Designed With Intention: Inside Phase 1 of the Airsys Global Headquarters Campus

Every building tells a story about the people inside it. For Airsys, the first phase of its new global headquarters campus in Woodruff, South Carolina, tells the story of a company that has grown from a production-focused operation into a global leader in mission-critical thermal management.

The campus opened in May on more than 60 acres, and its first phase brings together a 245,000-square-foot production facility and a 20,000-square-foot corporate office, for 265,000 square feet in all. Airsys partnered with Choate Construction to design and build that first phase, and from the start, the goal was a space that reflects who Airsys is and where it’s headed.

Watch the full video to hear from Yunshui Chen and the Choate team, and see the campus for yourself.

From production first to a true headquarters

For much of its history, Airsys’ investments centered on the floor where its products come together. As the company expanded its customer base and global footprint, it needed a home that could bring its people, partners and customers together in one place.

“At the very beginning we prioritized production, of course. But as our business evolved, we think, ‘OK the headquarters now is quite essential for us,’” said Yunshui Chen, founder and CEO of Airsys.

That shift shaped the campus. Rather than treating the office as an add-on to the production space, Airsys and Choate approached the corporate building as a statement of identity: a place where engineering, sales and leadership teams work side by side with the R&D and production teams that design and build Airsys solutions.

Building with Choate Construction

Choate brought its design-build experience to a project that had to balance industrial function with a workplace that feels distinctly Airsys.

“The balancing act that we had as a design-builder was to balance the economics of the cost of construction with the aesthetic that they were looking for on the interior finishes,” said Chris Whitley, senior project manager at Choate Construction. “The binary code … was very important to Airsys, so from a design perspective it was really important: ‘How do we implement this in a tasteful way that’s subtle, but also plays along with that theme of higher technology and AI usage within the client’s facilities?’”

Details with meaning

Mindful, intentional design runs throughout the campus. Its aesthetic choices were made to say something about Airsys: the industry it serves, how fast that industry moves and the kind of place it wants to be for its people.

Binary code designs run across the floors of the corporate office and the exterior walls of the production facility. The pattern reflects the pace of the AI and data center industry, where digital infrastructure is being planned, built and scaled faster than ever. Whether employees are heading into a meeting or visitors are pulling into the parking lot, the code is a constant reminder of the data centers, AI and high-performance computing that Airsys helps keep running.

The campus is also designed to be a welcoming place to work. A koi pond gives employees and visitors a calm spot to pause, connect and recharge, part of a broader effort to build an employee culture as intentional as the buildings themselves.

The campus also puts Airsys technology to work. Airsys products provide cooling throughout the campus, so the teams who design and build Airsys solutions work every day in spaces cooled by them. The result is a headquarters that doubles as a working showcase of the company’s own solutions.

Looking ahead

This first phase is just the beginning. The Woodruff campus, which spans more than 60 acres, is planned as a multi-phase development, and each new stage will build on the same principle that guided the first: design with intention, and let the space reflect the work happening inside it.

For Choate, the project’s impact reaches beyond the buildings themselves.

“I think the thing that gets me out of bed is the people that work here,” said Andrew Larache, project executive at Choate Construction. “Knowing that there’s future expansions planned here that will feed many families in the future is something that I’m extremely proud of.”