GREEN OFFICE 2015: INNOVATIVE AREA DEVELOPMENT

Green Office 2015 is an innovative vision of and a concrete plan for the comprehensive activation of inner city areas and their integration with the surrounding districts. Developed as an integrated whole, this unique concept offers solutions for various social issues. It is an ambitious project on which numerous project partners from the building sector, the business world, knowledge institutes and government authorities collaborated from the very start.

‘ Policy Document 2040’, ‘integration problems', 'inner city decay', 'social adhesion', ‘sustainable energy supply’; these are themes that have increasingly dominated both the political agenda and the news in recent years. In many cities, infrastructure, such as railways and roads constitute an unnatural and hitherto almost unbridgeable pit in urban development. An efficient use of sparse inner city space plays a key role in the way these areas are experienced. In addition, facilitating knowledge and information sharing is becoming increasingly more important. More and more, work and private life are coalescing for users of buildings. Solutions must be sought with the help of various disciplines and workable proposals are at a premium. Green Office 2015 is a concrete proposal: an urban planning contribution to the inner city experience and its integration into the surrounding areas; a new kind of area development in which material and immaterial needs are nourished; an energy-generating biotope and a varied landscape arising in the inner city.

Neighborhood link

Green Office 2015 offers numerous opportunities for experiencing inner cities and station areas, and for fostering the integration with surrounding districts. Until now, infrastructure has made use of the available footprint in only one way; Green Office 2015 mixes and stacks functions, thus affording an impressive seven-fold activation of one and the same footprint. Green Office 2015 is built on top of infrastructure and forms a park-like link between various areas. The park comprises the heart and the green lung of urban regeneration. User needs are the central focus of Green Office 2015.

It encompasses a host of facilities relating to work, living and recreation. Restaurants, cafes, sports facilities and daycare are all provided for. Moreover, Green Office 2015 generates more sustainable energy than it consumes, without having to make concessions of any kind with regard to comfort. At the same time, Green Office 2015 is a flexible building that is capable of fulfilling various functions over the years. It is an ingeniously conceived concept and a seamless translation of the policy document ‘Randstad 2040’. Green Office 2015 earns the highest ratings on the Breaam, Greencalc and Leed indices for the sustainability level of buildings and areas. In short, Green Office 2015 is the new quality standard for future area developments, and a concept that can be applied both nationally and internationally.

Innovations

A great many innovative technologies, concepts and materials have been applied in Green Office 2015, which are designed to offer the user ample comfort and to create an energy-generating biotope. For example, the kinetic energy of the users is collected and reused. Sewage water, old paper and refuse are converted into energy and integrated into the energetic circulation of the complex. Energy is generated by, among other things, algae that are converted to biogas, solar cells integrated into the building and small, unobtrusive wind turbines. The flexible workplaces are provided with a fully demand-driven hybrid ventilation system, including an air treatment system using outdoor air to achieve the desired indoor climate at individual workplace level. In addition, sensor technology is applied, allowing office furniture, lighting and software to be adjusted as required.

Starting points

In this way, Green Office 2015 complies with the target ambitions. The focus is on the individual: building and surroundings contribute to the optimum functioning of the user and sustainable technical facilities serve to increase the comfort level of the building’s use. The building and surroundings stimulate cooperation between users. Moreover, Green Office 2015 integrates several user functions. And with its allurement, facilities and technical construction, the building contributes positively to the Netherlands’ sustainable social development. Green Office 2015 enriches the building and installation sector with ideas for sustainable area development. The project fuels the construction industry vertical and educational institutes with valuable lessons on integral design. And finally, the participants devise recommendations for government legislation and regulations with regard to building on and in the vicinity of railway zones and multifunctional area development, in addition to advising on public tenders.

Integral

Throughout the entire process of design and construction, the partners to the Green Office 2015 project collaborate on an integral basis. This implies that the focus is on the demands of the users, which are subsequently translated into building functions. The participants collectively work towards the most valuable area development in combination with the lowest possible (social) costs over the entire life of the project. To this end, all participants take equal part from the very start in the design process, making use of multidimensional building information models (BIM).

For more information, see: www.greenoffice2015.nl.

Reader enquiries

Green Office 2015
Projectbureau Green Office 2015
p/a Imtech Nederland
Postbus 8584
3009 AN Rotterdam

Netherlands

+31 10 44 77 312

www.GreenOffice2015.nl