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Gensler will lead the project team for Walmart's new headquarters

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Gensler will lead the project team for Walmart's new headquarters

A rendering of the new Walmart headquarters from the north-west quad. (Courtesy Walmart Inc.)

Gensler has been announced as the lead firm on the project team for the new Walmart headquarters in Arkansas. The 350-acre home office campus, centered around community, innovation, and sustainability, will be located between Central Avenue and Highway 102 in Bentonville, Arkansas

Dan Bartlett, the executive vice president of corporate affairs at Walmart, announced the project team for the campus as design leaders across both the Arkansas community and the world. His team choice was intended to highlight the collaboration between global and local designers. The rest of the project team includes: Miller Boskus Lack Architects of Fayetteville, Arkansas, CEI Engineering Associates, Inc. of Bentonville, Walter P Moore of Houston, Sasaki of Watertown, Massachusetts, and the Los Angeles branch of landscape architecture firm SWA Group. The team will focus their abilities towards amenity buildings, low-cost engineering and material sourcing, a downtown extension, and wildlife preservation. 

Aerial rendering of a sprawling campus
An aerial rendering of the new 350-acre Walmart campus. (Courtesy Walmart Inc.)

Douglas C. Gensler, Gensler’s managing director and principal, issued the following comment for Walmart’s website: “We are honored and humbled to be the creative partner helping shape Walmart’s future campus. The design is innovative, resilient, thoughtful and purpose-driven that places people at the heart of the company’s next chapter. The new Walmart campus will embody the DNA attributes for a connected and successful work-place with the latest advances in technology and sustainability, while reflecting the Walmart culture and seamlessly integrating into the fabric of the community.”

The new headquarters will span 20 buildings, with the “Razorback Regional Greenway” running through the center of the campus, harmonizing biking and walking trails that encourage internal mobility. The offices are expected to hold 14,000- to- 17,000 employees, and will join expanded cafeteria spaces, fitness spaces, a childcare facility, and accessible parking. The renderings, released in May, display office buildings boasting large windows with an abundance of natural light and open green spaces seeded with native vegetation that bolster the sustainable design. 

Gensler has noted that the buildings will feature energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems under the goal of creating a zero-waste environment that operates completely on renewable energy. 

The new Walmart Arkansas headquarters will be another corporate campus that Gensler can add to their extensive resume; it joins Facebook’s one-million-square-foot headquarters in Menlo Park, California, the Washington Post Offices in Washington D.C., and the renovation of the Adobe campus in San Jose, California.

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