UNStudio's office building

The Dutch studio, with consortium DUO², realizes a sustainable large office building for two governmental offices.

Stitching Wood: Lissoni’s Latest Creation

Part of Listone Giordano’s Natural Genius collection, Nui is a series inspired by an ancient Japanese technique.

Sponsored content

A new, 92-metre-tall complex of soft, undulating curves now marks the skyline of Groningen. This asymmetric, aerodynamic construction is set amidst small, ancient woodland, sheltering rare and protected species. The project includes the design, construction and financing of two public institutions; the national tax offices and the student loan administration. The commission from the RGD (National Buildings Service) includes, besides the architecture, the management and building maintenance and care of facilities and services for a period of 20 years. Accommodating 2,500 workstations, parking facilities for 1,500 bicycles and 675 cars in an underground garage, the building will be surrounded by a large public city garden with pond and a multifunctional pavilion with commercial functions.

The architecture aims to present these institutions with a softer, more human and approachable profile. Tall buildings are generally associated with mid-twentieth century modernism. Their harsh, businesslike exteriors contain powerful, inaccessible-seeming strongholds. By contrast, the DUO and Tax offices deliberately cloak a commanding public institution in an organic, friendlier and more future-oriented form.

"We paid a great deal of attention to how people would move through the building," says principal Ben van Berkel. "The office spaces are designed in such a way that they do not create simple linear corridors leading to dead ends, but instead each corridor has a route which introduces a kind of landscape into the building. You can take endless walks through the building, where there is a great deal of transparency, also towards the surrounding landscape."

The governmental office complex is built as part of a far-reaching form of public-private partnership (DBFMO) that is designed to effectuate on a more efficient use of public funds. The design, construction, financing, managing and maintenance of the building was hosted by one consortium consisting of Strukton, Ballast Nedam and John Laing. This consortium won the competition for the project on the basis of a combination of esthetic, technical and financial criteria. UNStudio, as the architect of the project, collaborated with Lodewijk Baljon for the landscape design, Arup for the engineering and Studio Linse as the interior advisor.

The life-cycle approach of a DBFMO contract requires that all relevant experts (designers, lawyers, installation specialists, financial specialists, facility specialists) are involved from the start of the project in order to find the best, most cost effective and environmentally-friendly solutions for the continued use and maintenance of the building. This working methodology stimulates not only creative and innovative ideas, but facilitates a reduction of total costs over the entire contract period compared to the traditional means of contracting. In PPP projects contracts are not awarded to the lowest bidder, but to the party with most effective solutions providing the best value for money.

"The design contains numerous new innovations related to the reduction of materials, lower energy costs and more sustainable working environments. It presents a fully integrated, intelligent design approach towards sustainability," says van Berkel.

The project is one of Europe's most sustainable large new office buildings. The RGD brief prescribed a future-proof building that couples flexibility and sustainability with an esthetic of sobriety. The architectural response to this has been to strive for an all-round understanding of the concept of sustainability, including energy and material consumption, as well as social and environmental factors. Thus the sustainability manifests itself in reduced energy consumption (EPC 0.74), as well as significantly reduced material consumption. Bringing back the floor heights from 3.60 m to 3,30 m resulted in a total reduction of 7.5 m on the entire building, which also lessens the impact of the building on the surroundings. Both inside and outside the architecture generates a bio-climate that is beneficial to both humans and the local flora and fauna.

Education Executive Agency & Tax offices, Groningen
Construction: 2006–2011
Client: Dutch Government Buildings Agency (RGD)
Client UNStudio: Consortium DUO² (Strukton, Ballast Nedam, John Laing)
Program: Office building (phase A); underground parking (phase B); public city garden, pavilion (phase C)
Building surface: 48.040m² offices, 21.000m² parking, 1.500m² pavilion
Building volume: 215.000m³
Building site: 31.134m²
Credits UNStudio: Ben van Berkel, Caroline Bos, Gerard Loozekoot with Jacques van Wijk, Frans van Vuure, Lars Nixdorff and Jesca de Vries, Ramon van der Heijden, Alicja Mielcarek, Eric den Eerzamen, Wendy van der Knijff, Machiel Wafelbakker, Timothy Mitanidis, Maud van Hees, Pablo Herrera Paskevicius, Martijn Prins, Natalie Balini, Peter Moerland, Arjan van der Bliek, Alexander Hugo, Gary Freedman, Jack Chen, Remco de Hoog, Willi van Mulken, Yuri Werner, Machteld Kors, Leon Bloemendaal, Erwin Horstmanshof
Designteam: UNStudio, architecture and interior; Studio Linse, interior; Arup, structure, installations; Lodewijk Baljon, landscaping; Buro van Baar, wayfinding; YNNO, internal logistics
Consultants: DGMR, acoustics; EFPC, fire prevention; Ingenieursbureau Wassenaar, prefab structure; BTS Bouwkundig Tekenburo Sneek, drawing agency; ISS Nederland B.V, maintenance; Peutz, environmental technology; WUR (Wageningen University & Research centre), ecology; Strukton Bouw en Vastgoed, management and costing; Strukton Betonbouw, construction; Strukton WorkSphere, installations

INQUADRA: DeFAVERI's seamless energy efficiency

INQUADRA is DeFAVERI's flush-mounted monoblock that cancels thermal bridges for maximum energy efficiency and a minimalist design. Easy to install and customize, it marks one of the innovations from a long-established company, now part of the ECLISSE Group.