The world headquarters of this Fortune 500 manufacturer of specialized filters is located in a 1950s former Helena Rubenstein cosmetics factory. The corporation has more or less continuously modified its home office building as it has devised new products. The East Hills building contains not only corporate offices, but some sales and marketing staff. And it is here that Pall develops new products and the machinery for their manufacture before moving production to factories around the world.

Planning studies by Centerbrook and Pall Corporation resulted in the relocation of Pall's technical center to a renovated building in Port Washington, New York, and the redesign of the East Hills building. Pall needed a very flexible layout to handle reorganizations and reconfigurations upon short notice, and the building had an unnecessarily complicated mixture of mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems as well as an inefficient floor plan with many windowless interior offices. The architects' changes included a new mechanical system, a huge deionization water system, and two new stair towers so that second and third floor warehouse space could be converted into office space. The new offices are mostly open plan with windows facing east and west.

The exterior skin of the new addition is brick with translucent panels that help to illuminate the manufacturing spaces within. Interior details such as stair railings and lighting fixtures were fabricated from stainless steel and perforated metal, symbolic of the filters made by Pall.

Photography © Jeff Goldberg/Esto