This is office and house design called Rijkswaterstaat located in Middelburg, Netherlands was designed by Paul de Ruiter. Project this building is 2000-2003 and constructed on 2003-2004.

This building is crisis centre, state archives and a 100% guaranteed computer centre which, in case of emergency, can direct all the sluice gates of the province of Zeeland, including the Delta works. Use is made of sustainable building processes, natural materials and energy-saving technology. The available natural resources of water, sun and earth are harnessed to the maximum in and around the office.

The design of the RWS office building fulfils an important communicative role, both internally and externally. The building expresses that Rijkswaterstaat is not an inaccessible and technocratic institution where decisions are taken behind closed doors, but that it is an easily accessible, low-threshold organisation with a clear and open structure. Communication is also stimulated among the employees in the building itself. Glass partitions between corridors and office spaces together with flexible workstations, wide corridors with sitting areas, coffee corners, meeting spots provide many opportunities for contact and exchange.

The design is strongly geared to the needs of the people who work in the building. For example, it is situated as far as possible from the noisy and busy road. And it makes the most of the location being both surrounded by nature and close to the old city centre of Middelburg by creating high-quality workplaces all with fabulous views. Heating, cooling, ventilation, acoustics and sun blinds are designed in such a way that they contribute to the comfort and health of the people working in the building. The integration of ‘active concrete’ into the design means that lowered ceilings are not needed so that the office spaces have a pleasant height of three meters. Because of the reverberation the high walls can cause they are cladded with especially developed sound absorbing plates.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 8:27 am and is filed under Architecture Design. Tags: artificial lighting, crisis centre building, energy-saving technology, flexible construction, high-quality workplaces, low energy building, natural materials building, Paul de Ruiter, Rijkswaterstaat Houses Offices, RWS office building, sustainable building processes, technocratic institution, The Netherlands, Zeeland Netherlands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.