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Anyone driving to The Hague on the A12 and A13 can’t miss it: the impressive silver-colored tower of the One MilkyWay housing project. Designed by OZ, this building complex in The Hague’s Binckhorst neighborhood will house 253 rental and for-sale units, as well as approximately 3,650 square meters of office, hospitality, and healthcare space. The project consists of three sections: a residential tower approximately 75 meters high, a low-rise section made of Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT), and a parking garage of about 1,500 square meters with a green facade and a public rooftop garden. While the residential tower is clad with silver-colored aluminum composite facade panels, the low-rise section is finished with panels in a dark bronze hue.
In the Binckhorst, once dominated by industry, impressive buildings are rising, embodying a modern and sustainable vision. One of the highlights of this development is One MilkyWay, for which Aldowa, commissioned by contractor Waal Bouw, engineered, manufactured, and installed approximately 6,500 m² of aluminum composite facade panels. “The upper structure features flat, silver-colored panels with joints, creating a high-quality and extremely smooth facade,” explains Martien Trouborst, project manager at Aldowa. “It’s as if a giant mirror is rising up, playing with the sun. This creates a beautiful play of shadows at any time of day. Finishing the undersides of the balconies with the same panels adds even more character to the whole structure.” The lower structure also features flat panels, he explains, combined with profiled cladding at the corners and between the windows. “The block profile provides a pleasant contrast here and adds an exciting finishing touch.”
The main challenge in this project was its scale, says Trouborst. “But also the height of the building. While assembling the residential tower, we followed the raising and lowering of the scaffolding. As the scaffolding rose, we installed all the horizontal facade cladding—such as the cladding along the floor edges and between the windows, doors, and facades—while the vertical sections were installed as the scaffolding was lowered. This ensured a rapid installation cycle.”
The balconies of the high-rise building were clad on a ground-floor scaffold, after which they were hoisted in one piece—including the balcony cladding and railings—into their correct positions on the building, Trouborst explains. “This is a unique feature, which also applies to the detailing.” As an example, he cites the connections to the balconies, which were installed afterward. But also the connection to the CLT substructure of the low-rise building, which imposed different requirements on aspects such as water management. “To prevent errors during construction, we modeled the entire facade system in 3D/BIM and shared it with Waal Bouw, which performed the clash detection checks.”
Special lines, exceptional architecture and high-profile facades: whatever dream clients in architecture, construction and infra have: Aldowa makes the wildest ideas come true. "No job is too big and no idea too complex," Trouborst emphasizes. "We are constantly pushing the boundaries of technology, material and architecture. Moreover, we find a suitable solution for every assembly challenge. One MilkyWay is a great calling card for this."
Just before the summer of 2025, the final aluminum composite facade panels were installed, after which Ballast Nedam built the parking garage in the inner courtyard. At the same time, the stairwell for the residential tower was constructed and clad by Aldowa with aluminum composite facade panels in a dark bronze shade.
