When Saint-Gobain Corp. and its subsidiary CertainTeed Corp. set out to build a dynamic, sustainable workplace focused on employee well-being through the use of materials from the Saint-Gobain family of companies, the site selection process came to a halt when they toured a vacant corporate campus in Malvern, Pa.
The 65-acre site featured two existing four-story buildings joined by a four-story connecting link. They were designed by noted Philadelphia architect Vincent Kling for National Liberty Life Insurance in the early 1960s, only a few years before the corporation moved into the three-building complex about nine miles away that the company called home for 45 years. The site had been unoccupied since 2009 while the developer waited for a client with the imagination, and commitment, to realize the property’s full potential.