Interpolis Regional Office Zoetermeer, The Netherlands 2001 - 2005

The Interpolis regional office building is designed to accommodate unusual office requirements within an unusual zoning restriction. The site is in an office park area of Zoetermeer and has no density or context outside of the office buildings that have been recently constructed. To upgrade the urban quality of the area, the planners envisioned a sweeping access roadway to the west of Moeder Theresasingel to link different office buildings and they have proposed building envelopes carefully scaled to the individual sites. In the case of the building, the zoning envelope describes a rectilinear volume that is bisected diagonally and has the effect of imparting two directions to the proposed construction. Initially, Relan chose to develop the site next to its own expansion to an existing building located on a neighboring site to the north. Instead, the future tenant, Interpolis is well known for its innovative, paperless working environment and therefore the design responds not only to the site but also to the program. On either side of the access path, the land artificially has been raised up to opposing corners creating a one-story difference in height that is used to accommodate parking below the buildings. In response, the double height entrance floor of the 80,000 sq ft building gently slopes with it. Enclosed in full-height structural glazing to a height of 23 feet, with the interior spaces such as lobby and restaurant identifiable from the outside, it creates the impression of an open level, an extension of the landscape. The elevators, connecting stairway and fire escape stairs are enclosed in transparent glass to encourage their visibility and use. Moreover the red color applied to the inside face on the walls of the circulation cores accentuates their presence and orientation outward toward the city. Slanting concrete columns that descend below grade support the building and reconcile different structural grids of the garage below and the offices above. The Interpolis office building is designed to create an urban place in a suburban setting and accommodate flexible use office spaces. To stand out among the solid brick and stone neighbors, the building is configured to resemble a display case. In other words it is a glass box that seems to float within a superstructure. The long smooth angular wall is a prominent structure that is set at a counterpoint to the geometry of the glass enclosed main floors. Moreover the sweeping entry plaza that slopes gradually over the 2800m2 parking below creates a foreground an urban experience otherwise missing in the area. What is more common, a building standing in a sea of parking, is avoided at the same time that a public entry on an urban scale is created. Finally the large cantilevers, open corners and 2/3-glass façade, and 1/3 shadow box of the main volume with its flexible layout accommodate the need for unusual office layouts. The building will start construction in 2003 and will be a 6-floor office building with a facade of maximum transparency, clear glass from floor to ceiling. Besides utilizing a computer floor, the design incorporates many sustainable environmental features such as climate ceilings, geothermal storage, high frequency space lighting and task lighting at workspaces. More importantly, it has a 5,500 square meter office area that features open cores, open stairs and flexible instead of fixed places. The typical office floor will have first come first serve accommodations therefore; there are no provisions for stationary telephones or central mailboxes. Instead the office floors will accommodate open workspaces, study cells, meeting rooms, lounge-like settings and communal tables. In this way, Interpolis, which will lease the building, aspires to promote its way of working focused on the ideal of the paperless office.