New building headquarters Booking.com, Amsterdam | 'Spectacular, almost un-Dutch facade'

The international allure of Booking.com's headquarters is due in large part to its spectacular facade. Including floor-to-ceiling windows in different shapes and sizes, the facade design is complex and challenging. Facade specialist Scheldebouw was able to translate this into a custom-made element facade. The first elements will be assembled in the middle of this year.

Scheldebouw is realizing the facade on behalf of Oosterdokseiland Ontwikkeling Amsterdam (OOA), an entity of BPD for the development of the Oosterdokseiland, and was involved in the design at an early stage. Sales manager Paul Latuheru of Scheldebouw says, "We helped think of a facade solution that meets the aesthetic image of the architect, but also the thermal and building physics requirements. Acoustics are particularly important, due to its location near the railroad tracks." Scheldebouw also provides the glass roof structures for the atria.

Rippling in the water
"The facade design is striking and challenging," Latuheru continued. "The geometric shape, clean lines and recessed facade sections make the design almost un-Dutch. In the center of the building, along a length of about sixteen meters, the facade slopes slightly inward from both sides. The image this creates is reminiscent of the ripple in the water after you throw a pebble into it." Concept designer Hans Jansen adds, "The facade is composed of a grid of transparent sections. In one of our first concept proposals, we changed the grid size from 1.20 meters width to 2.40 meters width. UNStudio eventually implemented this as well. This brought a little more peace to the facade. At the same time, the variation in horizontal bands, different window heights and triangular panes keep the facade dynamic."

Custom-made prefabricated facade elements
Scheldebouw chose to execute the facade as an element facade. Latuheru explains, "We manufacture the façade elements in our own factories in Middelburg and Heerlen. These elements are 2.40 meters wide and 3.30 meters high. In some cases they are higher, up to 5.50 meters. By prefabricating, we keep the quality of the elements under control and the construction speed high." Jansen adds, "We reduced the complex and varied facade to five basic elements, each with a number of variants. All elements are custom-made. We also developed three project-specific style and control systems." The facade elements with a triangular point pose the biggest challenge. Some of these points are designed as parallel expansion windows, a so-called PAF window.

Visual Mock-up shows all facade types in full size.

Mock-ups
In total, Scheldebouw is realizing about 15,000 square meters of facade. Of this, 10,000 square meters will be prefabricated, which amounts to about 1,200 facade elements. To make sure that the elements meet all wishes and requirements, Scheldebouw makes a number of mock-ups. Latuheru: "First we made a visual mock-up. Based on that, the customer could judge the appearance. In addition, a mock-up was made that was intended to assess the glass. We were looking for a glass structure that met the requirements in terms of light, thermal performance, solar control and acoustics. Thus, the elements were constructed in triple glass and provided with solar control coating. We made a mock-up of these in four variants." In March, Scheldebouw will make the mock-up that will test the wind and water tightness of the facade. This will be followed by another mock-up for testing the acoustic performance.

Lean and inner-city
Both BPD and Booking.com benefit from quick delivery. Planning is therefore an important part of the project. After the structural work, which is quite complex due to the varying shape of the building, the task is to assemble the elements as quickly as possible. "We will soon carry out the construction according to Lean planning," Latuheru says. "We need 55 transports to deliver all the elements to the construction site. We do this just-in-time, so they can be hoisted in almost immediately. Given the inner-city location, with virtually no storage space, this is the only possibility." The facade elements have not yet been assembled. Nevertheless, Scheldebouw has already completed an intensive process. Latuheru: "With BPD, the architect and various consultants, we looked at how we could realize the architectural vision. This has resulted in what is now being built." Jansen concludes, "In doing so, we show that you can indeed implement a complex building in an element façade."