Mercedes-Benz | Facades with class

An undisputed eye-catcher. That is how the Flagshipstore of Mercedes-Benz in The Hague may well be called. With its transparent facades, black accents and beautiful display window along the A4, this renewed head office shows itself to be of exceptional class. The aluminum canopy surrounding the building literally gives the whole thing a silver lining.

"This project is right up our alley," says project manager Richard Sliep of Aldowa. "As an experienced façade specialist in metal cladding, we are often asked for the realization of complex façade designs. Anything an architect comes up with, we can make. For this work, too, we engineered and manufactured custom facade parts in a variety of shapes and sizes." Most of the work consists of an aluminum canopy in a silver metallic color, totaling some 850 m². Aldowa is also realizing about 180 linear meters of aluminum frames around the glass of the shop window and about 260 m² of black metallic aluminum cassette panels distributed over the facades around the building. 

Makeable facade solution
Aldowa started engineering the facade parts at the beginning of 2018, but was involved in the project earlier. "We were already thinking along in the preliminary phase to translate the architect's sketches into a feasible facade solution," Aldowa engineer Paul Verhoeff explains. "Among other things, we had to take into account the lines of the canopy. It had to match the edges of the glass underneath. The color scheme also listened very closely. The intended silver color for the canopy and the black for the cassette panels were based on the Mercedes car paint colors. We spent a lot of time and energy trying to approximate those colors."

Traditional and prefabricated
Sander Trentelman, also an engineer at Aldowa, adds, "The contractor wanted to keep the construction time of the canopy at the construction site as short as possible. We offered the option of prefabricating ready-made elements at our production site, which could be assembled directly at the construction site. As a second option, we offered to build the canopy traditionally on site. The contractor opted for a combination of the two. We had to deliver the awning for the storefront quickly. We built it on site. For the showroom canopy, we realize prefabricated elements for faster assembly."

Production and assembly
Aldowa manufactures and assembles about 350 canopy elements in about twelve variants. The elements are 1.58 meters deep and have a maximum width of 1.20 meters. In addition, there are some round and triangular elements. "We make the elements entirely in-house," says Sliep. In the production department, he shows how the aluminum sheets are cut to size and set according to drawings. The round parts are rolled separately and welded together. Sliep: "Finally, we assemble the parts into ready-made elements. On site, all we have to do is mount them to the main steel via the rear construction." Trentelman adds: "The steel fabricator places outriggers on the facade. Over these, we place the omega profiles of the elements. These fall exactly on the center-to-center dimension of the outriggers." 

Pace yourself
"Because we were involved so early in the project, we were able to coordinate our products well with those of the steel fabricator and the other parties," Sliep said. "This allows us to pace ourselves in execution. We started in September last year and are now as good as finished. Both in production and assembly, we are doing the final work."