comfort and productivity and reducing eye strain.

The design utilizes a consistent palette of white, stormy blue and warm natural wood and leather, as well as black metal accents — lending the space a clean and cohesive aesthetic. Adjustable shades allow for privacy in offices situated along the street. Laminated interior glazing improves acoustics, as do ribbed wood feature walls in the conference rooms.

Framework for Design Excellence

Design for Economy
Material Use
• The project is located on the ground floor of a historic building in downtown Knoxville. The existing conditions included four outdated tenant spaces that were combined into one space for the HF Capital office.
• Interior demountable partitions were used throughout the space and can be reconfigured or relocated and reused elsewhere as the needs of the company change.

Design for Resources
Healthier Materials:
• Asbestos flooring was discovered in the existing spaces. Abatement was chosen in lieu of encapsulation to fully remove the hazardous materials and ensure a healthy interior. Underneath the asbestos flooring the original terrazzo floors were discovered.

Construction, Deconstruction, and Demolition:
• The building's original terrazzo floors from 1927 were restored, reducing new material use and minimizing the project’s environmental impact.

Design for equitable communities
Mobility and Access:
• The existing tenant spaces stair-stepped in elevation with the slope of downtown sidewalk along the front façade. This posed challenges to creating efficient and universally accessible circulation paths once combined into a single tenant occupancy. Two existing ramps were lengthened and provided with handrails and a new ramp was added near the lobby to ensure that all circulation paths were accessible, creating a workplace that is welcoming and inclusive for all.
• Both sets of restrooms within the space were fully renovated to become handicap accessible.

Design for Well-being
Light:
• The primary existing ceiling height was much shorter than the existing storefront along the front façade, limiting the depth that daylight could penetrate the space. The design team worked to reduce the ceiling plenum as much as possible. This allowed the new ceilings to be installed higher than the existing ceilings, allowing daylight to penetrate the space much further.
• Three previously enclosed arched windows were reopened, and new windows installed. The windows provide another source and direction for daylight to penetrate the interior.
• The shared lounge areas and collaboration space are located along the perimeter of the building to allow everyone a space to benefit from the daylighting.
• Interior glazing partitions and light paint-colored wall paint were used to aid in greater penetration and reflectance of daylight into the core of the building.
• Interior light fixture controls throughout the space were designed to offer the occupants maximum control. The fixtures can provide uplighting, downlighting, or both, and each lighting direction can be independently dimmed.

Nourishment:
• The break area was designed to be open to the corridor rather than being in an enclosed room to encourage socialization and simplify access to nutrition.
• A filtered water bottle filler was included in the break area to support hydration and promote the use of reusable bottles or glasses.
• A large fridge and ample cabinets provide users with space to store their food.
• The large island, including storage cabinets, an undercounter microwave, generous counter space, and an area for bar stool seating, serves as a food prep, dining, and congregation space.

Mental Social Wellbeing:
• The open lounge and work area encourages social interaction and offers an alternate work location away from the desk to promote movement and mental wellbeing.
• The large break room island, located where multiple circulation paths intersect, grants opportunities for occupants to encounter each other, promoting informal social interactions.
• A phone room provides a place for privacy and respite for occupants seated in open workstations.

Acoustics:
• Conference rooms are divided from private offices with existing mass walls and furring partitions or separated by circulation space to avoid sound transfer issues.
• Interior glazing systems use laminated glazing to enhance acoustic privacy throughout the space.
• Speech clarity in the conference rooms, for both in-person meetings and video conferencing, was enhanced through the use of carpet tile floors, acoustic tile ceiling, and ribbed wood walls with felt backing.

Movement:
• Due to the existing conditions consisting of four separate tenant spaces being combined into one, the flow of the circulation required many modifications. The new layout provides double loaded corridors for maximized efficiency and a circular path for increased connectivity of spaces.
• Offices include adjustable height sit/stand desks promoting occupant comfort and health.

Design for Change
Flexibility:
• Demountable glass partitions offer flexibility and adaptability as business needs change.
• Office modules were carefully planned to allow for possible future office additions with minimal disruption to the newly renovated space.