UWV

Utrecht, The Netherlands
1997 - 2001

The regional headquarters building for Relan, a Dutch pension fund and insurance company is one of several buildings planned for The Kennedy Business Center. It stands on top of an 800 car public garage designed by the project supervisor of the complex. As the first of five linear office bars, it anchors the most public corner and Boulevard street frontage of the entire site. A diagonal pedestrian path bisects the area connecting the train station and bus depot and the Technical University.

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 landscape of raised-halves, paved in steel plates and wood planks is locally deliberately sliced open to reveal access stairs to the garage and provide daylight and dramatic nighttime illumination. Surfaces cuts in front of the building admit light to the garage but more importantly induce the building to float on the ground plan tethered to the landscape by access bridges.

Although the original urban plan restricted building heights to 75 feet, after much discussion, it was agreed to incorporate a vertical tower as a transparent center. Here the building is sliced open at the middle to reveal the elevators and create transparency through its mass. In other words, the tower reinterprets the urban diagonal by dividing the horizontal structure and sweeping the facades outwardly in opposite directions. As a means of orienting occupants to the city, the vertical atrium is transparent through its entire depth, including the elevator core. In keeping with the smooth industrial materials intended for the site, the building is clad in custom color coated aluminum panels.