In the summer of 2021, El Dorado was invited to participate in a competition for a new office headquarters, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The site for the new headquarters is located along Charlotte’s light rail system and fronts an urban watershed system. Near the site is Optimist Hall, an adaptive reuse of a historic structure into a thriving food hall and office complex.

The firm proposed a 9-story building that, through vertical massing articulations, responds to specific site conditions and culminates in a rooftop environment that engages both Optimist Hall and the downtown Charlotte skyline. The design of the tower introduces shifting, yet efficient floor plates allow the building an iconic presence while maintaining a flexibility of uses well into the future. Vertical louvers, generally oriented to mitigate solar heat gain, twist in orientation to allow curated views to align with the dynamic urbanism of the surrounding site.