Building Type Basics for Banks and Financial Institutions

Book excerpt: Essential information for the design of banks and financial institutions Building Type Basics for Banks and Financial Institutions is your one-stop reference for the essential information you need to confidently begin the design process and successfully complete the design for a bank or financial institution, large or small, on time and within budget. A renowned architect in the field shares his firsthand knowledge in order to guide architects, planners, engineers, and their clients through all aspects of the design of banking facilities. This comprehensive guide features a number of recently constructed and renovated banks—from small neighborhood branches to large headquarters. It highlights design issues as well as planning and zoning, office space versus customer space, and overall security. Building Type Basics for Banks and Financial Institutions begins with a basic overview of the history of banking and financial institutions, then explores the classic designs of the past along with the important considerations involved in building modern banks, including drive-up lanes, ATM facilities, and high-tech teller stations. This quick reference: Addresses key questions that arise when launching a banking facility design project Offers insight from an architect with more than forty years of experience in the design of more than one hundred banks Provides the best contemporary examples complete with photographs, diagrams, floor plans, sections, and details Not only does this book offer current, authoritative information, its comprehensive coverage and logical organization also save you countless hours of research. Building Type Basics books provide architects with the essentials needed to jump-start specialized facilities design. Each volume features leading experts in the field who address the issues that shape the early phases of a project in a convenient, easy-to-use format. HOMER L. WILLIAMS, D.ARCH, FAIA, is principal of Williams Spurgeon Kuhl & Freshnock Architects (WSKF) in North Kansas City, Missouri. He has more than four decades of experience in the design of more than one hundred bank and financial service projects. He is a past president of the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB), and received his doctorate in architecture at the University of Hawaii.