Details are important to the facade image. Business card of Galapagos

Anyone who sees the imposing The New Galapagos cannot fail to notice how the facades with their slender profiles, large glass sections and aluminum canopies define the streetscape. Wijnveen aluminum construction and Vandaglas are largely responsible for this.

"We are regular partners of both De Vries & Verburg and Vandaglas," says Pieter-Bas Bovee of Wijnveen aluminum construction. "We can find each other in good and bad times and work closely together. Planning was the biggest challenge in this project, because the building had to be wind and watertight in 13 weeks. In addition, because of the large canopies, it was not easy to keep the profiles slim. We developed these together with our aluminum system supplier Schüco. Good cooperation between contractors, subcontractors and suppliers was essential in this project." Wijnveen was responsible for the entire aluminum facade, including the attachment points for the canopies.

Rene Goossen of Vandaglas Project: "With 8,000 m2 of glass, this is one of our larger projects." Vandaglas was involved in The New Galapagos at an early stage. "The choice of glass is very important here, because of the large surface area and the required solar control coating." On this project, there were two options: a Cool-Lite SKN 154 coating from Saint-Gobain or a Guardian SNX60. "As an independent glass expert and partner, we represent several coating brands within our product portfolio. For this project, we created a mock-up to scale of the facade to compare the coatings from two different suppliers." According to Goossen, the final choice was aesthetic: "The properties of the products are almost the same, but they have a slightly different shade. This makes a big difference on this surface. The search was on for the coating that best colored with the profiles and blinds. In the end, this turned out to be Guardian's coating."

Once the choice was made, other challenges presented themselves. "The windows are 57 mm thick, which makes dimensional stability very important. We also had to fine-tune the planning. Fortunately, this went very smoothly," says Goossen. "The Vandaglas factory in Radeburg, Germany, can switch quickly, and in Arnhem our top people at Vandaglas Projects know how to guide customers successfully." Vandaglas is no less proud of the glass balustrades within the building. In cooperation with steel builder Stalent, Vandaglas Zuidwest in Ridderkerk was able to supply these balustrades. "420 m2 constructed in 1010.4 Protect/SafePerform toughened, laminated safety glass, with curved sections. We are extremely happy with the trust that Wijnveen aluminum construction and Stalent have given us!"