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Pension Fund AZL Headquarters
Pension Fund AZL Headquarters
92, Akerstraat, Heerlen, Netherlands
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Pension Fund AZL Headquarters
92, Akerstraat, Heerlen, Netherlands
The AZL Pension fund headquarters is an extension
to an existing office building dating from the 1940s in the central area of
Heerlen. This a project that investigates new conditions for working spaces,
paying particular attention to visual relationships and to communal areas, in a
design that manages to combine a sophisticated spatial articulation with a
stark and restrained material definition that relies mostly on concrete, black
steel, and black Birchwood.
The site of the new building connects two
different streets and it therefore has two different means of access. The
program includes office space for 230 people, 23 private offices and a variety
of open-plan and team office spaces, conference rooms, a restaurant, a car park
and other areas related to the firm’s work. The conceptual theme that governed
the project’s development was the idea of “grafting” or “plugging”, the latter
being a key component of the firm’s activities, which become the direct
conceptual route into the project’s complex brief and site conditions. In
effect, the new building components are literally plugged into the existing
situation. The perpendicular extensions are attached to the rear side of the
buildings and are inserted (plugged) into the existing units. Conversely, the
traffic pattern is a reversal of the concept. The traffic is “unplugged” (from
the street) and moves underground to be further hidden.
The major parts of the new facilities are housed
in the elongated volume, made up of thin slab volumes clad in concrete and
stainless steel. These slide upon each other and float above a large lineal
space carved into the ground. The floating effect provides a perception of weightlessness,
of defying gravity, and at the same time is an effective energy-saving double
membrane. The hewn ground extends into the space left between the existing
buildings, plugging the present condition into the newly created one. The
carved volumes operate as a geometry-adjusting device, accommodating the entire
complex to the subtle misalignment of the streets that define the AZL site.
to an existing office building dating from the 1940s in the central area of
Heerlen. This a project that investigates new conditions for working spaces,
paying particular attention to visual relationships and to communal areas, in a
design that manages to combine a sophisticated spatial articulation with a
stark and restrained material definition that relies mostly on concrete, black
steel, and black Birchwood.
The site of the new building connects two
different streets and it therefore has two different means of access. The
program includes office space for 230 people, 23 private offices and a variety
of open-plan and team office spaces, conference rooms, a restaurant, a car park
and other areas related to the firm’s work. The conceptual theme that governed
the project’s development was the idea of “grafting” or “plugging”, the latter
being a key component of the firm’s activities, which become the direct
conceptual route into the project’s complex brief and site conditions. In
effect, the new building components are literally plugged into the existing
situation. The perpendicular extensions are attached to the rear side of the
buildings and are inserted (plugged) into the existing units. Conversely, the
traffic pattern is a reversal of the concept. The traffic is “unplugged” (from
the street) and moves underground to be further hidden.
The major parts of the new facilities are housed
in the elongated volume, made up of thin slab volumes clad in concrete and
stainless steel. These slide upon each other and float above a large lineal
space carved into the ground. The floating effect provides a perception of weightlessness,
of defying gravity, and at the same time is an effective energy-saving double
membrane. The hewn ground extends into the space left between the existing
buildings, plugging the present condition into the newly created one. The
carved volumes operate as a geometry-adjusting device, accommodating the entire
complex to the subtle misalignment of the streets that define the AZL site.
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